What's happening at Ndutu?
January 2005
The wildebeest have arrived! They came just in time for Christmas and over a million of them with hundreds of thousands of zebra make it the greatest wildlife spectacle on the planet.
At times they passed right through the Lodge itself. One evening a
herd of wildebeest came galloping through and they seemed to go on
forever. I tried to count them although I soon gave up, as there were
thousands. Once the last animal had past, quiet again returned to the
woodlands leaving only the pleasant smell of crushed grass and the
faint aroma of animals and the feeling we had witnessed something
very special.
Over the Christmas period friends from the Serengeti Research
Institute visited. They had been working on the Tanzania carnivore
census and had been using camera traps in remote forest areas of
Tanzania. We thought that it would be fun to put a camera up at the
Lodge one night. After much debate and adjusting we finally put it up
a short distance from the last room. We left to enjoy an evening by
the camp-fire, wondering what weird and wonderful creatures might be
prowling around the lodge in the dead of night? 
So it was with much
excitement that we down loaded the pictures onto a laptop the
following morning. We made one drastic error! We had forgot to tell
the Night watchmen about our plan. Askaris as they are known in East
Africa, are on duty to escort guests back to their rooms if lions or
elephants are close by. With modern digital technology it took
pictures of some very curious men with torches creeping up to this
strange box, which flashed light at them. Every hour during the night
we got some great pictures of their feet. When we explained what we
had done the following morning, we all roared with laughter.
We tried again the next night, hoping for better luck. And we weren't
disappointed. We had some beautiful pictures of a white-tailed
mongoose and then something that made our day, a striped hyena, which
stayed for ages and posed beautifully for the camera.
After working
for 35 years as a cook in Ndutu Safari Lodge, Mzee John has decided to retire, so he can spend more time with his family. It
was an evening of mixed emotions at John's retirement party recently.
Happy because the entire Ndutu staff were there to wish him good luck
but sad to be losing such a nice person. Family members from his home
near Kilimanjaro came to Ndutu for the party, and after three hours
of speeches we sat down to a huge pilau dinner. Each department,
waiters, room stewards and of course kitchen staff competed to give
John ever bigger good-bye presents. John is personally responsible
for much weight gain amongst guests and certainly the managers at
Ndutu! His departure will certainly leave a void in everyone's life,
as he was without doubt the nicest person to work with. It's not
possible to just walk away from such a big part of your life and John
has asked to come back time-to-time to help out and to catch up with
old friends, so hopefully we'll still see John once in a while.
Mzee John and Wilbrod (head chef)
We enjoyed breakfast this morning while watching a group of
hartebeest gambolling around in front of the dining room. 
They were
later joined by some zebra, which made for an idyllic scene. DT, the
notorious bull elephant has visited many times recently. Walking
right up to the small birdbath in front of the dining room one
morning, which caused quite a stir. Too good of a photographic
opportunity to miss, one guest ran back to his room to collect a
camera, but only to discover the elephant standing right outside the
door. He was effectively trapped in his room for a short while until
the elephant had eaten a particularly tasty bush on the path.
The Tanzania wet land bird count got under way this month. Birding
experts from around the world came to Tanzania to help local birders
count wetland birds. 
I was pleased to hear that two Norwegian birders
were being sent to Ndutu to help with the count. The two soda lakes
at Ndutu are very important bird habitat. Although we try to record
all species each month for the Tanzanian bird atlas project, the idea
of having to count thousands of turns and little stints sounded
beyond me, so the help was much appreciated. We counted to the
backdrop of thousands of wildebeest and fried in the hot sun,
especially the Norwegians who hadn't seen much daylight in the
Northern winter. There were very few flamingos present at the time,
only 300 or so but huge numbers of white black-winged terns and some
gull-billed terns and over a thousand black-winged stilts on lake
Masek.
Also four new birds have been added to the Ndutu bird list this Month. The best for me was the collared palm thrush, which must have been blow off course during one of the recent storms. Normally you have to do a lot of rubber necking to catch a glimpse of a new bird but not this one, it's very tame and walks in and out of the gift shop. Others include little bitten, lesser honey guide and white rumped swift.
Visitors to
Ndutu this past month could not have been disappointed by the profusion of wildlife present at this time of year. Over looking
the causeway between the two Lakes the other evening we saw zebra, wildebeest, giraffes, impala, elephants and lions all
in one view. A lioness even tried to hunt, although unsuccessful, she caused
pandemonium and sent animals running in all directions except for a
large bull giraffe. He looked rather confused, and while everything
else ran by in clouds of dust and panic he just watched on. Once
quiet had returned he was the only animal left from the hundreds that
had been there moments earlier, he then continued to feed from the
bush he was eating. I thought he had great composure but of course he
might have just been a bit dim?
Paul,
Ndutu Safari Lodge,
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