Tarangire National Park

The first thing you will notice upon entering the less traveled Tarangire National Park are the massive Baobab Trees. Their strange, leafless, root-like appearance make them look like massive upside down potato roots. The tree is actually less like hard wood and more of a light material like Balsa. Elephants are known to dig in to their wide bases when water is scarce to suck out moisture from the trunk fiber.



Other interesting tree species can be found here. There are dozens of varieties of the wide canopied Acacia Trees. You will also see the weird Candelabra Tree. It has the trunk of an everyday tree, the canopy of a dense succulent, and the whole thing looks like an upside down hanging candelabra.



Birds are abundant in Tarangire National Park. For an avid bird watcher there are around 300 species of avian life that can be seen. There are Superb Starlings just about everywhere in the park. Their shiny metallic blue and red feathers will constantly catch your eye. There is the black and white Red Billed Horn Bill, which is exactly as it sounds - a bird with a red billed horn bill. There is the gray and white Crowned Lapwing that, if it wasn't for its red and black beak and its long skinny red legs, would blend in easily with the underbrush.


There are plenty of the solitary ostriches. Brown feathered females and black feathered males can be seen here and there throughout the park. Their massive size makes them hard to miss! The plump Helmeted Guinea Fowl are common too. They seem to always be running along side and in front of our Land Rovers.



The park is named after the Tarangire River which runs north to south through the park. During most of the year there are fresh water pools and swamp areas that form. These attract and support all kinds of wildlife year round, and it's easy to find herds of Zebras, Wildebeests, and Elephants spread throughout the park. During the dry season, as the surrounding areas dry up, the river becomes the only reliable source of water. As this happens the concentrations of all animals becomes denser as more and more animals congregate in less and less space.



Elephants are common here. There is plenty of space and food as they quietly march in their line formations. They always seem to be going somewhere, while simultaneously seeming to go nowhere, and eating all along the way.



The most numerous and easiest to find mammal in the park is the Impala. Their behavior is interesting. They congregate in separate groups of males and females. The female group is called a harem because it is controlled and protected by one large male. He spends his day trying to find time enough to eat so he can have the energy to fight off other males trying to dethrone him. When you see a harem there will certainly be a group of males nearby. This is called the bachelorhood. These are the guys waiting around gathering strength for an attempt to become the next king of the harem.



Larger than the Impala are the Waterbuck. They are quite a bit bigger and are a downy brown in color. Like the Impala, they tend to stay inside the park and so are easy to find year round.



Vervet Monkeys are easy to find in the park and in fact are quite common all throughout East Africa. They just wander about, grazing and grooming each other, seemingly oblivious to me and you.



The Wildebeest of Tarangire, unlike their cousins who live in the Serengeti, do not go on massive and cyclical year long migrations. Their movement is basically limited to a few wildlife corridors between here, Lake Manyara National park, and neighboring conservation areas. Think of them as a warm up to a trip to the Serengeti where there are over a million Wildebeest migrating!



And wherever there are Wildebeest you will see zebras. They are easy to find and usually hang out by the many watering holes. They are a bit skittish and have interesting defensive behaviors. They often help each other out. One will stand guard while another is taking a drink. Sometimes you'll see a zebra sleeping while one or two stand watch. And the most common defensive posture is when two will stand side by side, next to each other, facing opposite directions, necks entwined, one resting his head on the back of the neck of the other. In this way they've got their backs coverd and a predator cannot sneak up behind either of them.



Tarangire is one of my favorite parks to visit. I like that it's probably the least visited of the big 5 parks in Tanzania. I can often spend hours on a game drive viewing Tarangire's large variety of animal and plant life without seeing another safari vehicle.