Hally Tours & Safari
Plan your safari

Category: Wildlife

Field notes on the animals, birds, and ecosystems of Tanzania’s parks and reserves.

  • The Great Migration river crossings: a field guide

    The Great Migration river crossings: a field guide

    A wildebeest crossing on the Mara River is part wildlife event, part theatre. Two thousand animals can mass on a bank for an hour and turn back. Then, in the space of forty seconds, the lead breaks and the entire column pours into the water.

    When and where

    The crossings happen in the northern Serengeti, mostly between Kogatende and the Kenyan border, from late July to early October. The herds zigzag across the river — sometimes two or three times in a week — chasing grass that has just been refreshed by rain on the other side. There is no fixed schedule. Guides watch the bank for “build-up” — animals collecting at the lip, drinking nervously, pacing.

    Nile crocodile partly submerged in the Mara River, eyes and ridged back above water.
    A Mara crocodile waits motionless in the shallows. Crossings can take minutes — or two hours of stalemate before the herd commits.

    How to actually see one

    Three things matter more than luck:

    1. Be in the right camp. A camp at Kogatende, Lamai, or Wogakuria puts you ten to thirty minutes from the active crossing points. A camp two hours south will arrive after the river has cleared.
    2. Stay long enough. Three nights is the minimum that gives you a fair chance. We recommend four. With one night you are gambling.
    3. Trust your guide on patience. The herd will mass, retreat, mass, retreat, and mass again. Most vehicles leave after the second retreat. The good guides stay.

    Crossing etiquette

    The Tanzanian park authority enforces clear rules — for the animals, not the photographers. Vehicles park back from the bank. Engines off. No one steps out. No one shouts. A stressed herd will not commit, and a crossing that does not happen costs a lion family that night’s meal.

    What to bring

    • A long lens — 200mm minimum, 400mm if you have it. Crossings happen across a river, not next to you.
    • A second body or a phone for wide context shots. The texture of the herd is the picture.
    • Patience and water. You may sit at a build-up for three hours.

    We design migration trips around the herd’s likely position the week of your travel — not a brochure date. See the classic 7-day route →

  • Beyond the Big Five: twelve underrated sightings

    Beyond the Big Five: twelve underrated sightings

    First-time safari-goers chase the Big Five — lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo, rhino. They should. They are extraordinary animals. But ask a guide on his fifth season what made his last week, and the answer is almost never on that list.

    The dozen we look for

    1. African wild dog — also called painted hunting dog. Pack hunter, near-perfect kill rate, almost never seen. Best chance: Nyerere/Selous and Ruaha.
    2. Serval cat — slim, leggy, gold spotted, pounces from tall grass. Crepuscular. The good guides find one a week.
    3. Caracal — even harder than serval. Tufted ears, ambush hunter. Ngorongoro and Tarangire have the best record.
    4. Aardwolf — termite-eating member of the hyena family. Mostly nocturnal. Spot one and your guide will text every guide they know.
    5. Honey badger — wildlife’s reigning lunatic. Will fight a lion. Brief sightings on night drives at conservancy lodges.
    6. Pangolin — the holy grail. Most guides go years between sightings.
    7. Bat-eared fox — pair-bonded, oversized ears, hunts beetles by sound. Common but easy to miss in the long grass.
    8. Secretary bird — three-foot-tall raptor that kills snakes on foot. Strikes in 400 milliseconds.
    9. Kori bustard — Africa’s heaviest flying bird. Look for the slow, deliberate walk in open grassland.
    10. Lilac-breasted roller — the cliché everyone underrates until they see one in flight at sunset.
    11. Klipspringer — tiny rock-dwelling antelope that walks on its toenails. Ngorongoro rim and Lobo kopjes.
    12. Striped hyena — rarer cousin of the spotted hyena, mostly nocturnal, the rarest large carnivore most guides have ever seen.
    Secretary bird mid-strike on a snake in dry grass, long legs in motion blur.
    A secretary bird mid-strike — they kill snakes by stomping. Four-hundred millisecond strikes; you blink, you miss it.

    Why this list matters

    The Big Five list was coined by hunters in the early twentieth century — it is a list of the most dangerous animals to shoot on foot. It tells you nothing about which animals are interesting, rare, or behaviourally fascinating. The species above will not feature on a postcard, but they are the ones that turn a good safari into a lifetime story.

    How to improve your odds

    • Pick the right park. Ruaha and Nyerere outperform the northern circuit on wild dog and serval.
    • Stay in conservancies that allow night drives — most national parks do not.
    • Tell your guide on day one that you care about the small stuff. They will plan the day differently.
    • Slow down. Most rare sightings come from sitting at one waterhole for an hour rather than driving past five.

    If you are on your second or third safari and want a less-trodden route, talk to us. We build slower trips for repeat travellers. Plan your safari →