Kenya and Tanzania -- Oct 2012 -- Part III of III

Masia Mara National Park.

This is the first photo from the afternoon game run. I did not take many (still) photos of wildebeests on this game drive (and those which are shown here are out of sequence). This was partly because, by this time, I could see the futility of trying to capture the incredible number of them in a photo -- there were wildebeests as far as the eye could see, in every direction. Instead, I tried to capture them using the video recording capability of my digital camera. That didn't do a very good job of capturing them either. However, I may someday (later) try to put some of that video on this site.

We were there during the migration. The wildebeests were starting a trek back into Tanzania to be in the southern part of the Serengeti when that area greened up when the rainy season started.

I had trouble figuing exactly where they were going with this migration. I THINK I figured it out after I got home.

The migration does not seem to really be evident except for when they cross the Mara River. Generally, they seem to be just milling around, not seeming to move in any particular directions with any purpose.

I suspect that if you had some kind of radio transmitter on a particular wildebeest, you would find that it might have moved,say, 4 miles closer to Tanzania during the course of a week. However, it probalby would have walked perhaps 35 miles in all -- in more-or-less random directions -- during that same week.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that even for Mara River crossing, a few of them might cross back (thus having to cross the river three times in all to compete the migration).