Trip Report: Wild Tanzania at 300mm
I have just recently returned from a very unique safari experience in Northern Tanzania. Unlike previous expeditions that I have undertaken, this one involved bringing along 13 high school students. When I am not a wildlife photographer, I am a teacher and a high school soccer coach. On this trip I brought 13 of my student-athletes along with me on an education based eco-safari. The group had chosen the national animal of Tanzania, the giraffe, as their species of choice for a conservation project. Code named "Project Twiga," the girls raised money to support the Giraffe Conservation Foundation.
As a culminating experience, they followed up a week of service in a small village outside Dar es Salaam with a safari to three dream destinations; Serengeti National Park, Lake Manyara National Park, and the Ngorongoro Crater. Because this was not an exclusive photography safari and I was responsible for helping to guide these young women in their experience, I needed to simplify the entire trip on my own end. Packing and traveling light, I decided to shoot almost the entire excursion on my Nikon D5 and 300mm f/2.8 ED VRII lens. Shooting on a fixed medium-range telephoto exclusively may have simplified my packing, but it provided unique creative challenges for me. While I was able to spend more time talking to my students about what they were seeing and less time thinking about which camera body or lens I wanted to shoot with, once I was looking through the viewfinder I found it quite stimulating thinking about how to frame and compose images at a fixed range.
Lake Manyara National Park - Our safari experience began with the short one-hour flight from Dar es Salaam to Arusha, the home base of Tanzania's famous Northern Circuit. From there, we made our way in Toyota Land Cruisers to the first stop on our itinerary, a full day at Lake Manyara National Park. The name "Manyara" is actually a derivative of the Maasai word emanyara, which is a species of plant found along the lake's shoreline. It is probably best known for the more than 300 species of migratory birds that visit it every year. I have to be honest here, for all my experience on safari, and despite knowing full well that one should never visit any park with set expectations, I had my fingers crossed that we might get to see Manyara's famous tree climbing lions.
We only had one day in the park though and not only did we not see lions in trees, but all of the cats managed to elude us entirely on our game drives. Still, it was a proper way to introduce my students to the wilderness of Africa, as we had some absolutely magical close encounters with some of Manyara's largest residents and the first of our Big Five to see, the African elephant. The bird life lived up to its reputation, as massive flocks of pelicans and flamingos lined the shore of the alkaline lake.
It was actually a few of the smaller avian residents that caught my eye, as I captured a few nice "bird on a stick" images of a bee eater and a hooded kingfisher, two handsome and colorful specimens. I've never been much of a bird photographer as I've typically lacked the patience for it, but when presented with a couple of beautiful little birds right outside my vehicle I was hardly willing to pass up the opportunity. Manyara has a very tropical feel to it. In some respects it reminded me a bit of Nakuru in Kenya, and not just because of the presence of the Fever Trees. As we entered the park and were greeted immediately by blue monkeys it gave me the same type of feeling Nakuru did... as if I was somehow traveling back in time. It's not the first time I have felt this way in East Africa and I am sure it won't be the last, but the similarities between the two parks offered a unique sense of nostalgia for me, all while discovering a brand new location.
We spent most of our time looking to the trees, and while the migratory storks were plentiful it was cats that we were really hoping to see. As is the case so often, I looked tirelessly for the tell tale, well, tail... the dead giveaway of a leopard in a tree. I frequently joke that more leopards have seen me in Africa than I have seen leopards, and as we drove the winding roads with the thick brush on both sides I am certain this venture added to that tally. There was nothing disappointing about our day in Manyara as there was plenty of life all around to keep us captivated. The forested environment was perfect for impala and I was pleased to get a good sighting and image of a bushbuck, a species of antelope I had only occasionally seen on my previous expeditions.
Earnest Hemingway once called Lake Manyara the "loveliest lake in Africa," and while I may not be entirely ready to agree with him, it is obvious why this place has captured the imagination of so many travelers. It is a gateway to the famous Northern Circuit and thriving with wildlife. The 127 sq miles of the National Park connect to the Kwakuchinja Wildlife Corridor, allowing mammal migration between Manyara and Tarangire. With the Great Rift Valley escarpment providing a suitable backdrop, it is a challenge photographically, but a rewarding one. The carnivores of Manyara didn't reveal themselves to us, neither did the lesser kudu, another rare species I was hoping to find there. After a relaxing post-drive meal we were all set to transfer the following day to Serengeti, where we would get our fill and more of the big cats. For me personally, it was a good chance to experience a shoot limited entirely to a single focal length. I spent much of our 4 hour road transfer to Serengeti replaying sightings in my mind and thinking about how I might approach similar situations on the remainder of the trip.
Serengeti National Park - The main event. Ever since I began making trips to Africa I have longed to see the great plains and vast open sea of grass in Serengeti. Having twice worked in it's Kenyan cousin, the Masai Mara Reserve, it was the thrill of a lifetime for me to finally reach this destination. This was made all the more special by the opportunity to share it with my students. The transfer from Manyara through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area was a typical African road transfer... long, slow, and dusty. We arrived at the Naabi Hill Gate feeling a little exhausted and slightly defeated by the transfer, but as we drove through the Ndoha Plain en route to our camp our wildest expectations were met almost immediately. We first sighted a male cheetah crossing the road ahead of us, a discovery that led us to an adult female and three nearly grown cubs!
Five cheetah, in a matter of minutes after arriving in the park. Suddenly we were energized, and in the distance one of our drivers spotted the spectacular. Laying on a rocky outcropping, surveying his kingdom as if he were in a scene from The Lion King, was a massive, beautiful male lion. We had a day in Manyara without a cats, now there were cats everywhere.
After sitting with the lion for a while we pressed on to camp. In just one evening drive from the gate to our camp, it was clear to see right away what makes Serengeti so special, and the rival of the Masai Mara as the premier safari destination in the world. We had two days ahead of us to explore this wonder of the world, and I was already over the moon with the sightings we had in the bag. Our driver Godfrey assured me we would see leopard as well. "Right,"I thought to myself, "this guy is crazy if he is guaranteeing leopard sightings." Little did I know that cats, even spotted cats, would be the order of the day when we awoke. Having barely slept because of my excitement, we left camp about an hour before sunrise and nearly immediately had another cheetah sighting. This time it was a two brother coalition, looking well fed and happy on a termite mound.
We set off towards the Musabi Plain. With three of the Big Five (buffalo, lion, and elephant) already checked off our list it was the elusive leopard that we were in pursuit of. In the early part of the day we were denied any sightings of the secretive predator, but we saw multiple lion prides and even had a too-close-for-comfort encounter with a hippo. While viewing them from the "hippo pool," an area where it is permitted to get out of the vehicle, a large bull slipped quietly behind us without anyone noticing. There was a threat display and what looked, for a moment, like an impending charge. In the end the charge never came, but we had to make a calm, quiet retreat back to our car in a hurry. The Serengeti is massive, almost 15,000 sq miles. It's open plains are very much like the Masai Mara, but while the Mara more significantly features the Rift Valley escarpment, Serengeti has more rocky Kopjes dotting its landscape. The name for the park comes from the Maasai word siringet, which appropriately means "place where the land runs on forever."
As we searched for leopards we saw an amazing variety of general game. Though the Great Migration had already pushed North to Kenya, there were still thousands of Grant's and Thompson's gazelle, as well as hartebeest and topi. We saw black-backed jackal but never caught a glimpse of the infamous honey badger. Even with the millions of wildebeest and zebra having moved on, there was so much prey it was obvious how this park supports the single largest population of African lions in the world. We saw over 45 different lions in a single day, including a super pride with more than 15 young cubs. They were resting by the side of the road under an acacia, and for the first time I found my camera set-up a hindrance, as they were actually far too close for a 300mm focal length. It was a sudden reminder of my photographic challenge, but by then I was in my comfort zone using the rig to get a variety of images, both close-ups and landscape, and I was having too much fun enjoying the park with the high school kids to really notice anyway. We headed back to camp to enjoy a few hours of down time during the heat of the day, and again Godfrey assured me, "this evening, we will see the leopards." He wasn't kidding.
The first of a remarkable four leopard sightings happened almost immediately on our evening drive. The cat was well off the road resting in a tree, and though I urged Godfrey to stay with it, he urged me right back to trust him. "We will see more, better." In most cases I differ to my driver, and he seemed so totally confident I reluctantly told him to press on. It was an alien feeling for me to drive away from a leopard sighting, even a distant one, when there was still good light. The second sighting was similar, a distant shadow... but the third was magnificent. Not far from the road we discovered a comfortable cat lying in a thorny acacia, in perfect view. We fired away, shutters snapping like machine guns. I tried to emphasis to the girls that seeing three leopards in one drive, and a sighting this good were highly irregular, but I got the sense that it was par for the course in Serengeti. We capped the night off with good hyena sightings and a fourth leopard. A fourth leopard! A large male patrolling his territory left us in awe. If the Mara is King, then Serengeti is the Queen.
The Ngorongoro Crater - The final leg of our safari took us back towards Arusha with a stop at the famous Ngorongoro Crater. The crater is actually an ancient volcanic caldera, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We stayed in the magnificent Sopa Lodge right on the crater rim, and descended for a day in search of the last member of the Big Five we had yet to see, the Black Rhino. There are less than 40 left in the crater now, and while it was our target for the day, the general game viewing was excellent. On the way down into the crater floor we had a brief sighting of a serval as it dashed across the road in front of us. While our day in the crater was absolutely beautiful, unfortunately it was also windy. Anyone who knows rhino know that a windy day means poor odds for seeing them. Rhino are basically blind, they rely heavily on their keen hearing and sense of smell, and both of those are disrupted by wind. Alas, we struck out on our final member of the Big Five, spending all day searching but not finding any of the highly endangered giants.
They had retreated into the woodlands on the outside edge of the crater floor and gone to ground to avoid the unfavorable conditions. We still had a wonderful day, and in particular enjoyed great opportunities to see and photograph zebra and wildebeest. Most of both species had moved out of Serengeti while we were there, but in the crater they don't migrate and spend all year there. The zebra in the crater were also the most relaxed that I have ever been around. Usually a skittish animal (one can't help it when they are on the menu), these animals were incredibly calm around the safari vehicles. Animals in the crater face no threats from humans. It is such a controlled environment that there is no bushmeat poaching at all and many of the herbivores are just as habituated to the vehicles as carnivores are in other places. Getting up close and personal allowed me to use my 300mm to deconstruct individual animals and get interesting images of them that I've not had previous opportunities to get. Like a fingerprint, every zebra has a unique set of stripes, and this pattern is most distinguishable on their tails and around their faces.
Though one of our vehicles did see the famous Lake Pride of lions, my car was unlucky and missed out. Without the cats or rhino to focus on though, it was a fun day of appreciating many of the lesser celebrated species. We enjoyed listening to the massive wildebeest herds as they carried out complex conversations with their single word, gnu. Gnu? Gnu! There was also an exciting moment when it appeared as though a large hyena clan was going on the hunt. It turned out they were more interested in messing around with one another and playing than hunting, but we saw a vocal gathering of nearly 40 hyena all in the same place at the same time, something I have never personally experienced before.
We enjoyed watching both male and female ostriches, as well as other colorful avian personalities like secretary birds and crowned cranes. We had passed many ostriches on our drive through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area but got to see them up close and personal in the Crater. I find them to be highly entertaining and file them under a collection of animals (like olive baboons and elephants) that are worth spending time watching. In the end, it was the Ngorongoro Crater that proved to be a bridge too far for my experiment in trying to shoot the entire trip at 300mm. I found myself longing for a wide angle lens so that I could capture the true magnificence of this epic geological formation. While I tried to take several shots that included perspective and featured the environment, the crater itself just isn't large enough to really effectively capture with a lens of that range. If I ever return I will definitely try to make more than one descent to the crater floor (though it has become quite expensive!), and I will definitely use a wide angle lens. Even my trusty 70-200mm would have been an excellent option.
In the end, this safari wasn't about me or my photography. This was a trip for a group of young people, a chance for them to experience what very few people their age get to experience and, I hope, to inspire a new generation of conservation-minded individuals. Our Twiga Project was successful at raising funds for a critical conservation initiative. The truth is, unlike other threatened species, what is happening to Africa's giraffe is a lot less clear. There is a desperate need for research, and therefor a desperate need for funding. To end the experience with a six day safari, including four full days in the field at three premier game viewing destinations, was the very best kind of icing on the cake. On a personal note, I fulfilled a lifelong dream of visiting the Serengeti. While I won't remember this as my best expedition photographically, I enjoyed the challenge of shooting at a fixed focal length. I truly enjoyed the chance to share my love of wild Africa with a great group of young women.
~DM
