One of the enduring images of the Serengeti is the Great Migration, which is the continuous circling, mostly clockwise, around within the park (including into Kenya) by vast herds of an antelope family member called wildebeest.  Literally over a million of them rotate through the park following the rains and resulting grass growth.  Zebras move along the same route, but not in such overwhelming numbers.  People usually time their visits to the Serengeti to see one part or another of the migration, including for some the famous (or infamous) crossing by adults and young calves of a river filled with crocodiles while other predators like lions wait on the banks.  It is utter mayhem.  We did not choose that timing -- we hoped instead to see the calving which occurs this time of year.  The mayhem happens later, which cuts into Alaska early summer, and Phyllis was not sure she could stomach that kind of scene anyway.

Our guides Ronald, Samson and Joseph, had been thinking hard, trying to figure out where the best chance to catch up with the wildebeest herds would be.  While sighting the Big 5 is important, they considered it their main job to find this most iconic sight for us, and it’s not as easy as one would think.  The Serengeti is vast and there’s no aerial surveillance or other way to easily track the animals.  On this day, Joseph had a hunch, based in part on the rains we had encountered the day before, which turned out to be right, and after navigating through scrub-land full of pesky tsetse flies, we came upon small groups of wildebeest moving steadily onward.  Moving on we came to a small rock outcropping (kopje) where there were five or six lions hanging out, looking down on us as we drove up pretty darn close.  Most of the group stayed here for a while to watch them, but Joseph, our driver for the day, had a mission – the migration.

We circled the rock once and then left to go over a small rise and out onto a wide savannah filled (literally) with tens of thousands of wildebeest.  They parted without fear as we drove through, although some were rather skittish, and once we stopped, they formed a perfect  circle leaving us in the clear.  Our jeep had the whole group to ourselves for almost a half hour before the others drove up.  We decided a nearby group of trees was the perfect place for a picnic.  We unpacked a table and set up the moveable feast the staff back at camp had provided, and enjoyed a nice breeze with the bleating of wildebeest all around us.  The sound they make is somewhere between a cow’s mooing and a donkey’s braying.  There were some newborn calves among them, making it all the more perfect.  They stretched to the horizon in every direction.  It was amazing.

On the way to the wildebeest territory, we had seen a number of lions and giraffes (plus those clueless guineafowl again on the track), and a few new animals such as hartebeest and the intriguing secretary bird (stories differ as to the reason for the name, but most seem to think it looks like that now-extinct human species, the secretary, with pencil behind the ear ready to take dictation).  There were moderately large herds of zebra in the same area as wildebeest, and we learned that they also migrate in a similar manner.  In fact, they collaborate, because zebras have keen eyesight and wildebeest have a keen sense of smell, so together they manage to protect themselves and their young against most predators.  Most of the other animals (including the predators like lions and leopards) stay put in their own territory while these key prey species move through.

After lunch, we soldiered back toward tsetse fly territory (in the middle of which the park inexplicably has a ranger station) and were happy to see three elands and a terrified cape rabbit that was frozen in the shade of a bush as we three jeeps surrounded him.  Elands seem to be among the shyest of the animals of the Serengeti and we were only able to see these at a distance.  The last new find of the day was another amazing bird, the gray crested crown crane, the national bird of Uganda.  The flamboyant plumage of many of these birds is just incredible.