Ngorongoro

 The capstone of our visit was the Ngorongoro crater safari.

On our way to the crater from Ndutu, I got this picture and the Oldovai gorge rest stop.

Pulled out the wide angle lens for this shot.

The view down into the crater.  Notice the Euphorb in the lower right.  Cacti are native to the Americas and Africa has its own version of drought adapted succulents.

We saw a lot of the same ole animals, but here is a bad picture of an Augur Buzzard

Cormorants - don't ask me which ones.

The Great White Pelican with some Flamingoes in the background.

The lesser Flamingo

A gray headed gull

The Buff-headed Bustard

The Blue-billed teal

A Cape Buffalo with a Cattle Egret

The Common Eland

Zebra

Another Kori Bustard

Crowned Crane

Storks and Pelicans hanging out together

Hippos out of the water and far away, and some Tomson's Gazelle

Hippos in the water near where we ate lunch.

A Rufous tailed Weaver

The elusive and far away Black Rhino

The Videos

Flamingoes feeding

Cape Buffalos and Cattle Egret

Elands

Baby Baboon catches a ride

Pelican feeding

Hippos submerging

Two days in Ngorongoro and that was it for Africa 2026.

Ndutu

 This encampment was so far off the beaten path that our driver got lost trying to get back there after our safari.

We start with  another gnarly Hyena.

A common Eland

Many Giraffe 

The Red billed Quelea - the most populous bird in the world at 1.5 billion!

At a rest stop we encountered a whole slew of birds drinking from a leaking water reserve.  

The blue-capped Codon Bleu

The Southern masked weaver

The white bellied canary

Hildebrandt's starling

A chestnut sparrow

We left that water hole for a bigger one and found this Pied Avocet.

The greater flamingo

The Cape Teal

The Spur winged Lapwing - sound redundant.

The Southern Red Bishop

Another Tawny Eagle

And a secretary bird

This black-headed heron was just posing for a picture.

This black Crake.  I wish I had a better picture.

The Black Bellied Bustard

And in the same field, Kori Bustard.  I guess Bustards stick together.

At the end of our drive we caught this lion napping.

The videos

Flamingoes out for a walk

Pied Avocet feeding

I got a couple of videos of Impalas sparring.

A good day!