Singita Grumeti Sasakwa & Faru Faru Lodges Serengeti House & Sabora Tented Camp Explore Mobile Tented Camp

(Photo by Joe Kibwe)

Wildlife Report

For the month of January, Two Thousand and Fourteen

Temperature and Wind Rainfall Recorded Average maximum 33.7 °C Sasakwa 60.6 mm Average minimum 16.2 °C Sabora 36.5 mm Average wind speed 0.3 m/s Faru Faru 51 mm Samaki 321.5 mm Risiriba 183.0 mm

January began with the usual large amounts of rain as the short rains continued into their last days, followed by lots of sunshine. The net result was a very beautiful green landscape at Singita Grumeti for the second half of the month with the grasses growing higher and higher, and for the first time in close to six months we did not have any migratory wildebeest herds in the area to mow it down. The lush long grass will be a mainstay with us, most likely until the return of the wildebeest sometime in June or July.

(Photo by Adas Anthony

Pride dynamics

About six months to a year after the split of the Butamtam Pride, another of our local prides was showing signs of a permanent division.

(Photo by Saitoti Ole Kuwai)

The Nyasirori Pride had separated into two groups in the last four months. Three of the lionesses had cubs in the last quarter of 2013, and therefore the guides assumed it was a temporary split.

Lionesses will spend a lot of time away from their pride from the time they are about to give birth until the cubs are about eight weeks old. When the cubs reach this coming of age, their mother will introduce them to the pride.

(Photo by Joe Kibwe)

(Above and below photos by Adas Anthony)

The three lionesses that left the Nyasirori Pride were never seen with the rest of the group during the cubs’ first eight weeks. Once the cubs did become old enough to be introduced, their mothers and they were still not seen with the rest of the pride. The cubs are now ranging in age from three to four months and there has been no interaction with the rest of the Nyasirori Pride.

The Singita Grumeti guides believe that with their new cubs, these lionesses may be forming a new pride of their own. We will only know more as time passes.

(Above photos by Joe Kibwe)

Up and away

Like their Butamtam counterparts, the Nyasirori cubs also have a fondness for climbing trees - a trait passed down from their mothers no doubt! Take a look at this selection of photos of our tree-climbing lions:

(Above photos by Joe Kibwe)

(Photo by Adas Anthony)

(Photo by Joe Kibwe)

Child’s play (Photos by Adas Anthony)

Guide Adas was viewing a herd of elephants with guests when he soon noticed some shenanigans happening among the group. A young elephant was apparently in a playful mood and chose its even younger cousin to be its playmate - although the younger cousin wasn’t showing signs that he was too fond of the idea...

The older elephant hopped on its cousin’s back, attempting to play, but the younger calf wanted none of it and stood still in defiance. After a few more tries, the older cousin gave up and moved on in search of trouble elsewhere.

Brown-chested ( superciliosus)

Head Guide Ryan Schmitt was enjoying a game drive west of Sabora when he saw a pair of (Vanellus lugubris) and thought he would snap a few shots of them.

His camera lens magnified his view of the , and after taking a couple of pictures he noticed there was something out of the ordinary about these birds - they were not Senegal lapwings! The birds’ foreheads were reddish brown as opposed to the white-grey colour of the Senegal lapwing. Their eyes were also shaded with a bright yellow brow.

(Photo by Ryan Schmitt)

Ryan immediately consulted his book and soon found that the birds he was photographing were a pair of brown-chested lapwings. Brown-chested lapwings occur in , , and west through the DRC all the way to . In Tanzania they only occur in the far western stretches around Lake Victoria. To find them in the central part of the country is extremely rare, and Ryan was thrilled with this discovery.

This is brown-chested lapwing: (Photo by Ryan Schmitt)

Compare the brown-chested lapwing to the two photos of Senegal lapwings pictured below:

(Photo by Johann Grobbelaar, http://www.biodiversityexplorer.org/birds/charadriidae/vanellus_lugubris.htm)

(Photo by Dan Logen, http://www.theguardian.com/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2010/oct/17/3)

Once Ryan got back to the office he contacted the Tanzania Bird Atlas to report the rare sighting. It was only the 13th of its kind in the database’s history.

Sightings report

Lion: 69 Leopard: 21 Cheetah: 27 Elephant: 49 Buffalo: Multiple sightings daily

Special Sightings: Seven bat-eared foxes on Twiga Road, two days in a row. Eight bat-eared foxes on Sasakwa Plains. Journey of 30 giraffe on Chui Link. Egyptian mongoose on Rhino Rocks, near Watershed Junction. Python two kilometres downstream from Mbuni Crossing, on northern side.

(Photo by Joe Kibwe)

By Lizzie Hamrick Singita Grumeti Serengeti Tanzania Thirty-first of January 2014