My wife and I have been to Africa a lot, but in September of this year we did our first trip to Kenya to see the iconic wildebeest migration. This is an event that has to be seen to be believed; it’s as dramatic as what you’d see on television but not exactly the same. But let me get to that after talking a bit about the trip.
We booked the Kenya portion of our trip with our favorite travel company, Natural Habitat Adventures. We elected to take two nights in the Karen Blixen cottages near Nairobi, and four nights in Ol Donyo at the end. Both these were optional extensions offered by Nathab. From Kenya we went to South Africa on our own (to Isandlwana and Londolozi, one of the Sabi reserves west of Kruger). I’ll get to them in a later blog.
Kenya is very different from the other places we’ve been in Africa. It’s like South Africa in that there are cities (Nairobi is the capital and the normal point of entry), but it’s more like Zambia or Zimbabwe in that it’s not a rich or particularly well-developed country. The people are friendly and the wilds of Kenya are beautiful—rolling savannas dotted with a few trees and (at least during the migration season) filled with grazing animals. And, of course, predators.
The Nathab trip uses two camps. In our case, the first was Kicheche, located in what’s called a “conservancy” (a private reserve owned by Maasai and licensed for use, so you can drive off-road), and the second Nathab’s own camp nearer to the river in the national reserve. Both are tented camps and there’s no city power or water, so you have battery lamps and bucket showers. Kicheche was a bit nicer, and because the tents were better designed and positioned you had a bit more of a breeze. In warmer periods, the tents are hot during the day, and they’re often chilly at night. They give you hot water bottles to sleep with!
Nathab uses a variation on the traditional African vehicle. Most are open-topped or have a permanent canvas roof, but the ones Nathab use are open at the sides but have a steel roof into which there’s a large cut-out that can be covered. This arrangement lets people stand in the vehicle to shoot out of the roof cut, something that proved absolutely vital in getting the best shots. On the standard trips, Nathab also limits the vehicles to five, and we had only four in ours. We had relatively little trouble keeping out of each other’s way, which is great if you intend to take a lot of pictures.
During the migration period, there’s game scattered all over the Mara, sometimes in ones and twos or tens and twenties, but often hundreds or even thousands in a group. This is much higher game density than you’d typically find in the southern Africa countries we’ve normally visited. The predators have a decent stock of prey, and during the migration period at least they’re fit and well-fed. Lion, leopard, and cheetah can all be seen (and we saw them all). We even saw a pride kill a zebra, something that’s available on a YouTube video.
The “great migration” of the wildebeest involves well over a million animals, but don’t be misled by the numbers into thinking this is a great single stream of critters rushing for the river. The wildebeest graze, loiter around, approach the river, draw back, eat and loiter…you get the picture. Everyone won’t see a crossing of the Mara river, in fact, so it’s important to allow yourself three or four days in the Mara if you want a good shot at viewing it. The best times are from mid-August through the end of September, but rainfall in particular can impact timing.
What actually provokes a crossing is hard to say. There’s no “lead wildebeest” showing followers the path. They’re milling around looking for grazing and apparently smell grass on the far bank. They approach the water, draw back and think about it (because they don’t like crossing rivers), and most often go back to grazing. Occasionally, though, there will be enough momentum or some wildebeest will get brave, and they’ll start into the water in ones and twos. That will generally provoke others to follow, and it begins.
We heard that a large herd of wildebeest were approaching the Mara river, and so we drove on down quickly to get a position, to find a dozen vehicles already there. Plenty more arrived until the area between the favorite crossing point and another one slightly upstream was crowded with vehicles. The herd went to their favorite spot, sniffed, pawed the grass, and decided “not today, not here” and moved away and further upstream. Fortunately for us, they decided to cross at the next point, and we watched as about a thousand animals threw themselves into the water and walked or swam across.
These crossings are chaos. There are animals bellowing because crocs get the, others that bellow for no good reason other than they don’t want to be doing this, There’s splashing everywhere and it’s hard to see what’s going on at a broad level because you end up looking here or there and missing what’s in other places. We ended up seeing three different wildebeest killed by crocs and didn’t even realize we’d seen two of the three until we reviewed the pictures/videos and collected our thoughts.
If you want to photograph or video this event, be prepared to work at it. The distances can vary between perhaps thirty and a hundred and fifty yards, and often the animals will end up “bending their route” downstream as the crossing progresses, which might take them closer to you (as it did with us) or further away.
For still photographs, you’ll need something like a 400 or 500mm zoom on a full-frame or a 300-400 on an APC frame to get good shots if they happen to cross at a distance. You’ll want to zoom out for the scope of the thing, so avoid having only fixed-focal-length (“prime”) lenses only. For videos you probably want to stay with a 35mm equivalent of about 300mm, and even at that you’ll have to be careful about panning too fast or introducing a lot of camera shake. The people in the vehicle move, you move, and all that introduces jitter. Remember to hold things steady, zoom at your own risk, and don’t pan quickly especially if you’ve zoomed in.
Once it’s over, it’s over. They seem to cross in a bunch, and that uses up all the brave ones in the area so you probably won’t see another immediately. Most people we ran into from other camps on other tours didn’t see the actual crossing, so as I said don’t get all wrapped around expectations (a bad idea on wildlife trips generally).
I’ve posted a quick YouTube video of the crossing that includes both still images (slideshow) and video clips. You can view it HERE.