On Saturday, July 11th, we left The Manor at 6:45 am to spend the entire day in the Ngorongoro National Park. This conservation area is the result of a volcano that erupted millions of years ago. While it is commonly referred to as Ngorongoro Crater, the crater inside the cone actually blew off during the eruption, and the sunken area below the crater remained as a caldera. So what we visited is actually the Ngorongor Caldera. Home to the largest concentration of wildlife in Africa, we were able to see wildebeests, zebras, a few warthogs, some gazelle, lions, jackals, water buffalo, hyenas, many species of birds, and one or two elephants. There are not many elephants and no giraffes due largely because the vegetation does not support them.
Here's a shot of an African jackal.
The story behind this photo is one of a whole lot of luck. We came upon a group of land cruisers observing a bunch of vultures.Upon closer examination, we saw this hyena that had come in to scavenge a previous kill. Not only did he take this part of a dead zebra, but he came back two more times to scavenge more of the animal.
On his second visit, he took a leg bone of the zebra. Each time, he took the animal parts off to an undisclosed location for later feeding.
Here's a short video clip of the hyena scavenging a part of the zebra.
Shortly after watching the hyena, we came upon another group of vehicles parked alongside the road. Black-maned lions are somewhat rare, and we had the good fortune to see this one. We parked for at least 15 minutes watching this beautiful animal.
The bottom of the caldera has a salt lake, much the The Great Salt Lake in Utah. When the sun starts warming up the caldera floor, the salt starts filling the air as you can see in this photo. Also, in the foreground you can see two wildebeests, and in the middle of the photo there are hundreds of flamingos.
These boys are part of the Maasai tribe of bush people, and everyday they bring their clan's cattle and goats into the caldera to feed and water!
As we were driving around on the caldera floor we spotted a couple of Land Cruisers parked, and they were watching a group of female lions resting. Here's a shot of two of them, and you can see how close one of the Land Cruisers is to them!
One of them lifted her head so we could get a better look at her!