Wildebeest Migration – Mara River Crossing

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With trepidation, the first few wildebeest dip their toes and snouts into the unknown tea-coloured waters of the Mara River. The growing number of their kind that follow close behind either increase their courage, or startle them into a swift retreat back up the bank from the mud and water to dust and grass…and relative safety.

They continue to wait and search for the courage for the crossing that they know they have to make, as more of them arrive, bustling for position and kicking up the dry dust of the bank into the hot, east African air.

Eventually, a solitary beast, out of fear, necessity, or a new found bravery, makes the move. A sudden jump into flowing river and then further jumps through the water. These bounding movements through the river make you unsure whether their feet can actually touch river bed; however their awkward looking progress through the river has been successful long before man began to document it.

With one last bound the lone wildebeest pioneer reaches the other side of the Mara River and scurries up the bank. Its move, having paid off, triggers the previously wavering progress of the thousands that have gathered behind.

The masses make their move now, splashing into the river, one after another, enduring the necessary evil that they must navigate every season. The initial leap and continuing bounds to the other side, dust and water being kicked up as they go. A bigger danger to themselves it would appear, than the many crocodiles that lie in wait for them in the shallows.

The wildlife documenters, photographers and cameramen bustling for position, with each other on the bank, for the perfect piece of footage or photograph ironically not realising their similarity to the nature they document.

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