Good Morning Alpha Team. The Calvary is up and moving at 0530 this morning. (Hopefully this reference makes a bit more sense with context later in the post). Today, we are heading to Serengeti National Park which is a bit northwest of our research camp. I am very excited for the day, since this will be our final chance for safari game drives.
Before getting to the gates of the Serengeti, we had a long drive ahead of us (~2 hours). This long drive, however, gave us a great chance to practice our spotting and communication skills with our walkie talkies (hence the walkie talkie talk at the start). Since our group was split between two separate cars, we had walkie talkies to help communicate any animal sightings between the vehicles. Kamden was riding shotgun for this trip and was in charge of our unit’s walkie (pictured).
Serengeti Savannas
Before mentioning the amazing sights of the Serengeti, I have to give a shout-out to the Serengeti gift shop which had a Tanzanian National Team Soccer Jersey that I will cherish forever for just $12. The shop also supplied me with peanut M&Ms which fueled the rest of the day (and the writing of this blog).
Best $12 Purchase Ever (Tanzanian Soccer Jersey)
Back to the Serengeti, we saw a lot of unique animals and animal behaviors in specific. For example, early on in the day, we saw the mating ritual and courtship dances of two ostriches. On the other end of the circle of life, later that day, we saw a pride of lions feasting on a recently killed Cape buffalo around 20 feet from our vehicle.
One animal I was personally excited to see were mongeese since they are in my assigned taxa. Specifically, we saw the Banded Mongoose (pictured). They are a gregarious species that live in underground dens, so it was lucky that we spotted a group roaming around above their shelter. I was also super excited since I was the one who was able to first spot them, so it felt like my research before the class paid off!
Banded Mongoose On the Move
Also, later that day as we drove back to camp, we spotted another warthog. This time, however, we spotted a solitary male (pictured) instead of the sounders (groups) of warthogs that we had seen in past days.
Solitary Male Warthog
Unfortunately, today, there was still no sign of any rhinos. This was somewhat expected, however, since they are quite rare due to their endangered status. Tomorrow, we are starting on the archaeology and anthropology half of the course, so I am very excited to gain more experience out in the field!
-Milton
