Snapshot Serengeti Talk

How many participants have been to the Serengeti?

  • stevage by stevage

    One of the things I've really enjoyed about classifying photos here is reminiscing over a 4 day safari I did a year or two ago. So many of the photos bring back memories: the gorgeous skies, herds of wildebeest, giraffes wandering about, lions flat out...and trying to learn the different kinds of antelope.

    Just curious if that's the same for many other people - or people aspiring to go? It's probably the most amazing "passive" thing I've ever done - I was completely blown away by how much wildlife there was, and how easy it was to see. (Compared to, say, Australia, where most of the fauna is nocturnal, tiny, and hides in dense forest...😃)

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  • davidbygott by davidbygott moderator

    Isn't it one of the finest places on earth? I've been going there since '69, worked on the lions '74-78, and have guided one or more safari groups there every year since then. I'll be back there in 2 weeks. It never gets old. It feels like home, and in a sense it IS home, because mankind's early evolution was right there. (Olduvai Gorge runs across the Serengeti Plain, and its fossils include many species that are now familiar to you).
    And yet I have to say, you're seeing stuff in this project that I never saw in all those years - amazingly intimate views even of rare animals. Well, okay, I saw some different stuff. But once in a while my jaw just hits the keyboard - whoa,what a capture!!

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  • maxnorton by maxnorton

    I'd love to go. Never been to Africa before

    What would you say is the best way to do it? I'm lucky in that my job allows me to take allows me to take quite long holidays (up to 4 weeks at a time) so I prefer to do extended budget trips where I buy a flight and book accommodation etc. locally.

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  • davidbygott by davidbygott moderator

    Max, google me, look at the first 2 entries and we can chat off-forum.

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  • dms246 by dms246 moderator

    I've never been, and health and finance mean I probably never will, but all my life I've been fascinated by the natural world. So this project is a wonderful chance to see things I would otherwise be unlikely to see (even if it is through the medium of the camera lens), and to see aspects of these creatures day to day lives that even if I did visit Serengeti, I'd probably still be unlikely to see! It's amazing how much of a sense of the place is conveyed through photographs that are not carefully composed or the result of days and days of patiently waiting for the "right" photograph, but simply the result of cameras positioned in places where animals are likely to visit or pass by, and triggered by something moving in front of the camera. Some of the resulting photographs are utterly breathtaking, and most of the rest are utterly fascinating.

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  • tirralirra by tirralirra

    I was there just recently - Oct-Nov. It was my first trip and we went to Tanzania to visit a school we support - School of St Jude in Arusha.

    The national parks, especially Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater, are wonderful. We lived in a state of constant amazement because this is exactly the landscape where humans evolved. Olduvai Gorge has a small visitor centre that was very well presented. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area.

    The most amazing thing for me is that all the animals we saw are deeply connected with human evolution and history. There's a personal connection because we, like all humans, are direct blood line descent from the early humans who lived in this area.

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  • davidbygott by davidbygott moderator in response to tirralirra's comment.

    And maybe that's why the big animals are still here. They have always known us, and how to survive around us. Most of the other megafauna in other lands to which we spread, weren't wise to us, and quickly became history!

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  • tirralirra by tirralirra

    Yes, David, that was often in our thoughts. Along with the recognition that humans are the world's top predator. And the recognition that it's almost certain that most of the animals of the Serengeti area would have been wiped out by now if it wasn't for the conservation efforts of the past 60 years.

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  • cryptoref by cryptoref

    I was there last year. Well the top part in the Masa Mara, but it's all connected. Could not believe the "wildness" of Africa. The sheer number of animals that you see. Like everyone else the first Thompson that i saw got a bunch of shots, same with the Zebra. An hour later i took one shot per gazelle or zebra. After that they had to be doing something special, stampede, being eaten by lion, etc. The thing that struck me the most was everyone always says that elephants are destructive, and i just didn't get it till i watched three teenagers play in a little grove of trees. Trees were flat when they left, they pulled up some, knocked down the rest. It was an amazing display. Upsetting the leopard and having him charge towards the car for a few steps was also a bit of an eye opener. I'd love to go back.

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  • simba1 by simba1

    Have always had a love of the natural world... been a life-long dream to get to one of the 3 A's(Africa, Alaska, or Australia). Who knows... maybe one day .

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