Every year wildebeest, zebra, and some gazelles travel in a big circle through the Serengeti (and also go up into a different park in Kenya during one phase of their journey). This year the animals were in the western part of the Serengeti in May, which is just when we happened to be there, too! They say there are about 1.5 million wildebeests in the park, and it seems like we saw about 1.4 million of them during our two-day safari. We came across a lot of herds of them, and you can see from these pictures just how big those herds can be!
The zebra travel with the wildebeest, but stay just a little bit separate. I wonder if they feel that they are standing out in a crowd? Not all zebra migrate, but I'm not sure what causes some to do so and some to stay home. Anyway, our guide said that the zebra hear well and the wildebeest smell well, so they are good fellow-travelers, because they can warn each other of danger.
Although our vehicle was on its own driving around for most of the two days, sometimes the wildebeest created a bit of a roadblock and we caught up to other vehicles. The herds are usually just hanging out grazing, but a few times we caught them galloping along, kicking up huge clouds of dust. And if their destination lay across the road, there was no crossing that road for a little while!
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