THE GREAT WILDEBEEST MIGRATION

It's a spectacular sight when countless ruminants cross the Serengeti in search of greener pastures

- BY Vincent Noyoux

It starts like a scene from Out of Africa. Leaving Mount Kilimanjaro behind, the bush plane flies over the gaping Ngorongoro Crater, casting its shadow over tawny land that resembles lion skins sewn together with the rivers' green thread.

We're in the Serengeti in Tanzania, in the northern part of the national park, near the Kenyan border. We've yet to set foot on the ground, but the safari is underway. Herds of elephants bathe in the Mara River. Halfsubmerged crocodiles come into sight, and on the bank sit masses darker than boulders, the hippopotamuses.

It's all wonderful, but we're here to see something else: the blue wildebeest. With its spindly legs, grey-blue coat, wild mane and a long, bumpy face that gives it a stubborn air, this ruminant is not the elite of the African safari.

Wildebeests live in herds of about 30 that assemble in huge numbers during the great annual migration.

"The cycle starts early in the year in the southern Serengeti and moves west, then north to the Masai Mara (Kenya), east and back south," explains our guide, Erasto Macha. "Wildebeests follow the rain, which provides green grasslands. They remain in the northern Serengeti from July to early October, but August and September are when we see the most." He estimates there are 1.5 million here.

If it weren't for the Mara, which is subject to massive fluctuations depending on rainfall upriver, their migration would be smooth sailing. Rising on the Kenyan side of the Great Rift Valley and flowing into Lake Victoria, it's the longest and only perennial river in the Serengeti. It's also the most dangerous to cross.