The great Wildebeest Migration,Maasai Mara,Serengeti

[African Game Trek]

The Wildebeest Migration/ Kenya Budget Camping Safaris/ Kenya Luxury Lodge Safaris/Maasai Mara/ Serengeti

It is one of the “Seven New Wonders of the World” and also known as The World Cup of Wildlife. If there is a safari you should go on, this has it be it. The Maasai Mara and the Serengeti National Park together form what no other reserve in Africa can! It is incredible, it is magic, it is indescribable and it is WOW!
No where in the world is there a movement of animals as immense as the wildebeest migration, over two million animals migrate from the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania to the greener pastures of the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya during July through to October.
The migration has to cross the Mara River in the Maasai Mara where crocodiles will prey on them. This is one of the highlights as the animals try and cross the Mara River alive.
In the Masai Mara they will be hunted, stalked, and run down by the larger carnivores. The Masai Mara also has one of the largest densities of lion in the world.

In reality there is no such single entity as ‘the migration’. The wildebeest are the migration – there is neither start nor finish to their endless search for food and water, as they circle the Serengeti- Mara ecosystem in a relentless sequence of life and death.The only beginning is the moment of birth,. similarly the only ending is death. 

The Birthing

For want of a better place in which to ‘start’ the migration, we’ll begin in January and February, when the wildebeest cows drop their young in a synchronized birthing that sees some 300,000 to 400,000 calves born within two to three weeks of one another, eight and a half months after the rut. The birthing occurs on the short-grass plains that, at the southernmost extent of the wildebeests’ range, spread over the lower northern slopes of the Ngorongoro Crater highlands and are scattered around Olduvai Gorge. Here, at the ‘cradle of mankind’ many notable fossil finds have been discovered, including some that show that wildebeest have grazed the Serengeti almost unchanged for over a million years.
The annual period of birthing provides a feast for predators. Driving across the plains, one can count literally hundreds of hyenas and dozens of lions scattered about. It may seem that the wildebeest are doing the predators a favour by dropping their young all at the same time, but in fact a surfeit of wildebeest veal in a very short period results in the predators’ becoming satiated and unable to consume as much as they would if the calving happened over a longer time span. The predators thus have only a limited impact on the population of newborn calves; any calves born outside the peak are far more likely to perish.

The Physical Appearance

There is no other Antelope like the wildebeest.It looks like it was assembled from spare parts-the forequaters could have come from an ox,the hindquaters from an antelope and the mane and tail from a horse.The antics of  the territorial bulls during breeding season have earned them the name 'clowns of the savanna'.


The head of the wildebeest is large and box like. Both males and females have curving horns,that are close together at the base,but curve outward ,inward and slightly backward .The body looks disproportionate, as the front end is heavily built ,the hindquarters slender and the legs spindly.

The body is gray with darker vertical stripes which from a distance look almost black.It has a dark mane and long tail. Newborns are yellowish -brown,but change to adult colour at about two months.
This guys are incredibly ugly,they don`t know what they want to be...not Horse,not Zebra, not Buffalo not Hyena..just ugly!!!.

African Game Trek,Budget camping safari,budget luxury lodge Safari we offer to take you to meet this incredibly ugly guys,and make your moment unmeasurable,and see the wonder for your self,do not be told!!!