Serengeti (Day 2)

Another fantastic day! Our drive into the park first thing produced Tabora Cisticola, followed by Slate-coloured Boubou at the park gate. We had breakfast at the Hippo Pool, where funnily enough, there were lots of Hippos. I also took a few snaps of thes and of some Wire-tailed Swallows…

We spent most of the morning concentrating on the extreme western edge of the park, and after much searching managed to pick up a pair of Karamoja Apalises. The first Crocodiles were also seen whilst birding highlights included Usambiro Barbet and Yellow-throated Longclaw.

We had our picnic at a visitors centre where there was a very informative short trail to walk. Here we had Kenrick's Starling, Dwarf Mongoose, and Black-necked Rock Hyrax. The afternoon was spent mainly looking at mammals. It started with views of a Leopard (again sleeping in a tree), but soon after leaving that I spotted a much smaller cat walking in the tall grass which turned out to be Serval! We watched this beautiful animal on our own for about half an hour, eventually gaining great views.

After the Serval had eventually slipped away in the tall grass we carried on a few minutes along the road and came across a Cheetah! Views were distant, but we were all happy to have got one under the belt.

The rest of the afternoon was just spent driving around seeing what we could see. As well as lots more sightings of the usual Lions, Elelphants, and so on, we added one new mammal in the form of Steinbuck. Two male Giraffes sparing were also good to watch.

We also had the usual array of good birds, and had the following new ones for the trip…

Dark Chanting-Goshawk
Grey Kestrel
Three-banded Plover
Wood Sandpiper
Bare-faced Go-away-bird
Green Woodhoopoe
Abyssinian Scimitar-bill
Beautiful Sunbird
Mariqua Sunbird
Flappet Lark
Bush Pipit
Taita Fiscal
Grey-headed Social-Weaver
Grey-headed Silverbill
Chestnut Sparrow

We returned to our tented camp a little before dusk (so missed out on a second chance of Bat Hawk) in order to eat and prepare for our night-drive that had been arranged. Things looked ominous during dinner (again fantastic!) as there was a heavy downpour (we had noticed distant lightning when exiting the park). Fortunately the rain eased and the trip went ahead with just the occasional light drizzle. We’d been very much looking forward to the drive and it didn’t disappoint, scoring the following…

Ostrich – one bird sleeping on the ground
Square-tailed Nightjar – nearly caught it, but flew at last moment
Senegal Bushbaby – excellent views
Zebra
Bohor Reedbuck
Common Genet – excellent views of probably two different individuals
Scrub Hare
Jackson's Chameleon x 2 (one in the hand)

Edit (29/09/2011): I think the Nightjar may actually be Slender-tailed Nightjar, not Square-tailed.