Western Serengeti corridor:

Grumeti River crossing.
By the time the month of June comes, the movement of the wildebeests, zebras and antelopes should be in the western corridor or should be in coming in the days a head. The western Serengeti corridor is named like that due to the Serengeti National park “historical thumbs up” shaped boundary, and how the moving wildlife seems to squeeze through and turn around later heading northwards. The park limits go as far as Lake Victoria, the park can be reached from northwestern Tanzania region from Mwanza town. If one has not noticed it by now, there is variation in the vegetation: from plains grass to mixture of acacia woodland and savannah plains grass. The additional wildlife sighting opportunities also brings a different attitude as you have the opportunity to sight crocodiles, more hippos, and leopards staying around on the acacia trees next to riverbeds of the Grumeti, which flows into Lake Victoria.

Two interesting scientific questions have yet to be answered about
Western Serengeti corridor.
One, wildebeests moving from the south stop and mix with “resident wildbeest of the western corridor, and do not join the current movement. Question is why?

Two, if the movement’s main target and aim is looking for water and greener grass, then at the depth of the migration in the western corridor, why do wildebeest not continue on wards to Lake Victoria, which has enough fresh water, but instead perform a complete turn around and continue their journey northwards traversing plains and rivers and facing gruesome challenges posed by predators?

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Serengeti Tour and Holiday Information

When to visit.
The climate of Serengeti is warm and dry. The tropical rainy season is from March to May, with short rains from October to November. The Serengeti is luxuriant, succulent and green after the rains, but a steady drying up follows, which inhibits plant growth and encourages the animals to move looking for waters.

With heights ranging from 920 to 1,830 metres, mean temperatures range from 15 to 26 degrees Celsius. The coldest temperatures are experienced from June to October.

Activities.
There is bird watching.
Exciting walking safaris.
Unforgettable balloon in the Serengeti.

Facts on Serengeti National park and Ecosystem.

Location and Geography.
The Serengeti National park is found in Tanzania, near Ngorongoro Conservation area.
The Serengeti ecosystem involves 2 countries, that is; Tanzania and Kenya.
In Kenya, the Serengeti ecosystem is famous as Maasai Mara National Reserve.
Serengeti National park covers an area of 14,763 square kilometres.
First detailed research on the Serengeti ecosystem was carried out by two German nationals, that is, Dr. Bernhard together with his son Michael Griemek.
The details of their discoveries and stories about the Serengeti are recorded in a book known as “Serengeti Shall Not Die”.
The Serengeti National park has several rivers flowing through it, permanent and seasonal. Among them are; the Seronera River, Mara River, Grumeti River and Orangi River.

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Central Serengeti: Seronera Safari Tour Tanzania

Seronera, which is the centre of the Serengeti, is at the heart of almost all safari program accommodations. This is where several guests first arrive through by air at the Seronera airstip or drive by road through rout B144.

From a wildlife point of view, our specialist safari guides also refer to Seronera as the no miss zone. Reasons being:

First, because Seronera is all plains-hundreds of acres of flat land that our highly trained guides can view wildlife from a distance minus a pair if binoculars.

Second, since Seronera’s plains create extraordinary sundowners, one can truly view the entire bright orange ball just drop infront of one’s eye.

Third, Seronera River and Ngare Nyanyuki are one of the major water sources for the central and eastern part of the Serengeti, which bring together a lot of wildlife.

Last but not least, Seronera offers an all-year game drive, and also enables guests reach the south, west and north of the Serengeti National Park.

A big number of visitors come to the Serengeti stunned to view burnt grass on the Seronera plains, usually relating it to the wild forest fires, stunted naturally or otherwise, in areas such as California. The fires usually viewed in the Serengeti are known as “Early Season Burning Fires” started intentionally by Serengeti park authorities, and are supposed to work in the following way: During the end of the rains in May, the Serengeti park personnel set fires to the grass inside the park limits, to prepare for the dry month; the shortened burnt grass minimises the effect of a fire stemming from outside the park coming into the park, is such an unfortunate incident were to happen. One has to note the Serengeti National Park authorities do not have control of what happens beyond the park limits.

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Northern Serengeti: Lobo Area.

As the movement takes a turn around after the months of July leading northwards, it passes a region in the Serengeti known as Lobo. Remaining at Lobo Lodge is a big chance to take a break and perform looking at wildlife from the wonderful panoramic viewing points. Lobo remains what it is now as it was when we toured the area in numbers, and ability to view giraffes that are not tamed, not more than five meters from the balcony of your room.

Going further on, Lobo takes you near Kliens Gate area, close to Lolindo Game central. The vegetation varies to plains and woodlands; the landscapes elevate to show spectacular sights of the Serengeti National park and its ecosystem. If one has luck to be in the northern part, staying at Kliens camp, then movement of the wildebeest is literally at the bottom of the hill.

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Serengeti Wildlife Safari

A million wildebeest, each one driven by the same ancient rhythm, fulfilling its instinctive function in the inescapable cycle of life; an excitement three-week boat of territorial conquests and mating; survival of the fittest as 40 kilometres or 25 miles long columns move suddenly through waters infested with crocodile on the annual exodus north; replenishing the species in a brief population explosion which provides over 8,000 calves everyday before the one thousand kilometres or six hundred mile pilgrimage starts again.
Serengeti, Tanzania’s oldest and most famous national park, is famous for its yearly migration, when some six million hooves pound the open plain, as over 200,000 zebras and three hundred thousand Thompson’s gazelle join the wildebeest’s trek for fresh grazing. Yet even when the movement is quiet, the Serengeti provides arguably the most amusing game-viewing in the whole of Africa: great groups of buffalo, smaller herds of elephant and giraffe, and thousands of thousands of eland herds, topi, kongoni, impala and Grants’ gazelle.

The spectacle of predator against prey dominates Tanzania’s greatest park. Golden-maned lion prides fed on the plenty plain grazers. Solitary leopards disturb the acacia trees lining the Serohera River, while a high s density of cheetahs prowls the southern plains. Almost uniquely, all three African jackal species occur here, alongside the spotted hyena and a host s of more elusive small predators, ranging from the insectivorous ardwolf to the beautiful serval cat.

As enduring as the game-viewing, is the liberating sense of space which characterises the Serengeti plains, stretching across sun burnt savannah to a shinning golden horizon at the end of the earth. Yet, after the rains, this golden expanse of grass is changed into an endless green carpet covered with wildflowers. And there are also wooded hills and towering termite mounds, rivers lined with fig trees and acacia woodland stained orange by dust.

Though the Serengeti may be popular, it remains so large in that you might be the only human audience when a pride of lions masterminds a siege, focused steadily on its next meal.

Wildlife.
The Serengeti boasts big groups of antelope including Patterson’s eland, klipspringer, dikdik, zebra, gazelles, lion, impala, leopard, cheetah, hyena plus other larger mammals for example the rhino, giraffe, elephant and hippopotamus. Almost 500 species of birds have been registered in the park. The Serengeti is a chance for one of the best game-viewing in Africa.

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Migration in Serengeti.

The wildebeest movement, like a discernible thread, embraces and connects the ecosystem of Serengeti. Much as it has done for at least two million years.
On a yearly basis, with some seasonably dictated variations in timing and scale 1,000,000 wildebeest migrate from the southern short grass plains of Serengeti, looking for the grass and water they need to survive.
During their yearly movement, they will move some 2000 miles eating 4000 tonnes of grass a day. Two hundred fifty thousand will be produced and a big number will die.

Serengeti map of the migration.

January.
The movement is in the southeastern Serengeti on the short-grass plains after the short rains which have catered for the fresh grass. The months January and December are the highest months as far as producing of zebra is concerned.

February.
The major feeding grounds for some 2,000,000 wildebeest, zebra and gazelle are the short-grass plains. Predators hide nearby, feasting on the newborn. February is the main month for wildebeest producing.

March.
It is in this month that the long and heavy rains start. Clouds growing in extreme, become visible from the south and occasional lighting shines the night sky. The short-grass plains pasture are almost getting exhausted and the newborn can keep up with the groups.

April.
This is the heaviest rainy month. Wildebeest are nearly evenly distributed on the short grass plains.

May.
During this month, good forage is still present however, water starts to be inadequate. Now the big groups start to come together with columns consisting hundreds of thousands stretched over several kilometres as they herd across the woodland zones into the western corridor where new food and water has been produced by the rains around Grumeti.

June.
In this month, rains stop and the groups migrate from the black-cotton-soil plains, traversing the Grumeti River where several wildebeest drown annually offering food to the crocodiles who wait at traversing points. They will be in Seronera or Moru kopjes area in a normal year.

July
The movement now continues northwest shortly leaving the park as they enter the Grumeti preserved area, with a small portion of the group going towards Lobo area. Guests should take note that the temperatures in the morning have sharply fallen.

August.
The movement and the ever-attendant predators trailing now traverse the Ikorongo preserved area. The several branches of the movement start to meet up. The movement in a normal year should now be in the northern Serengeti and entering Maasai Mara. During this month, mornings are still cold.

September.
The movement has now penetrated Kenya’s Masai Mara Game Reserve just across the Northern limit from the Serengeti. Temperatures start rising and the skies are blue by the day.

October.
This is the driest month in Serengeti, with a big number of animals shortly not present in the Masai Mara game Reserve, where there is usually a lot of water together with finer grazing for the plains animals at this period of the year.

November.
Somehow sensing the oncoming short rains with clouds collecting in the sky, the movement starts its journey back home to the Serengeti. Flame trees are starting to blossom and birds on the move begin to come.

December.
The pace of the movement increases as it continues towards the southern plains of Serengeti, where the short rains are producing the grass. It follows the Loliondo limit of the park and the zebra start giving birth.

History.
The history of human inhabitation widely centres around the history of the African people, from the hunter-gathers who moved a round the plains, to the people of today, who protect it as a main destination fro travellers. The Serengeti’s history has been virtually ignored, apart from Olduvai Gorge, where the Leakey family found or excavated fossils of human and animal ancestors dating far back to about two million years, and which is part of the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation area.

Tsetse flies in the woodlands, and sleeping sickness, guaranteed that the Serengeti was spared of European settlements and with it the distinction of the wildlife that other African nations were subjected to.

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The participants: White bearded wildebeests, Burchells Zebras and
Thompson’s Gazelles.

The highest of the Serengeti ecosystem which is not found anywhere on the globe is the movement of the animals thus being the reason for touring Serengeti National park plus Masai Mara National Reserves.
Burchells and grey zebras are like original pieces of artwork. No to are similar.
Burchells zebras together with other species of the Serengeti National park, for example baboons, are the sound alarm for the predators that are about to reach; the zebras very clear sight, smell and sound are the reasons why several wildebeests can become victorious when approached by predators due to warnings earlier on.
Burchells zebras are not territorial, and are usually found on the plains of Serengeti, several of them are at times cross-necked to keep a watchful eye over animals that want to kill and eat them.
Male zebras are known as stallions, whereas the female are known as mares. The young ones of zebras are known as foals.
The female zebra hold pregnancy for twelve to thirteen months.

Thompson’s Gazelles.
Thompson’s gazelles are regularly found in National parks and Reserves in Northern Tanzania and Kenya.
They are the last to follow in the movement, eating up the remaining grass left over by the zebras and wildebeests.
Thompson’s Gazelles can highly tolerate lack of water. This explains why Thompson’s Gazelles come late in the movement process. They add on to the absent water during the Serengeti dry season by wisely digesting plants and wild fruits that hold water.
They are usually found in big numbers of groups in all parts of the Serengeti National park plains.
They have an excellent sight and smell capabilities, which helps them to sense the animals that want to kill and eat them, enabling them to run away in time.

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Masai Mara National Reserve: Journey into Kenya and Back.
During the months of late August up to the end of October, the movement ought to be in Kenya or should be proceeding there. During the movement when the wildlife is traversing tow various nations, several guests undertake a dual visit to Tanzania and Kenya. The wildebeest traversing over the Mara River is a height for a number that wishes to view them come out triumphly, when they make it through the river.

Other visitors take another view and wait for the chance for nature to take its course, like the following incident: Performing game watching on the Mara River gave one of the visitors the chance to view a crocodile from the shallow brown river spring up and grab hold of the wildebeest: in the struggle to do so, a lioness enters the river bed from the bush and tries to successfully grab the wildebeest right from the crocodile’s mouth. Simply unbelievable.

The movement spends the rest of the months on the Kenyan plains until the end of October when they start the journey back to Tanzania’s Serengeti National park and getting to the Lake Ndutu area by December to begin the process all over again. At this time, the baked brown grass has turned green from the short rains, which act as a catalyst for the wildebeests to eat and regenerate their big number of groups lost on the way. And the movement cycle continues.

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Serengeti’s Annual wildebeest movement.

Among the various resources and beauties found and viewed in the Serengeti ecosystem: rich animal and plant diversity, un exposed gold and mineral mines, splendid sunsets on smooth landscapes, first class wonder on the list in the Serengeti is the great wildebeest movement. The understanding on how and why the movement occurs is very complex; there is no definite and guaranteed conclusion to pin point a trigger that begins the movement. The movement has made its own culture in the Serengeti, with the wildebeest doing what they are doing for the last two million years. Nothing goes on permanently, not the rains, not the grass, not the timings of the movement.

The movement begins when the wildebeest feel that the time has come. During the yearly movement, that circumbulates the entire ecosystem beginning fro the south in Kusini the western corridor in Maglaribi, curving back and going north to Kenya in Kaskazini and coming back through the Eastern Serengeti in Mashariki, back to the south. More than one million wildebeest start the journey, who will progress rapidly more than 1800 miles and eat more than three million kilograms of grass.

The whole movement is masterfully planned by nature, with often times, the movement being headed by the Burchells zebra which enjoy the tall grasses, making it easier for the wildebeest with their sunken heads to feed on the shorter grass. The remaining short grass benefits the magical spectacle of the wild procession.

Details about Serengeti’s Annual wildebeest movement.
The complexity included the visitor focussed research headed by AfricanMecca plus or guides to form a layman yet detailed records for the Serengeti National park, an extraordinary work, which included interviewing persons from all corners of the Serengeti ecosystem. Our documentation project involved visiting all the corners of the Serengeti National park where the wildebeest, zebras and Gazelles migrated through. The details of the wildlife movement were required to make an authentic awareness on the philosophy of the Serengeti. The details below follow chronologically.

Southeastern part of the Serengeti limiting Ngorongoro Conservation Area is “the place to be” during December to March. The wildebeest movement infact comes into being and ends circumambulation in this region. During the months from December to March, the wildebeest give birth extravagantly, which creates a grand true to life lesson in nature science. Reaching this area will be either from the limit of Ngorongoro Conservation, which heads down to the Lake Ndutu or from within the Serengeti National park.
Guests residing adjacent to the lake Ndutu region are so advantaged by the gift of wildlife which several guests when residing at Ndutu Lodge usually get to pull a chair on their porch, get a pair of binoculars and do the game watching from the comforts of their accommodation all day. Splendid rare animals are viewed very easily in this area except for the popular big name ones. Our tour to Lake Ndutu offered us the chance to view, among others, the shy steinbock gazelle, and cautious and beautiful serval cat. Guests can spend a good amount of time just watching game, grasping their ways and behaviours of several other beautiful creatures.

From a visitor’s point of view, Lake Ndutu also harnesses the environment and the wildlife in the following ways: the rains fill up the seasonal lake, which attracts the flamingos and other beautiful birds to the lake. The lake also welcomes the producing wildebeest and other wildebeests, which put a show to perform entertaining behavioural rituals on the lake, the presence of the wildebeest is an encouraging call for the territorial predators, for example the lions to show up and take charge. A gain, for AfricanMecca guests the thrill of taking part in these activities is once in a lifetime, experience.

Southwestern Serengeti: Lake Magadi, Niaroboro Hills, Simba and Moru kopjes Area.
If you drive out from Lake Ndutu region trekking the wildebeest as they continue their yearlong journey, the next stage would be the region covered by Lake Magadi, Niaroboro
Hills, Simba and Moru kopjes.
We encourage visiting this region from April up to the end of may. The terrain of this region is hilly with excellently positioned kopjes. The word Kopjes better pronounced kop-ees than kop-hes, is a Dutch word meaning “Rocky Outcrops” or “Hill mounds of Rock”. For those who attended a British education system would relate to the term called “Inselbergs”, from their physical geographical classes; kopjes were created from ash deposits from years of volcanic activity. If the history behind the kopjes was not brought out, the kopjes of the Serengeti would be lying around like nothing happened.

The kopjes of Serengeti plains support the food web chain. They create the perfect lookout for predators such as lions. The lioness, which is supposed to hunt, perches herself on the hill awaiting the snorting and galloping of the wildebeest, who do not take notice of the watchful hunter until alerted by the sharp and watchful zebras. With the viewing of a predator during their game drive, AfricanMecca visitors park and turn off their vehicle engine and begin a daylong watch which usually turns out to be their event of a lifetime.

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Serengeti Safari Tanzania Park
The park covers 14,763 sq kilometer of infinite rolling plains, which hit up to the Kenyan edge and extends nearly to Lake Victoria. The park is flourishing with splendid wildlife. An estimated 3 million big animals wander the plains just to make your tour to Serengeti adventurous. People of the Maasai Tribe called it Siringitu - ‘the spot where the soil moves on always. ‘

The Serengeti is known as one of the better wildlife refuge in the reality. Click here for a Serengeti map Two World Heritage Sites and two Biosphere Preservations have been established within this region. It’s unusual surroundings has enthused writers, filmmakers as easily as numerous photographers and scientists. The Serengeti ecosystem is one of the oldest on ground, the principal characteristics of mood, vegetation and creature have scarcely changed in the previous million years. Serengeti is fame for the migration of animals. How about the western corridor?

AREA- 1,500 Sq Km.
Serengeti is Tanzania’s largest and most famous national park. Its vast Savannah plains are a permanent host to tens of thousands of migrating herbivorous. Chief among these is the wildebeest of which more than a million cross during the Serengeti annual wildebeest migration. This has earned the reserve the status of a world heritage site. Isolated lodges dot the Serengeti, but the tourism center of the park is the Seronera, with several lodges and camps.
Your visit to Serengeti will give you a chance to see Africa at its most untamed. A balloon Safari within Serengeti makes your to cover a lot during your safari to Tanzania.
Serengeti Accommodation and Safari Lodges
Seronera Wildlife Lodge
Lobo Wildlife Lodge
Serengeti Serena Safari Lodge
Serengeti Sopa Lodge
NOTES
Annual Migration update 2008
Thomson’s Gazelle Tanzania
Masai Mara Safari

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