Creatures Of The Night...

After returning from our walk, we had a late lunch and retired to our tent for a rest. We would be leaving for our night game drive promptly at sunset, and return for a late dinner about 9 pm. It would make a for a long day, so we needed to take the rest when we could.

We mustered for the night drive at about 5:45, and sat around the firepit greeting some of the large group of new arrivals we would be sharing camp with that night. Once assembled, our group (consisting of Catherine, David, and me, a driver, an armed guard, and a guide/spotter) piled in the open vehicle and were off. It gets chilly in the bush at night, so warm clothes and blankets were requisite.

The depth of the darkness, despite the almost full moon, made it pretty hard to take photos, so I'm afraid there aren't many in this post. During a night drive, the guide wields a spotlight, scanning the bush for the reflections from the eyes of nocturnal wildlife. Special care is taken to not dwell on animals like zebra and antelope. It seems that in the past, when night drives would spot animals such as these, the predators quickly learned that a quick route to an easy meal involved following night drive vehicles.

A night drive is a bit of a roll of the dice. You always go out hoping to see drama - a leopard making a kill, a pride of lions feeding, etc. We didn't get to see these things on our night drive.

We did, however, see some of Tanzania's smaller and more elusive nocturnal wildlife, such as this chameleon who put on a slow-footed fashion show.

There are even nocturnal birds, such as the nightjar we found camped in the middle of the road.












The serval cat was a treat (although we did see them at Ndutu, but that is another story...), as was the African wild cat. The latter is an ancestor of our domestic cats, and looks much like an overgrown tabby with an attitude. Both are nocturnal and shy, so we were lucky to spot them. The star of the night, though, was an aardwolf. This nocturnal insectivore, which feeds primarily on large quantities of termites, is a close cousin of the hyena. Because of its relative scarcity, shyness, and nocturnal nature, the aardwolf is rarely encountered in the wild. This was an excellent find.

So in the end we did not get the splashy National Geographic moments we had hoped for on our night drive, but that's OK. We found some unusual and rarely seen creatures and had the opportunity to see the bush in a way few people get to experience. The National Geographic moments could wait for a few hours. First, though, a fine dinner at Oliver's Camp and some sleep after a long day. Tomorrow we would leave Tarangire for points north, and we wanted to depart as early as possible to be at the swamp at dawn...