Thursday, February 10, 2011

Crater Creatures and a View to a Kill

We checked into the Serena Ngorongoro Hotel last PM and after dinner and a good nights sleep set out for the crater a 6 AM.  We were in the lead car and I spotted two cheetah in the dark! The cats in this light was really special.



We followed the cheetah down the crater for 2 hours tracking them sometimes stopping to photograph them in various position and then they seemed to stop by a herd of zebra and wildebeast.


The excitement came when one of the cheetah about 200 yds from us took off after a baby wildebeast and had no problem catching it. The cheetah began to enjoy the fruits of their labor and a buffalo chased them away leaving their hard work for the hyenas.






Now a bit disappointed we watched some zebra fights and wildebeast fights.

We stopped for lunch and found some cute vervet monkeys, a black kite hawk.sacred ibis, and some sleeping lions right on a crossroads in the crater.





Lastly before ascending out of the crater we came across another young male lion and a huge 50 yr old bull elephant.


Tomorrow we will make one more trip into the crater in the AM and visit a Masai village in the afternoon.

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