February 18, 2011
Wildebeest Birth in the Serengeti, Tanzania

The thirteenth day of my safari in Tanzania, and the sixth in the southern Serengeti, was another good day.

First thing in the morning, we headed out to where we expected to find The Migration, and they weren't there. So, we drove through the forest to where we had seen them yesterday, and finally saw them. Our objective was to find a wildebeest mother giving birth, and I thought we were too late because we saw one calf that had been born already that morning, and usually the females drop their calves around the same time. While photographing some young calves and their mothers, one of my clients said, "That looks odd." I quickly scanned the females that were near us, and sure enough, one was giving birth — her calf's hooves were sticking out of her! That was around 8:45. We followed her, and she gave birth at 9:08. Within two minutes, the calf tried to stand, and had mastered that by four minutes. It was able to walk within five minutes, and was running within eight minutes. It was a fantastic way to start our last full day on safari in Tanzania!

We reluctantly left "our baby" and went looking for other subjects. We found a lion cub up in a tree, and while getting in position to photograph it, we saw that the lioness and the three cubs there had been eating a wildebeest kill. While waiting for the cub in the tree, I saw a baby wildebeest approaching the lions. It was probably looking for its mother, and then the lioness saw the wildebeest calf. The calf kept coming, and then the lioness sprang into action and took down the calf. Unfortunately, the take-down occurred behind some brush and we weren't able to photograph it. The lioness didn't kill the calf but only stunned it, then brought it over towards the small cubs to give them a training lesson. It was sad to watch this right after watching another wildebeest being born, but that's the cycle of life for the wildebeest.

At the end of the, we found another lioness with three really young cubs. The cubs were quite playful and they were having a ball with the baby zebra that the lioness had killed for them.

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