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| Tarangire
national park |
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Day after day of cloudless skies |
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The fierce
sun sucks the moisture from the landscape, baking the earth
a dusty red, the withered grass as brittle as straw. The
Tarangire River has shriveled to a shadow of its wet season
self. But it is choked with wildlife. Thirsty nomads have
wandered hundreds of parched kilometers knowing that here,
always, there is water. |
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Herds of
up to 300 elephants scratch the dry river bed for
underground streams, while migratory wildebeest, zebra,
buffalo, impala, gazelle, hartebeest and eland crowd the
shrinking lagoons. It's the greatest concentration of
wildlife outside the Serengeti ecosystem - a smorgasbord for
predators – and the one place in Tanzania where dry-country
antelope such as the stately fringe-eared Oryx and peculiar
long-necked gerenuk are regularly observed.
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During the rainy season, the seasonal
visitors scatter over a 20,000 sq km (12,500 sq miles) range
until they exhaust the green plains and the river calls once
more. But Tarangire's mobs of elephant are easily
encountered, wet or dry. The swamps, tinged green year
round, are the focus for 550 bird varieties, the most
breeding species in one habitat anywhere in the world. On
drier ground you find the Kori bustard, the heaviest flying
bird; the stocking-thighed ostrich, the world's largest
bird; and small parties of ground hornbills blustering like
turkeys. |
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