Safari guides Dave, Ole Kirimbai and I have just come back from another wonderful safari in the Serengeti with some great folks from western Canada. Although it was the "green season" it hadn't rained for a while so, while a lot of the game was out on the Plains or ...
A few weeks ago I left for Ngorongoro Crater with my family, my sister and her three boys. We spent the morning enjoying the wildlife and scenery in the Crater, and then met up with my sister-in-law and her two boys and continued northwards to another lesser-known caldera on the ...
While driving in the late afternoon from a camp just inside the woodland on the edge of the Serengeti Plains to a fly camp we had set up farther east, we spotted an unusual hyaenid feeding in the grassland. It was an aardwolf (Proteles cristatus), one of the most exciting ...
When I look back on it we saw an astounding amount of wildlife, and had lots of fun.
In the distance, a vulture was landing in the midst of a thicket below a rain tree. Nearby we noticed a lioness with two cubs. She seemed preoccupied and focussed, heading in the direction of the rain tree.
We camped on the edge of a sand river in the centre of Tanzania's largest national park, Ruaha. Upon arrival at the campsite a herd of elephants were feeding on the trees on the far bank of the "river". We lit a campfire on the beach, cooked dinner, and enjoyed ...
Recently my family joined me on safari in Ruaha national park in central Tanzania. I wanted to have a look at one of the few Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) in the country. WMAs are special areas put aside for wildlife protection by local communities with the aim that these communities ...
Gillian and I had been to Uganda before to see the rare mountain gorilla, and this time we decided to travel there to see chimpanzees. Our first chimp track was at Kibale national park near Fort Portal. Here the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) have habituated three chimpanzee communities to the ...
The shoebill (Balaeniceps rex) is a somewhat enigmatic large stork-like bird that is found in swamps between Sudan and Zambia in Africa. While the Ancient Egyptians were familiar with this bird, it was not known to Europeans until the 19th Century. Because it lives in such inaccessible and remote swamps, ...
We were staying in the last camp of our safari, Suyan, situated at this time of year in the far north-east of the Serengeti, just outside the park. This is an area that we are able to go for walks, night drives, and visit the Maasai pastoralists who live here, ...
What is it with wildebeest? They must be one of the most ugly antelope out there, but they are such characters. They have such joie de vivre, such spirit! Yes, they are not very intelligent, but they don't seem to mind. In fact, I am convinced that they see themselves ...
We had just had a wonderful day in Ngorongoro Crater, having seen mating lions, hyenas, golden and black-backed jackals, fantastic birdlife, and stunning numbers of plains game (especially Thomson's gazelle, wildebeest and zebra). I was with an active cheerful group of three families from San Francisco, who had arrived in ...
