Day after day of cloudless
skies.
The fierce sun sucks the
moisture from the landscape, baking the earth a dusty
red, the withered grass as brittle as straw. The
Tarangire River has shrivelled to a shadow of its wet
season self. But it is choked with wildlife. Thirsty
nomads have wandered hundreds of parched kilometres
knowing that here, always, there is water.
Herds of up to 300
elephants scratch the dry river bed for underground
streams, while migratory wildebeest, zebra, buffalo,
impala, gazelle, hartebeest and eland crowd the
shrinking lagoons. It's the greatest concentration of
wildlife outside the Serengeti ecosystem - a smorgasbord
for predators – and the one place in Tanzania where
dry-country antelope such as the stately fringe-eared
oryx and peculiar long-necked gerenuk are regularly
observed.
During the rainy season,
the seasonal visitors scatter over a 20,000 sq km
(12,500 sq miles) range until they exhaust the green
plains and the river calls once more. But Tarangire's
mobs of elephant are easily encountered, wet or dry.
The swamps, tinged green year round, are the focus for
550 bird varieties, the most breeding species in one
habitat anywhere in the world.
On drier ground you find
the Kori bustard, the heaviest flying bird; the
stocking-thighed ostrich, the world's largest bird; and
small parties of ground hornbills blustering like
turkeys.
More ardent bird-lovers
might keep an eye open for screeching flocks of the
dazzlingly colourful yellow-collared lovebird, and the
somewhat drabber rufous-tailed weaver and ashy starling
– all endemic to the dry savannah of north-central
Tanzania.
Disused termite mounds are
often frequented by colonies of the endearing dwarf
mongoose, and pairs of red-and-yellow barbet, which draw
attention to themselves by their loud, clockwork-like
duetting.
Tarangire's pythons climb
trees, as do its lions and leopards, lounging in the
branches where the fruit of the sausage tree disguises
the twitch of a tail.
