So the next morning after a wonderfully restful night and yummy breakfast at Bilila Lodge, we headed out early for a half day on The Serengeti. On route to the 'Hippo Pool' we spotted a tiny little deer called a Dik Dik - cutest thing ever! It was about 50cm tall and had a long nose which was so cute when it wiggled it side to side! Sadly it was on the wrong side of the road for the light early in the morning so the photos aren't great as they're back lit.
We then carried on to the Hippos where you can actually get out of the vehicle, despite Hippos being the most dangerous animals in Africa, and stand at the edge of the pool behind a fence. Stench is not the word to describe their water hole. You can see for yourself what they are wallowing in...
 |
| Hippo Pool |
When we moved on from there, we spotted another group of lots of 4x4s meaning there must be something exciting to see! As it turned out it was a pack of around 12 lions eating a kill but it was waaay over the other side of a ravine and this was the best photo I could get with the zoom lens (we couldn't really make them out without using the telephoto lens)...
 |
| You can see them just to the left of the tree trunks |
We did however find a few lionesses a bit further along on our side of the ravine, lazing in the shade of a few trees...
By far the best part of my day was when we found the zebras drinking in a pool of water. When we drove across the bridge, they all ran away but we stopped by the edge and our guide said they would go back in, which they did. But the best bit was, they repeatedly got spooked by something and then return which gave me a great opportunity to try and get some pattern shots of them all grouped together and some action shots of them running out! Unfortunately they are so quick so my composition isn't the best for the action shots (was zoomed in as well so difficult to judge what's happening) but I am still really pleased with them!
 |
| Zebras all running away as we approached |
 |
| Brave leader heading back in |
 |
| Getting spooked again |
 |
| Lining up perfectly - thank you zebras! |
 |
| Spooked again |
 |
| And again! (Love this one even though the ears are cut off and the nose is cut off on the right!) |
 |
| Patterns |
 |
| B&W Patterns |
 |
| Turns out it was this wee croc that was spooking them but he never attacked |
I could have stayed there all day but we moved on and spotted this family of elephants enjoying a drink...
Further along the road we found the last of our big 5! Our guide had been trying to find us a leopard as Nik had never seen one despite having done a few safaris in Kenya before and it would complete the big 5 for us. Not only did we find one, but two! They were about 100m apart in two trees near the road. Amazing! The 2nd one was more hidden and had they not been pointed out to me I never would have spotted either of them!
 |
| Looking very relaxed! |
After this, we made our way back to the hotel to spend the afternoon relaxing ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment