The endless plain the park is named for
The southern plains are the short-grass country running from the centre of Serengeti National Park down to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area boundary. They are treeless, almost perfectly flat, and underlain by volcanic ash blown west from the eastern highlands. The park’s name comes from the Maasai Siringet, wide endless plain, and this is the ground it describes.
UNESCO’s description of the property gives some 25,000 square kilometres of treeless expanses of spectacularly flat short grassland dotted with rocky outcrops, interspersed with rivers and woodlands. The rocky outcrops are the kopjes — Moru, Simba and the Gol Kopjes among them — and they are the only relief in the landscape.
Why the herds calve here rather than beside water
This is the part of the Serengeti that rewards understanding rather than looking. The short grass on volcanic ash is thin grazing for most of the year and exceptional for a few months after rain: the ash-derived soils are mineral-rich, and the grass they carry is high in the calcium and phosphorus a lactating animal needs.
That is why the migration calves out here on open ground with almost no permanent water rather than beside a river. The trade-off is that there is nowhere to hide, which is why the calving period concentrates predators as densely as anything in Africa.
It is also why the plains empty out. When the grass dries, the herds leave, and the same country reads as an enormous vacant grassland. Travellers who see photographs from February and book for August are booking a different place.
Ndutu, and where the boundary runs
The calving ground straddles a boundary. Ndutu, around Lake Ndutu and Lake Masek, sits on the seam between the national park and the conservation area, and it is sold as a base in its own right with its own page here. The practical consequence is that a trip to the calving season may be operating under two different authorities with different rules — the conservation area, for instance, permits off-road driving nowhere without the Conservation Commissioner’s authorisation, and the national park prohibits it outright.
TANAPA’s gates on this side are Naabi Hill, on the Ngorongoro boundary, and Ndutu. The Kusini airstrip serves the south, and there is a further strip at Ndutu.
What else is down here
Balloon flights operate over the southern Serengeti among other parts of the park, and the plains are the landscape that best justifies one — see balloon safaris. TANAPA lists walking safaris in the southern part of the park with a skilled armed park ranger. The open sky here is also as good as stargazing gets in Tanzania.
Common questions
When is the calving season?
Broadly the first months of the year, driven by rainfall rather than a date. The NCAA describes a calving season at Ndutu running from the end of December through to April; the herds arrive and leave earlier or later depending on the rains.
Why do the herds calve on open plains?
The volcanic ash soils carry short grass rich in the minerals a lactating animal needs. The cost is total exposure to predators, which is why the calving period is the densest predator activity of the year.
Are the southern plains worth visiting outside calving?
They are largely empty when the grass has dried. A trip in those months is better spent in the centre, the north or the east of the park.