Travel Blog: Who Knew Lions Grew on Trees? Jan 30

Wow! We finally got a ‘sleep-in’ day. We’ve been up so early for game drives and travel that leaving at 8:00 almost seems like we’re wasting part of the day. Of course, we were still up to see the sun rise at 6:45, only because the sunrises and sunsets are so beautiful over the grasslands that you just don’t want to miss them!

Here are a few more photos around the hotel grounds. Since you can’t really go anywhere off the property without a vehicle, it’s impossible to get the photo you want – looking back at the hotel from the other side of the elephant pool. So we have to make do with these:

The reflecting pool in front of the hotel

Reception Area

Walkway between buildings

At 8:00 we set out for our extended morning game drive, expecting to be back at the hotel around 1:00 or so. We managed to fill a few more gaps in our list of animal and bird sightings, including these:

Two male Grant's Gazelles fighting for who will be the
king of the harem of females

Warthogs - Mom and the kids

Giraffes - 'cuz there's no such thing as too many giraffes!

Family shot!!

A Topi, a large species of antelope

A big Olive Baboon sitting in a tree

Of all the animals, lions, leopards and hippos seem to be the most popular. And since hippos need a lot of water to keep their skin moist, you go looking for a river, if you can find one. At Serengeti there is one river that is perfect for hippos – wide enough, shallow enough and close to lots of food. The hippo pool was our next destination.

...and this wasn't even ALL of them!

Hippos need to keep their skin moist so they spend most of the day lounging in the water. They can actually submerge completely for over 5 minutes at a time. They come out of the water at night to do most of their feeding, eating the short grasses nearby. In one night they can cover 8-10 km from water to feeding area and back. When baby hippos are born, the mothers separate from the group for about 6 weeks and nurse the baby. There were a mother and baby a little way down the river, separated from both the group and the crocodile who was sunning himself on the opposite bank of the river.

Once we finished at the hippo pool we continue on our route. We were heading for a rest stop at the Serengeti Visitors’ Centre, and on the way we found:

A Flat-Topped Acacia Tree, one of the more prevalent
species on the grasslands

A Dik-Dik, smallest of the antelopes. Full grown they only
weight about 3 kg

This is a dwarf mongoose sitting on a termite mound. The termites in Africa are different than in North America. Instead of eating your house or your deck, they eat grass. They have huge underground nests, the size of which can be judged by the size of the mound. The mound is made up of the excavated soil from the network of corridors and entrances throughout the nest. Termites generally stay underground during the day, but there had been some rain, which brought them out for us to see. (These next shots were taken at Olduvai Gorge where we had a good chance to see the termites in action.)

Termites collecting grass to take back into the nest

Superb Starlings eating termites. When the termites come out
at night, they are food for many species including snakes,
rodents and aardvarks.

We reached the Visitors’ Centre, where along with tourist information, there was a short nature walk that described the ecosystem and animals of the Serengeti.

Self-explanatory

After our half-hour stop, we climbed back into our safari trucks to continue with the second half of the drive. We guess you’re wondering about the title of today’s entry – this is where we made that fantastic discovery. There were a few vehicles off in the distance, so of course, since safari trucks naturally flock around any discovery like moths to a flame, we had to go find out what they were looking at, and found this:

I'm sooooo bored...

But these guys were far too young to be out on their own, so somebody must have been keeping an eye on them. From above, as it turns out!

Not one...

...or two...

...but three lionesses in a tree!

This little guy wanted to get up the tree but slid right back down on his first try. After taking a little rest and watching Mom climb with no problem,

he tried again. And with about a hundred people very quietly cheering him on (you can see in some of these photos just how close we were), he finally made it!

I'm the King of the Serengeti! Right, Mom??

So now you know that in Africa, lions really DO grow in trees!

A Hartebeest seen on the way back to the lodge. Check
another one off our sightings list!

As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, we returned to the hotel to relax a bit in the afternoon. It was just a little too cool to go swimming, and we didn’t want to risk getting head colds like a couple of people had, so we took the time to sit and read (or do blog posts). We got a sudden phone call from John who had spied some elephants not too far away. And guess where they were going?

Babies who can still walk under their mothers are usually
less than a year old and can still feed from Mom.

Klipspringer - another of the very small antelopes. They
look like they're walking 'en pointe' but they jump
as though their feet are spring-loaded.

Yes, they were that close!

Group Shot! Everybody eyes forward!

Yes! We hadn’t seen any elephants yesterday and were hoping that we wouldn’t miss them – or we’d have to complain to Four Seasons about the photos on their web site!! – and we were not disappointed at all. The family group stayed for about a half an hour and then wandered away again.

Most of our tour group tends to get together for a drink before dinner. We have a really nice bunch of people travelling together, some of whom are now following this blog (oh, the pressure!!!) and we are having a great time. Here’s a photo of some of us outside on the patio, and of our final sunset at Serengeti.