The great wildebeest migration is a sight to behold in Kenya. (Mike Strobel/QMI Agency)

MASAI MARA, Kenya -- Each morning I wake up and thank God for not making me a wildebeest.

Silly beast. Ugly beast. Dumb beast. Wildebeest. Also known as a gnu. The stumblebum of the Serengeti, lummox of the Masai Mara, and goofball of all the other great grasslands of Africa. No creature is like him, except Toronto parking meter cops.

I know. I have a good nose for gnus.

On TV, a gnu got into Mr. Magoo's garden. In the comic strip Animal Crackers, the wildebeest is a wuss with no sense of direction.

All wildebeest have Amy Winehouse heads and gangly bodies, but there are two types. Black gnu and blue gnu.

This is fitting, since predators spend their days bruising, battering and biting the wildebeest 'til they're black and blue. Check out YouTube. See every tomcat, croc and hyena in southern Africa enjoy a wildebeest lunch. The hapless gnu is chased, ambushed, sliced and diced by anything bigger than a mongoose.

They are Kenya's Chicago Cubs. Lovable losers.

Usually, I cannot look at a gnu without giggling.

Except now, on this angelic morning, in a balloon, looking down upon the most gob-smacking sight in Africa: The Great Migration of the Wildebeest.

This is the gnu's hour, his shining moment. He is a buffoon no more, but a dot in one of nature's most wondrous sights. More than a million gnus swarm like bees, seeking rain-greened grass, from Tanzania's Serengeti north and east into Kenya, and back. To paraphrase the New York Times, it's all the gnus that are fit to sprint.

Usually, they cross the Mara River in July, so I assumed we'd miss them. No matter, I figured. Kenya teems with wildlife even sans gnu.

But as our balloon rises, it's clear we have struck gold. Gnu gold.

They stream over the tawny plains. The thuds of their hoofs reach us in the basket as we dip to 30 metres.

"You lucky, lucky, LUCKY," hoots pilot Kim Jong Gook. He is, I assume, Kenya's only Korean balloon jockey. Us? We're seven Canadian journalists on

safari.

Lucky? You cannot steer a balloon, yet our course carries us for 30 klicks directly above the flow of gnus. A day earlier, or later, and we'd have missed it.

On the horizon, the tumult of dust and spray where the herd crosses the Mara. Where the crocs wait. But before we get there ...

"Look!" Kim yelps. "Rhino, rhino!"

We hear it before we see it -- a great crashing and thrashing in the thorn bushes. Rhino or Sherman tank?

Out it bursts, its mighty, armoured blue-black back rippling a few metres below, threatened, angry, bloody dangerous if we were down there.

"Lucky, lucky, you LUCKY." Kim exclaims again. Black rhinos are exceedingly rare. Hunted and poached to near extinction.

We are lucky indeed. In less than two days we've spotted all the Big Five -- lion, elephant, leopard, cape buffalo, black rhino -- so named by hunters for their ferocity and elusiveness.

Most of the credit, I hasten to add, goes to guides Peter Kamau and Mighty Joe Prem. Without them, I'd still be looking for my first dik-dik.

In Kenya, with a good guide and a gutsy Land Cruiser, you are soon tripping over zebras, big cats, pachyderms, river giants and all manner of antelope.

Critters on every hill, behind every acacia tree. Zip your tent, lest baboons break in and steal your sandwiches.

At the leafy Fairmont Mara, hippos harrumph a few metres down the riverbank behind my tent.

Herds of elephants loll outside our window at the Ol Tukai Lodge, on the flats of Amboseli.

Tsavo's fabulous Finch Hatton Camp (Robert Redford played him in Out of Africa) has armed escorts. They walk you to your tent after dinner, lest a leopard makes you a midnight snack. I'm not sure how useful a guy with a bow and arrow would be against a leaping leopard, but never mind.

Sheesh. Back home, we get excited over a whitetail deer in a highway ditch.

I always assumed the folks who filmed for National Geographic waited weeks for lions to show up or to see a croc chomp a wildebeest.

No sir. After Kim lands his balloon, in the middle of nowhere, we are picked up by Peter and Mighty Joe. Our safari wagon nearly runs over a pair of lions snoozing in long grass near where we'd alighted from the basket.

We ponder that for a minute or two, let me tell you. Then we watch a croc slink up the Mara River toward the wildebeest crossing.

Gnus may be numbskulls, but together they form "swarm intelligence." They cross as one. If a leader goes awry, they all do.

Like bankers at noon on Bay Street. Now imagine a corporate raider moving in for a hostile takeover.

The croc hones in on a young wildebeest. A hippo hovers upstream, taking in the show.

There's an almighty kersplash. The wildebeest rocks, the croc rolls. Goodbye, gnu. Everyone's gotta eat.

So we adjourn to what our hosts laughingly call a bush brunch. Nothing bush about it. Tables on the savannah, set with silverware and laden with champagne, fruit, omelettes, rolls, bacon, beans, cheeses, French toast...

No wildebeest stew, though.

I guess the croc ate it all.

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Creatures great and small

There are as many critters in Kenya as Toronto politicians at a free buffet.

Here's a partial list of what I saw in just over a week of roaming the bronzed plains and pastel hills of this magic land:

Baboon, black-faced monkey (which has bright blue balls), black rhino, Burchell's zebra, bushbaby, bushbuck, camel (domestic), cape buffalo, cheetah, crocodile, dik-dik, eland, elephant, gecko, giraffe, Grevy's zebra, hairy bat, hippopotamus, hyena, hyrax, impala, jackal, klipspringer, kudu, leopard, lion, mongoose, oryx, reedbuck, spring hare, Thomson's gazelle, topi, warthog, waterbuck, white rhino, wildebeest (gnu) and wild ass (on the plane home.)

Not to mention storks, ostriches, plovers, ducks, flamingos, herons, cranes and an Audubon-anza of other birds of all shapes, sizes and colours.

Noah would have gone nuts here.

-- For more information on going on safari in Kenya, visit the Kenya Tourist Board online at magicalkenya.com