Ol’ Crooked Nose of Seronera
A lioness at dawn in the Seronera area of Serengeti National Park
A gray mist hung over the Serengeti. This was not the fiery crimson dawn I envisioned sharing with my friends this morning, but that was just fine. We’d slept in a tented camp outside of Seronera in the central part of Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. Now we were cruising in our safari jeep, moving past the iconic “megaherd” of thousands upon thousands of wildebeest and zebra. The monochromatic horizon this morning actually amplified the experience. Being surrounded by this immense number of large animals, was spine-tingling. The gray palette lent the scene a somewhat Ansel Adams-like feeling. The cold silver beards of the wildebeest swung to and fro as they effortlessly skipped and trotted, while the starkly patterned Plains Zebra snorted crankily, nipping at each other’s necks. All these ungulate animals sniffing for the next rain, restless as ever, aimless yet driven.
Erupting from the heart of these Endless Plains, in the south-central of Serengeti National Park are the famous kopjes (“kopeez”). Rocky outcroppings which rise dramatically from the otherwise flat landscape, they are recall The Lion King’s ‘Pride Rock’. The top layer of soil over most of the Serengeti is a softer volcanic ash, but the kopjes are a harder granite. Increasingly exposed with time, they offer a toehold for trees that couldn’t take hold otherwise. The kopjes not only disrupt the landscape in marvelous fashion, but also provide cover, caves, cracks and crevices where wildlife can escape the intensity of the sun, or even the occasional wildfire. Buried amid their nooks and crannies, lie many birds, reptiles and other animals. It was from their ranks we hoped to unearth fresh treasure.
Today was day four of our journey. We weren’t looking for anything in particular. We were here really to simply enjoy being in this remarkable place. Arguably the world’s top wildlife destination, its vastness and richness fill your soul. The park is a monumental gift. This was my second visit, but the first for my wife Kristin. And Kristin was amped up. Her antennae fully extended, alert and ready to soak it up, she leaned into the horizon from her seat in our jeep, like a cheetah atop a termite mound, expectant and intense.
The morning had only just begun to unfold, but the coffee we’d enjoyed at breakfast was making its presence felt. Our friend and driver, Humphrey, stopped and our group looked around, considering where we might safely make a field stop for a bush break. Over the last few days we’d seen lions suddenly materialize from the savanna. Spotted hyenas can shoot out of burrows in the ground where you’d never have guessed there was anything at all. We weighed our options, but were distracted by three hot air balloons appearing on the horizon. It felt less an intrusion on this serene scene, and more a celebration of it. The balloons fired and rose. Our view was spectacular, but for the people ascending in the balloons it must have been even more so.
My attention drifted... I was not here to watch humans. Instead I pointed my Leica binoculars towards the horizon. Here the full light-gathering clarity of my 10x42 Noctivids could be properly appreciated. Out in wide open wilderness, with gray skies and low light, the vivid acuity of my Noctivids accentuated the experience powerfully. I couldn’t imagine being without them. It was the low season for tourism, but none of the wildlife seemed to recognize this or care. We marveled at the numbers and diversity of breeding plumage birds, the active migration of the mega-herd, and the obvious activity of the many predators. As I took in the scene with my Leicas, I considered how, of the relatively few people we’d seen, nearly half of them didn’t even carry a binocular at all. How and why was beyond me. With our Leicas, Kristin and I had the capacity to see so much more, and to see it well. And we were. Scanning the surroundings, seeking animals, and searching the horizon with our binoculars we’d observed all the big charismatic megafauna species, but we’d also found so many tiny treasures. We had spotted several Chameleons, precious Purple Grenadiers, odd and wondrous Usambiro Barbets, purple and magenta Flat-headed agamas, and so much more.The binocular-less folks we’d crossed paths with would never know a fraction of these amazing beasts. I felt sad for them, and a little disappointed in them too. Lions and elephants are incredible, sure… but they live among so many other amazing animals. You need only to be slightly curious and willing to look.
Standing on my internal (perhaps judgmental) soapbox, pontificating only to myself, I began to feel a little hypocritical. Here we were staring at hot air balloons in the marvelous, legendary Serengeti. As the minutes drifted, so had we, becoming momentarily myopic. “Hey, can we go check that kopje over there?”, I asked. I knew our gang was of a similar mind, and thought surely, we can take a bathroom break over there. No one objected and I even detected some nods that I took as affirmations that this was an idea of some merit. Humphrey wheeled us across the plains, and finally we were at the foot of a marvelous kopje. It rose higher the closer we got.
We rounded the back of the kopje and immediately all simultaneously saw a large sleepy-looking lioness sprawled across the granite, wonderfully fat and happy. The sluggish but rising sun warmed her belly, and she rolled and stretched. Humphrey pulled up further to give us a different angle with warmer light on the lion. After a few minutes, I began to use my Noctivids to scan the creased and cracked faces of the kopje. Prominent as she was, I thought, we were probably not the only ones admiring this cat.
There’s an old saying: “Aim small, miss small.” Whether golf, riflery or wildlife spotting, it holds true. Look for little things and you’ll see big ones. One of the wonders of birding is that in your pursuit of searching for smaller animals, you end up seeing the big ones too. That’s part of the genius of birding, it’s the ultimate in treasure-hunting. So with this in mind, I put my 10x42s to work. I peered into the cracks and crevices of the rocky face. I toggled my focus from the grassy surrounds to the trees and rocks, searching and seeking, and suddenly I saw five little faces, all in a row, staring intensely right out towards us.
Rock Hyraxes, looking concerned
Rock Hyraxes look like plump, marmot sized rodents, but they actually are more closely related to elephants. They look nothing like the latter, but this demonstrates how distinct they are from anything any of us know from the North American continent. They are undeniably cute. Yet these individual animals were wide-eyed and concerned. Typically hyraxes appear super casual and relaxed, all stretched out, lying around, and often even piled up on top of each other, lumpy and lethargic. I quickly pointed these guys out to our group, as we’d hardly seen any so far this trip.
“Look at these hyraxes, all lined up over here.” It was hard to make anyone turn away from a lion, but Kristin heard that there was something different in my voice. My intonation raised a flag. I kept my eyes trained on them, and could hear her adjust her position in her seat, rotate, and raise her 7x42 ultravids. Though slightly less powerful, her Leicas had a wider angle and perhaps even greater light-gathering capacity. I expected to hear her delight in the cuteness of the hyraxes, but instead she deadpanned, “Well, there’s a leopard.”
Silence… With a collective nearly imperceptible gasp, we all looked at her. Was she serious? This was what we’d been hoping for, and for several days, but at this point we had refrained from even mentioning the animal by name for fear of offending the grace of the wildlife gods. Kristin was not joking. She was holding a fixed position with her Ultravids, unwaveringly. The rest of us began to look and after some searching, we saw what she saw. Below the mass of the kopje was a smaller outcropping of rocks, where the hyraxes were lined up. That outcropping was surrounded by straw-colored grass and peering out of that you could make out a head. It was a big cat head, and it was attached to a straw-yellow cat body, and dappled with lovely black rosettes. A leopard indeed, nicely nestled in, and a hell of a spot by Kristin.
Humphrey guided the jeep closer until we had a narrow window through the grasses and were facing the magnificent cat head-on, unobscured. If the hyrax seemed concerned, we now understood exactly why. The leopard, for his part, looked carefree and a little sleepy, as though it had had a full night on the prowl, but had been resting here for a while now. The detailed view now through our optics was stunning. Close views of the golden yellow eyes tore a hole in your soul. Using the binoculars we could tell this was an older male, perhaps 7-9 years old. We could see that folds of skin hung loosely around his neck, and his ears were tattered. He’d been through some scrapes and seen his share of rough business, probably given as good as he’d gotten, and had the scars to prove it. In particular he had a scratch across the top of his nose, perhaps from an encounter with another leopard or a lion. It looked like a wound mostly healed, though perhaps only a couple weeks old. It gave the whole nose a slightly crooked appearance. Despite some obvious wear-and-tear, “Ol’ Crooked Nose”, as I took to calling him in the weeks that came, seemed to have a moderately full belly, and seemed unstressed otherwise. He was a spectacularly beautiful animal. We could not believe our good fortune, and we’d forgotten all about the bush stop.
There was not another human in sight, but we frantically tried to hail the other jeep in our party that was transporting some other friends of ours. We wante them to enjoy this animal with us, but the radios were being temperamental. We settled into silence to watch and listen, and absorb and commune with this magnificent feline. After some time, he raised his head higher, then sat up on his haunches. We murmured to each other in awe. Ol’ Crooked Nose picked up and began to stride. He moved with a fluidity that only a cat can achieve. Shoulders, hips, and neck all commanding, striding with purpose and insurmountable confidence. He walked around behind the kopje, and we moved too, driving in the opposite direction, circling around the kopje, hoping to see him on the other side and also trying to reach our friends in the other jeep again. As we rounded the kopje we saw the other jeep, and then they saw us. We watched them as they realized what we were looking at, and their body language changed. Their eyes widened. We met their gaze with smiles that simply said, “can you believe this?”
We stationed ourselves out in the grassy savanna to watch the leopard walk out from the kopje and now he was coming towards us. Soon he was just a car length away. I actually caught his eye and felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I am a lifelong birder, but there is nothing like a wild cat, especially a big one, and leopard is my favorite of all. We watched Ol’ Crooked Nose stroll out into the savanna, on the move on, heading god knows where.
Nature smiles on us always, but sometimes it washes over you like a tidal wave. Sometimes it strips you down to nothing and reminds you how small you are. Knowing that this cat lived here for years, and that he’d had a hard life, fighting and clawing and scratching his way to a life on these endless plains… it makes you grateful in more ways than one. Just knowing that he was here, living his life and that this kind of animal can still exist in this world, is humbling and hopeful. Kristin was beaming. We all celebrated.
I thought that would be it for me and Ol’ Crooked Nose. After we watched him disappear into the savanna, the tip of his tail waved good bye to us and I assumed that was that. But as luck would have it, I returned two weeks later with a Hillstar Nature tour group. I sincerely hoped our group would have a chance to see a Leopard, but you just never know. You must work hard and you need good luck. You need exceptional luck to see one well. Our luck was exceptional on the tour. Again we had two jeeps and I was in the rear jeep with Humphrey driving again, when we suddenly heard the crackle of the radio. The front jeep had something. We couldn’t understand what they had but we could hear that they were extremely excited. We sped up to catch up, and as we climbed over a small rise in the plains we found our colleagues trained in on a leopard. Another beautiful animal it was standing in the savanna grassland, pointing its nose into the wind, sniffing at something, interpreting signs we could only guess at. Gradually it turned towards us, revealing a scar across the bridge of its slightly crooked nose. Humphrey and I looked at each other, at once knowing what the other was seeing. We were more than a dozen miles and a dozen days from our last meeting, but here he was again.
We watched him sniff the air. Soon he grew tired in the heat and ascended a big shade tree. Tucked inside the canopy he dropped his two front paws and a back leg off a big branch. He rested his chin. Ol’ Crooked Nose was ready for a rest.