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 Serengeti
is easily Tanzania’s most famous national park, and it’s also
the largest, at 14,763 sq.kms of protected area that borders
Kenya’s Maasai Mara Game Park. Its far-reaching plains of
endless grass, tinged with the twisted shadows of acacia trees,
have made it the quintessential image of a wild and untarnished
Africa. Its large stone kopjes are home to rich ecosystems, and
the sheer magnitude and scale of life that the plains support is
staggering. Large prides of lions laze easily in the long
grasses, plentiful families of elephants feed on acacia bark and
trump to each other across the plains, and giraffes, gazelles,
monkeys, eland, and the whole range of African wildlife is in
awe-inspiring numbers.
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 The
annual wildebeest migration through the Serengeti and the Maasai
Mara attract visitors from around the world, who flock to the
open plains to witness the largest mass movement of land mammals
on the planet. More than a million animals make the seasonal
journey to fresh pasture to the north, then the south, after the
biannual rains. The sound of their thundering hooves, raising
massive clouds of thick red dust, has become one of the legends
of the Serengeti plains. The entire ecosystem thrives from the
annual migration, from the lions and birds of prey that gorge
themselves on the weak and the faltering to the gamut of hungry
crocodiles that lie in patient wait at each river crossing for
their annual feed.
 But
it’s not just the wildebeest who use the Serengeti as a
migratory pathway. The adjacent reserves of Maswa and Ikorongo,
the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and the Maasai Mara Game
Reserve in Kenya all allow the animals and birds of the area a
free range of movement to follow their seasonal migrations.
Indeed, in the wake of the wildebeest migration, many of the
less attention-grabbing features of the Serengeti are often
overlooked. The park has varied zones in which each ecosystem is
subtly different . Seronera in the centre of the park is the
most popular and most easily visited area. The Grumeti River in
the Western Corridor is the location for the dramatic river
crossing during the wildebeest migration. Maswa Game Reserve to
the south offers a remote part of the park rewarding in its
game-viewing and privacy, and Lobo near the Kenyan border offers
a change to see plentiful game during the dry season.
 Probably
the most famous National Park in Africa, the Serengeti is a huge
tract of grassland that has been the location of countless
wildlife documentaries. The landscape is predominantly grassy
plains, with occasional rocky outcrops and acacia woodland. The
sheer number of plains animals attracts all types of predator,
and the park is home to the ‘Big Five’. A visit here is an
amazing experience at any time as the landscape is wonderful and
there are always resident herds in the park, though the seasons
do have a strong influence on your experience. |
Best time to visit: For wildlife viewing the park is best
visited between about November/December and May. Calving takes
place around January/February. In the dry season many animals
migrate to the Maasai Mara in Kenya. The migration begins around
May/June, and by the end of August most animals are either in
the north of the park or in the Mara. They return to southern
plains, leaving Kenya in mid-September to arrive in the
Serengeti in great numbers by November, following the rainfall
patterns to get to the freshest grass. The migration is one of
the natural worlds greatest.
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