I’ve just come across the most wonderful way to find out where the wildebeest are in the annual migration around Tanzania’s Serengeti and Kenya’s Masai Mara. HerdTracker is the brainwave of Carel Verhoef and started it in January 2014. Carel is a qualified safari guide and has lived in Tanzania for ten years but seems to know an awful lot about most other safari destinations, including some less travelled like Rwanda, Congo Brazzaville and Chad.

I’m so pleased he created the HerdTracker website and app, because now at the press of a button you can see where the wildebeest are congregating in big numbers and which lodges are seeing it on their doorstep. Lodges, pilots, rangers and guides report what they have seen and where, which is fascinating reading, and a Google Map shows the locations.

Here are a couple of extracts:

15 July 2015: Today, our Rekero Camp guests were treated to the first Talek River crossing right in front of the camp just 50 meters from where the guests were enjoying their lunch, a small herd of around 20 wildebeests crossed over from the southern side heading north. Onesmus Irungu, Asilia Rekero Camp, Masai Mara

14 July 2015: If we thought yesterday was big, today was HUGE. There are big herds all along the border and they have been crossing the Sand River in front of Sala’s Camp all day long. The main crossing over the Sand River in the morning was something really special and I can still see streams of wildebeest and zebra running down the hill to cross as I write this afternoon. Cheers, Mark Boyd, Sarel’s Camp, The Safari Collection. Mark Boyd’s fantastic photos of the event below.

 Other lodges reporting their sightings to HerdTracker include:

• Governors’ Camp
• &Beyond Klein’s Camp and Grumeti Serengeti
• Lobo Wildlife Lodge
• Elewana Collection: Sand River Masai Mara,  Serengeti Pioneer Camp, Serengeti Migration Camp
• Asilia Dunia Camp
• Intimate Places Tanzania – luxury mobile camp operator
• Captain Joel J Fernandes, Coastal Aviation, Arusha
• Firoz, Ranger Safaris Guide
• Tom Yule, Grumeti Expeditions and Lemala Camps

Currently, Carel manages the East and Central Africa safaris division for DiscoverAfrica.com, a safari operator that tailor-makes authentic safaris for travellers from around the world.

Have you seen a migration river crossing? Which lodge were you staying at? Do tell!