ADVENTURE CAMPS of Tanzania

2010 Specials

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NB All Specials subject to avaialbility of rooms - and of flights, for free flights offers.
Package code must be quoted

MRH2NS_Autumn2010
2 nights BB at Mbweni Ruins Hotel Low Season Special valid from 20th Sept - 20th Dec 2010 inclusive

MRHArushaFF_2010
3 nights HB at Mbweni Ruins Hotel - get flight Arusha-Znz or Znz-Arusha free (one way) - valid from 1st June 2010 - 31st May 2011

MRHDarFF2010-2011
3 nights HB at Mbweni Ruins Hotel - get flights Znz-Dar-Znz absolutely free - valid from 1st June 2010 - 31st May 2011

Mbweni Sand & Spice Special
valid from now until 5th July 2011

 

Selous Drama – The lion, the leopard, baboons and a zebra - by Dominic Oldridge

This all happened 08.40-10.20, Sunday 20th June and occurred following my previous post: “One hour with painted hunting dogs” (see below)
Click here to see a slideshow of Dominic's photos of the lions and leopards

 

We drive away from the dog sighting, excited and chattering away about what we had experienced. I spot and shout “Lion!”
The driver and guide automatically say “No, it's Impala” after my many false calls! However, I am correct!
The sun is warming up. Having had their first feed during the early hours, one lioness drags a zebra kill into the shade of a false umbrella tree. The second lioness looks on from 20 metres away, resting in long grass, and a third older female lies some 50 metres on.
Suddenly we see movement and spots up in the tree that’s immediately above the zebra carcass and the first lioness. She’s dragged the meal directly under where one, no, two leopards must have escaped earlier, during the kill. And none of the lionesses know they are there!
The leopards look down, a large male with a smaller female. The male has had enough and takes his chances. He comes down vertically, lands softly and makes a break for it, leaving his partner to fend for herself. The lioness is too slow and all she can do is look on as he makes good his escape, avoiding all three of his enemies.
The female leopard watches her mate disappear into the distance and towards thicker bush. She’s now stuck up the tree, with two of the lions looking up at her. After a growl and snarl of defiance, she calculates whether she can move, further up into the canopy, the lion below now guarding her every move. The stalemate continues, half an hour passes, lion below, leopard above. Both look up and away to the mid-distance.
Spread out and 100 metres away, coming closer, a troupe of baboon can be seen. Heads down, they are foraging the ground for food. The big male suddenly barks an alarm, and in panic and noisy commotion, the whole troupe leap up the nearest trees. The panic subsides, they’re safe from the three lion below. It’s only then that they spot the leopard, their greatest threat. Loud, intermittent alarm barks from the adult baboon have the youngsters scurrying along the branches. The big male baboon stays watchful on the ground.
The second lion decides to stir herself and strolls up to begin feeding, looked on by the other two lions, the leopard above her and the baboons in the nearby trees. The third older lioness makes her way slowly to the zebra carcass and the two of them rub heads in greeting. The two settle down, the elder taking a turn at feeding, in the shade of the leopard tree.
This has become all too much for the leopard. The young female makes her move, descends to a lower branch, looks down at the lions and surveys her options.
She makes her escape! Plummeting vertically, she’s off and running. But the guard lion is after her, accelerating with great strides and threatening to overtake the leopard, who is sprinting for her life. The lion is huge compared with the fleeing leopard, there’s no way she’ll outrun the bigger predator. With the lion less than 5 metres behind and catching fast, the leopard bolts up another tree, barely 35 feet from the original.
Safe again, the leopard watches on as her chaser retires and the other lions continue to feed and rest by their meal. It’s clear from the scars on her face and the shortened teeth, the senior lion has had a tough life. A lost segment has given her a forked tongue. But she continues to feed on the zebra with relish.
Two and a half hours have now passed since the lion dragged the kill under the two leopards' tree. A combination of the rising heat, full bellies and maybe two days of meals left on the zebra means the lion are losing interest in the young female leopard. At last she has enough space and time to descend safely and make good her escape. She trots confidently off, following the same path as her mate towards the thicker bush.
A short while later, some distance away, can be heard the soft throaty coughing as one of the leopard calls for the other….

One hour with Painted Hunting Dogs June 2010 - by Dominic Oldridge

photo by Dominic Oldridge

This all happened 0700-0800 on Sunday 20th June. North of the Rufiji, in the Selous Game Reserve. Driving from our Selous Impala fly-camp.

We see nine dogs just waking up around the den they whelped at last year. From the fuss they're making at the den entrance, the tiny squeaks and growls coming up from the den, the Alpha Female must have had her pups that night! The dogs make off slowly, bonding as they wake. Then it's an incredible sight seeing them move off line abreast, a width of 200 metres, as they sweep the bush at a long loping trot seeking game. One shoots off, full speed, close to the ground with head, back and tail all in a perfectly straight line. The dog is after an impala. He hits it hard and before we know it, the kill has been made with another dog from the pack so quickly. A third, then fourth dog comes in for a very rapid, noisy and gorging feed.

Finally, the yearlings get their turn to demolish the impala. In less than 20 minutes there is only the skull and backbone left. It is all very precise, surgeon-like and carried out at an incredibly fast pace: from waking to finishing feeding all in an hour.
Wow, what a start to my best ever safari day!

Click here to see a slideshow of Dominic's fab photos of this Wild Dog kill

Selous Impala Camp - August 2010

Another amazing month for wildlife in Selous!

About 10 leopards have been spotted in only a couple of days by our guests out on game drives!
Very early in the morning, a couple left the camp for a game drive and met a young leopard female stopped in the middle of the road to Impala camp with a very fresh kill - as is often common with leopards, it was an impala.
Being very shy and skittish, she quickly disappeared in the thickness of the bush leaving her prey on the ground unguarded. The guide requested the driver to leave the sighting, to give the leopard a chance to enjoy her hard-earned meal. A little later another group of our guests, on their way out from the camp, saw her on a nearby jackal berry tree feeding herself.
The leopard, after the first guests left, went back to her prey and dragged it up to safety out of the reach of scavengers such as hyenas or any other threat.
In the afternoon our guides tried to look for her again but in vain, probably because of too many disturbances, she and her kill had disappeared. For sure she was still in the surrounding area, she couldn’t move her heavy kill that far. Being well hidden and camouflaged, she was probably looking at us. What an elusive creature!
Other leopards have been seen this month around this area, a pair of them by nearby Lake Mzizimia mating, mounting more than once, almost totally ignoring our car.

Read more.....

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Read an article in the New York Times about Mbweni Ruins Hotel

Read the Diary of a two week visit to our four properties set in Southern Tanzania and Zanzibar:

I am lucky enough to be designing websites and brochures for Adventure Camps of Tanzania; this means that every year I visit the three camps (two in Selous, one in Ruaha) and the hotel in Zanzibar, to take new pictures, gather updated information and so forth.

This year I was particularly eager to see if I could find the lion cubs born around Christmas which have been seen from Impala camp, and also to find out if its true that one of the guides at Lake Manze camp has seen the two little leopard cubs which were orphaned in November, alive and well.

read more....

Great photos taken by our guests

Click here to see more images by our Guests

If you have been to any of our properties and would like to share some of your photos with us, please send to info@adventurecampstz.com and we'll put them here for everyone to see!

Chris and Lucy Harris went on Safari in Tanzania in 2010

They have kindly allowed us to put their excellent diary and photos on our website.

They started in the north, continuing to the south in mid February where they stayed at Mdonya Old River Camp in Ruaha and at Selous Impala Camp

Read their diary....

Other Safari News:

Marvin and Helen Raulston stayed with us in June 2008 (right)

We have so many newsletters about African Wild Dogs that you may be interestd to read some articles about them at:

www.africanconservation.org/wilddogs

 

 

 

 

 

Short film taken by Jan Corlett of the Selous Wild Dog puppies playing - July 2009  

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