Adventure Safari Serengeti Wilderness adventures

by Andrew
(Arusha, Tanzania)

Wildebeests on the Serengeti plains

Tanzania adventure safari wildebeest migration serengeti.

Seventh Wonder of the Current World-Serengeti National Park, Tanzania -Africa


Serengeti National Park in Tanzania was declared Seventh Wonder of the Current World on November 17th 2006.

Serengeti is bordered to Masai Mara on the Northern side. Masai Mara National Park is located on Kenya side, its size is 1510 sq kms while Serengeti is almost 10 times larger than that. Serengeti National Park is 14763 sq kms.

On the Tanzania side Serengeti National Park is bordered to Ngorongoro Crater.

The Migration of Wildebeests

Tanzania's oldest and most popular national park, the Serengeti is famed for its annual migration, when some six million hooves pound the open plains, as more than 200,000 zebra and 300,000 Thomson's gazelle join the wildebeests trek for fresh grazing.

Yet even when the migration is quiet, the Serengeti offers arguably the most scintillating game-viewing in Africa: great herds of buffalo, smaller groups of elephant and giraffe, and thousands upon thousands of eland, topi, kongoni, impala and Grant’s gazelle.

Predators to be seen

The spectacle of predator versus prey dominates Tanzania’s greatest park. Golden-maned lion prides feast on the abundance of plain grazers.

Solitary leopards haunt the acacia trees lining the Seronera River, while a high density of cheetahs prowl the southeastern plains.

Almost uniquely, all three African jackal species occur here, alongside the spotted hyena and a host of more elusive small predators, ranging from the insectivorous aardwolf to the beautiful serval cat.

Other wildlife

But there is more to Serengeti than large mammals. Gaudy agama lizards and rock hyraxes scuffle around the surfaces of the park’s isolated granite koppies.

A full 100 varieties of dung beetle have been recorded, as have 500-plus bird species, ranging from the outsized ostrich and bizarre secretary bird of the open grassland, to the black eagles that soar effortlessly above the Lobo Hills.

The landscape in the Serengeti

As enduring as the game-viewing is the liberating sense of space that characterises the Serengeti Plains, stretching across sunburnt savannah to a shimmering golden horizon at the end of the earth.

Yet, after the rains, this golden expanse of grass is transformed into an endless green carpet flecked with wildflowers. And there are also wooded hills and towering termite mounds, rivers lined with fig trees and acacia woodland stained orange by dust.

Popular as the Serengeti might be, but it remains so vast that you may be the only human audience when a pride of lions masterminds a siege, focussed unswervingly on its next meal.

The Serengeti Migration

A million wildebeest... each one driven by the same ancient rhythm, fulfilling its instinctive role in the inescapable cycle of life: a frenzied three-week bout of territorial conquests and mating.

Survival of the fittest as 40km (25 mile) long columns plunge through crocodile-infested waters on the annual exodus north; replenishing the species in a brief population explosion that produces more than 8,000 calves daily before the 1,000 km (600 mile) pilgrimage begins again.

Even discounting the migration the Serengeti is superb. But the migration puts the park in a league of its own. It is, quite simply, the greatest wildlife show on Earth.

Two million animals at times, mostly wildebeest and zebras, moving around an ecosystem of 25,000 sq. km. in area, almost as big as the state of Massachusetts. But a lot wilder.

At its most spectacular the Serengeti migration is one of the few experiences that really justify the word “awesome”, but to see it you have to know where and when to go.

And it isn’t as predictable as some people might think, though over a period it does follow a fairly regular pattern.

When and where is the migration taking place?

There is no beginning or end to the migration but we’ll imagine it all starts with the onset of the “rainy season” (don’t be put off by this expression as the “green season”, as it is now often called, is a lovely time of year and usually nowhere near as wet or dismal as it sounds).

The rains tend to begin around mid-November, when the big herds start to file into the south-eastern short-grass plains, around Naabi Hill, Lake Ndutu, the Gol Kopjes, Oldupai Gorge and all other parts of the short-grass plains.

Between late January and mid-March the wildebeest calving season takes place. At its peak about 80% of the pregnant females give birth within three weeks, collectively producing something like 8,000 babies each day. The large predators, of course, are on hand to take advantage of this glut.

Between mid-May and the month’s end, as the plains dry out, the whole menagerie, as if at the wave of a magic wand, streams off in columns which are sometimes 40 km long, heading via the Moru Kopjes for the Western Corridor.

On the way, the wildebeest rut takes place, for a period of about three weeks, from around mid-June to early July.

Dr. Richard Estes, the greatest authority on the Serengeti wildebeest, has described the event as “unbelievably spectacular”. It is certainly chaotic, as something like 250,000 males strive to mate with as many of the 750,000-or-so females as they can.

Crossing the Grumeti River

Between June and August the migrating animals drink from and eventually cross the Grumeti River, but for many it will be their last drink or their last river crossing.

For here in the Grumeti are crocodiles that grow to over five metres in length and weigh more than three-quarters of a tonne. They have jaws so thickset and powerful that they can crush a wildebeest's head like a melon, then tear the body into bloody rags. Usually after yanking the victim into the water.

The great majority of wildebeests survive, to cross the Ikoma Controlled Area outside the park then pass through the Serengeti’s Northern Extension, crossing the next challenging river, the Mara, in July or August.

Most but not all of the wildebeest and zebras also cross the Kenyan border a little way beyond, to remain in the Maasai Mara Reserve until about mid-October, when they begin the return journey.

This takes them down the eastern boundary of the Northern Extension, in and out of the park, and eventually back to the short-grass plains. The 1000 km. trek – for those which make it - is complete.

For more information, planning and booking a safari to Tanzania, consult Kilimanjaro Tanzanite Safaris Ltd.

Exclusive African safaris will comprise visits to Tanzania Tourist destinations like Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara, Tarangire and Kilimanjaro.