A very mini crossing
Given the fact I have never witnessed the migration in the Masai Mara, it may seem like an odd topic for a blog post. In actual fact, I don’t imagine I shall ever witness the spectacle, but that is purely a personal decision.
There is much information available online about the migration and many documentaries about it have been screened. My purpose here is to give a quick flavour of what it can be like to anyone who may be interested to go to see it, but also for those who may never be fortunate enough to go.
The main season for the crossings of the Mara River are in July, August and September, the dry season. This is when around 1.5 million Wildebeest and many hundred thousand Zebra move from the Serengeti into the Masai Mara in search of food and water. Unsurprisingly, this also coincides with a huge influx of visitors.
Obviously, our visit in November put us outside of that migration window, but the fact is, there are crossings taking place all year. It’s just that the number of animals involved is much reduced. We were fortunate to see a mini crossing that probably numbered between 500 – 1000 animals, as well as two aborted crossings.
However, these two failures were perhaps just as fascinating as the successful one, if for no other reason than they gave us time to learn about how the process is meant to work.
Around the middle of our stay we were beside the Mara River looking for a pride of Lions that frequent the area. As we looked around, we came to a well-known crossing point and saw a herd (confusion) of Wildebeest in company with an equally sized herd (dazzle, cohort, zeal - take your pick) of zebra. There were probably around a thousand animals in the group. It was the events of the next couple of hours that was to prove so fascinating.
Given the popularity of the spot as a crossing, it wasn’t surprising to see a number of crocodiles on the bank and some in the water. In fact numbers increased while we were there. As we watched, two or three Wildebeest ventured towards the waters edge, but did not look confident. As they did so, all of the members of both herds followed suit. Suddenly the leaders turned around and headed back to the safety of the ground above the bank and as they did so, all the others turned-tail.
It appeared to confuse things somewhat and both Wildebeest and Zebra stood around as if to discuss the next plan. After a while, half a dozen Zebra approached the waters edge further upstream, where there seemed to be no crocodile present. We were hopeful this might at last allow us to witness a decent crossing, but again we were disappointed.
That was to be how the whole experience played out. Four different spots were tried and none proved suitable. We ran out of time finally and had to leave them to it, but they must have got across at some stage as on our next visit to the site, they had all crossed and gone.
I questioned our guide about this behaviour and the apparent lack of leadership in either herd. Indeed I was also interested in the fact that either a Zebra or a Wildebeest could be first into the water. The answer appears to be that it comes down to the bravery (or perhaps stupidity) of the first animal to reach the water, but once one has started to cross, the rest all follow without question.
In all of this activity the one thing that did occur to me is that the collective name for a herd of Wildebeest is particularly apt.
