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The Serengeti is probably the most famous of all the African wildlife areas. This is a plain-dwellers’ stronghold of some 5,678 square miles and it can rightly stake its claim as being host to the finest wildlife in the whole of Africa. To the Maasai, who have grazed their cattle on the vast grassy plains for over a thousand years, it is known as Siringitu; ’the place where the land moves on forever’ and it truly is a place of eternal wonderment.
Two World Heritage Sites and two Biosphere Reserves have been established within the Serengeti region, with its unique ecosystem being a source of inspiration for writers, filmmakers and numerous photographers and scientists. The ecosystem is one of the oldest on earth with the features of climate, vegetation and fauna barely changing in the past million years.
Here you will find an amazingly varied collection of terrestrial wildlife including the ’big five’ in addition to another thirty different species of big mammals. It is also famous for its rocky outcrops or kopjes and its lion, leopard, cheetah and hyena sightings. The Park features a number of seasonal rivers where Africa’s largest crocodiles are to be found. Birdlife in the Serengeti is prolific, with yellow throated sandgrouse, ostrich, secretary bird, crowned plover and Kori bustard being frequently seen.
The Serengeti region encompasses the Serengeti National Park itself, the Selous Game Reserve, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Maswa Game Reserve, the Loliondo, Grumeti and Ikorongo Areas and the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya.
It is the ’Great Migration’ that has perhaps given the Serengeti its place on the world wildlife stage - over one and a half million wildebeest accompanied by several hundred thousand zebra and antelope flow south from the northern hills to the southern plains for the short rains in October and November then swirl west and north after the long rains in April, May and June. Their epic journey takes them through a variety of parks, reserves and protected areas where strategically placed safari camps and lodges allow visitors a perfect viewing point to observe the mass exodus at close quarters - with certain camps offering ’mobile camping’ where you move with the massed herds allowing the amazing experience of viewing ’on the fly’.
