Safari - Travel to Ndutu

 We immediately hit the road after our Balloon ride.

A saddle billed stork.

Hippopotami

A pair of ostriches

We saw flamingoes at Lake Natron, but I had no camera for that excursion.  Fortunately, I got this second opportunity.

Just before arriving to camp, we encountered this family of Helmeted Guinea Fowl

What a trip!

Ballooning over the Serengeti

 One of the highlights of this journey was ballooning over the Serengeti.  I booked this beforehand as I knew that a balloon ride in general was on my wife's bucket list, and I couldn't think of a better place to do it.  The lenses I brought were specifically to capture the elements of this momentous occasion, and yet, our driver failed to give me my lens bag before we took off.  So, I was stuck with my 12mm lens for the occasion.  It gave some interesting wide angle shots.

We had to get up at 3:30am to make it in time to the launch site and see sunrise.

After the balloon ride, we had lunch and found this close relative of the elephant, a rock hyrax

A final video of our balloon ride.

Ikoma

 From Masai Boma, we had a travel day to Ikoma.

Caught a picture of a secretary bird.

A leopard tortoise.

More lions

Here is a Rufous Naped Lark

And a Pale Chanting Goshawk.

The next day we spotted a big herd of Cape Buffalo

We didn't see a lot of Nile Crocodile, but we did find a couple.

The lesser striped swallow

A three banded plover

A close-up

A white-headed vulture in flight

Not our most prolific safari, but some good finds.

Lake Natron and Masai Boma

 Natron

We spent a couple of days here.  It got warm enough that they put portable air conditioning units in the bungalows.  I didn't get a lot of pictures because there wasn't much of a Safari element to this part of the trip.  The "Mountain of God" dominated the land scape.  This is an active volcano.  It last erupted in 2007.  Our guide for a waterfall and lake hike had lived during those times and talked about how they offer hikes at night to the top of the mountain.  I took a pass on that.

The little pathways between bungalows.

Masai Boma

In contrast to  Lake Natron, we got a lot of imagery on Safari at Poeleti Game Reserve.  Lets start with the Leopard.

    

His kill...

Some video

Wildebeest eating

A crowned Lapwing

Cheetahs at the kill, a mother with her 5 almost grown cubs.

As soon as the Cheetahs left the kill, the Vultures and a couple of Jackals came in for their share.  There was some squabbling.

Some elephants socializing.

Topi

An African Gray Flycatcher

Jackal den with a cute puppy who barely peeked out for a split second.

Red-billed Ox-pecker

Three vultures and a Giraffe.

Hippo skull

And the ubiquitous zebra

Lake Manyara

 On this leg of our journey we drove along a lakeside.  We didn't see as much.  I'll start with this Black-winged Red Bishop.

More baboons - a lot of grooming was happening, but I didn't catch as much of it as I would have liked.

An African honey bee.

A Yellow-Billed Stork

A water fall

A Hawk Eagle

Hadada Ibis and Sacred Ibis hanging out together.

Lake Manyara itself

More elephants, but nothing new, so I'll leave out the pictures.

Tarangire

 We started our day with Vervet Monkeys.

Then the Lilac-Breasted Roller

D'arnaud's Barbet - not a great picture, but the only one I got.

A lone Red-billed Hornbill chilling with some Superb Starlings.  The starlings had to be one of the most common birds we saw in Tanzania.

A speckled mouse bird - again, not a great picture, but it was a fairly elusive bird.

A white crowned shrike.

The bare-faced go-away bird.

Hanging out in the Acacia tree - one looks a little hen-pecked.

Von Der Decken's hornbill

White headed buffalo weaver.  There were a lot of buffalo weavers

A Cape buffalo with, if you look closely, ox peckers.

We saw a leopard, but I did not get a good picture.  I have a better one from Masai Boma that I will share later.

The Tarangire river.

A nice overview of the region.

A good close-up of this Vervet monkey during our lunch break.

Tawny Eagles

A Steppe Eagle

Lions in a tree.

A yellow-necked spur fowl

Waterbucks

And the ubiquitous Impala

The only video worth sharing, notice the baby elephant in the far left.