Singita Grumeti Sasakwa & Faru Faru Lodges Serengeti House & Sabora Tented Camp Explore Mobile Tented Camp Tanzania Wildlife Report For the month of August, Two Thousand and Fourteen Temperature and Wind Rainfall Recorded Average maximum 32 C Sasakwa 92.7 Average minimum 15.1 C Sabora 62.0 Average wind speed 0.5 m/s Faru Faru 6.0 Samaki 62.0 Risiriba 105.0 Photo by Braya Masunga August has some pretty big shoes to fill. This was the statement we made in our July Wildlife Report. It seemed like most of the 350 000 zebra migration that follow the 1.5 million wildebeest were on Singita Grumeti s 350 000 acre property during July. They mingled with the large multitudes of other general game and made the savannahs a beautiful site to behold. Although we have plenty of resident zebra we were sure that after a month the travelling masses would move on in early August. We were wrong. And we couldn t be happier about how wrong we were! Large herds of zebra continued to stay here for the entire month of August, adding to the already spectacular landscape.
(Photo by Ryan Schmitt) (Photo by Ryan Schmitt)
Cheetah feasts Photo by Braya Masunga We witnessed quite a few cheetah kills taking place in August. The main players were our resident coalition of two males and some solitary females. The star of the show, though, was the mother cheetah that we have been seeing on the property for the past six weeks with her four-month-old cub, who killed a Thompson s gazelle and a reedbuck lamb in a matter of a few hours! Photo by Ryan Schmitt
Photo by Braya Masunga Leopard kill Even more exciting than all the cheetah action, guide Jimmy Ikamba and his guests were able to witness an event for only the second time (that we know of) in Singita Grumeti s history. One evening at the end of the month, a sighting of the Raho male leopard was reported west of Sabora. Jimmy voiced his interest over the radio, and he was soon able to visit the sighting. Dusk was turning into night and the other two vehicles at the sighting soon pulled off to head back to camp, but Jimmy and his guests wanted to stay and view the leopard for just a little while longer. This turned out to be the best decision they had ever made. Not long after the other stations had Photo by Braya Masunga left the sighting they noticed the leopard suddenly alert and focused on something. Jimmy turned to the direction in which the leopard was looking and saw a Thomson s gazelle not too far away. The leopard slowly stalked towards it in the grass and after about a half hour of stealthy, skilful stalking, the big male was extremely close to the unsuspecting gazelle. He sprung his attack and quickly killed the antelope. Jimmy and guests were left giddy and in awe of the phenomenal sighting they had just experienced.
The lead beasts arrive At the end of August migratory animals surprised us again. While doing their count from the helicopter our Grumeti Fund section managers saw about 100 000 wildebeest filtering through the Ikorongo Game Reserve, on the eastern part of the Singita Grumeti concession, and moving west towards our lodges and camps. In typical 2014 fashion, the wildebeest were once again off schedule, (very rude of them!), as they usually don t start arriving until around late September or early October. Photo by Ryan Schmitt Within the next couple of days about 200 000 wildebeests moved in. From Ikorongo they came west, first past our Lion Rocks and Maji Explore Mobile Tented Camps, then onto the Sasakwa Plains, and then finally onto the Sabora Plains, still moving west. Reports from the Lamai Triangle, the location of Singita s Mara River Tented Camp, as well as the Massai Mara in Kenya indicated that many wildebeest were still present in those areas, so those arriving at Singita Grumeti were some of the first of the big herds making their way back south. Although, to say they will move south is fairly incorrect. As mentioned above, they did arrive fairly early, and depending on the rains, the animals will very likely loop around various areas multiple times before they start trekking en-masse due south, eventually getting to the short grass plains of Ndutu in the southern Serengeti where they are always 'expected' around mid-december. For instance, as also mentioned above, the herds that made their way through our property this month were headed west across our property - not south. Another example is last year, when massive herds of wildebeest moved through 'on time' in October. They covered the plains for a few weeks and then headed on. Then at the beginning of December they showed up again! Massive herds covered the reserves at a time when they 'should have been' more than 60 kilometres south of us. They stayed for about 10 days and eventually moved south. When they left us in October, they didn t go straight south after leaving, but looped around east to west and eventually arrived on our plains again in December. We can t wait to see what sort of wily tricks they'll pull on us for the remainder of this year!
Photo by Ryan Schmitt Lion: Leopard: Cheetah: Elephant: Buffalo: 80 31 55 72 Multiple sightings daily By Lizzie Hamrick Singita Grumeti Serengeti Tanzania Thirty-first of August 2014