African Safari – Ngorongoro Crater – Exploring the crater floor

African Safari – Ngorongoro Crater – Exploring the crater floor

We survived the tricky driving down the side of the crater walls and found ourselves on a rather flat piece of the earth with wildebeest and zebra being the predominate species and some smaller goupings of gazelles. Some more interesting species of birds and a lion or two rounded out our tour of the crater floor.

Crowned Crane (Balearica regulorum)

A bit of elevated vantage point looking through a wooded area provided us with a glimpse of a black rhino in the distance and then a chance to watch a bull elephant with huge tusks wander past our small opening in the woods.

The Kori Bustard was this day’s most interesting bird but there were many others, the i.d.’s of many of which I still need to work on.

Kori Bustard (Ardeotis kori)

Our driver took us to a couple of wetter areas of the Ngorongoro Crater floor. At one location, the highlight was a couple of hyenas were arguing with each other with wildebeeste and zebras watching them carefully and at the other location, hippos shared the water and mud with many wading birds.

Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) and Yellow-billed Egret (Egreta intermedia)

Black-headed Heron (Ardea melanocephala) May have a better shot of the Black-headed Heron but haven’t found it yet

Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus)

I.d. not known

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