After our final morning at our Serengeti camp, we hit the road and reached our lodge in Tarangire National Park by nightfall. I always enjoy Tarangire because it has the highest concentration of elephants and baobabs on the northern circuit and those are some of my favorite subjects. It’s chock full of plenty of other wildlife too; I’ve had my best leopard sightings here, lions in trees, large families of giraffe, antelope, and birds. And this time, there were more zebra than I’m used to seeing – we saw plenty of large herds.
Because elephants are gray and Tarangire’s landscape can be “shrubby” in places, I don’t typically produce color images when the two are combined. I’m usually happiest with my results after converting to black and white and many times I just reach for my infrared camera when I see elephants.
Here, we sighted this family moving towards our vehicles so we turned off the engines and waited. Having elephants walk around you is surprisingly quiet given how large they are. Except when they pull branches off a tree or occasionally trumpet at each other, they’re amazingly stealthy animals. When I see this image now, the feeling I recall is one of peace.
Finally, it was time to leave the park and return to Arusha where I had begun. Since I was flying home the next day and had the luxury of time and an overnight stay at my host’s house, we made a quick run to the grocery store. I had been telling my host about a few cocktails such as the Southside and margarita. All we needed to do was make some simple syrup and we were ready to toast a great safari.
Until next time, safari njema!
— Dave
This is the sixth and last in my series of posts about my safari in July 2016. You can find all of them here:
- Starting My July Safari: Arusha, Mara River Crossings, Fuji X, and Lake Natron
- Notes from Lake Natron: Flamingos, Infrared, and Footprints
- Through Loliondo: from Lake Natron to Northern Serengeti
- Northern Serengeti: Wildebeest and Mara River Crossings
- Central Serengeti: Cats, Kopjes, Sunrises, and Infrared
- Tarangire: Wrapping up with Elephants, Zebras, and a Toast
About Dave Burns
Dave Burns is a wildlife, travel, and landscape photographer whose passions range from the beauty of the African savanna to the streets of Paris. He created Dave Burns Photo Tours to share his favorite places with other photographers, help them capture unique images, and learn more about photography and digital work flow. His next trip is an African photo safari to the Serengeti in February 2021. Dave’s images are in private collections and galleries. To contact him, use the contact page on this site.