More Serengeti... You can never have enough Serengeti!

Serengeti Day 2 starts from Embalaakai Tented Lodge @ Serengeti - and featured a teary farewell to "the kids" who were headed directly to Ngorongoro Crater. 

Hilary loaded us and the giant picnic hamper up and we were off around 7:30am. I was manifesting leopards and hippos from my seat in the Land Cruiser and enjoying (mostly) my "African massage" which is essentially being vibrated from head to toe, continuously by the uneven roads.  (When we get to the end of the journey, I'll give you an update about the long term effects of the African massage. There is a twist!)

It was an unexpectedly full day. 

Roller bird

Impala

Lions sleeping and looking uncomfortably full after gorging on giraffe. Thank goodness that bit of the natural world was not outside our tent when we woke up - because it was outside someones! What a smell! Vultures - 4 of the 8 species in Tanzania - and Marabou storks (sometimes called the "undertaker bird") scrapped over the carcass. Wings flapped noisily. Storks carrying babies is the dreamy version of these birds. This version is what nightmares are made of! Giant dead-meat eaters, not to be trifled with and kinda scary looking. 

Ruppell's vulture (?)

Marabou stork

Only the black-backed jackal - cunning, quick and gutsy, stood up to them.

Two leopards in a sausage tree was my personal happy place today. The universe provided! They were a mated pair who will only actually spend a few days together, lounging romantically. Soon... she'll be a single mom, using all her smarts and experience to keep her cubs safe from other big cats, hyenas and pretty much anyone out here! And he'll go back to his uncomplicated (kinda) life, roaming the serengeti alone. 

I make no apologies for overdoing the pics of the leopards here. This is but a fraction of what I edited which is in turn a fraction of what I shot! You'll get through them. Suck it up!

As the day unfolded, we picnicked in Serengeti NP and I ran into a couple from TARIKI, New Zealand!!! What a freakin' small world. This little village is about 30 mins from where come from and you know, we probably have circles that overlap even outside of the huge coincidence of being on this little overlook in the Serengeti at the same time, comparing our safari experiences and pictures! 

The afternoon was packed with wallowing hippos, hyena pups and a tribe of very entertaining baboons who took the road and my heart, with their tiny wee babies. 

Lovebirds!

Every Serengeti animal seems to have a bird companion!

Just when I thought the glorious African sunset and last minute sighting of a secretary bird was a wrap... a bonus from the universe; A serval sighting (Sue's eyes are the best!)

Grass colored and grass height, extremely difficult to see and even harder to photograph. What a treat! 

I knew that a couple of weeks from now I would be taking his pictures into LightRoom in order to turn out something identifiable! So... here's what we got:

Secretary bird

Another night in our tented camp, Room 2A, with good food, great people and sleep punctuated by the sounds of the Serengeti wildlife. Ah-Mazing!

Oh and more tidbits from Hilary!

How did the secretary bird get its name? Well...it's tall and slim, wearing a white blouse and a black skirt, much like secretaries used to look. And just as a secretary might have tucked her feather pen into her hairdo, this bird features a handful of long writing feathers sticking from its head!