Light Musings

Kenyan Adventure – Day 4 and 5

Today will be our last day in Samburu. We are out at 6:15 am as usual ready for another day of animal sightings.

Almost immediately we find two cheetahs. They are almost certainly the same two that we saw yesterday. Today, however, they have successfully made a kill and are in the process of eating it when we find them. We can’t tell for sure but it looks like it may have been a dik dik. Not much of a meal for two cheetahs. Eventually they finish their breakfast and we get some good photos.

We next come upon a group of male impala. Such a group of young males is known as “the losers club” since they have not been successful in having their own harem of females. We watch as a couple of the males joust with each other. They are beautiful animals. We then note that the impala have come to alert, suggesting the presence of some other predator.

After a bit of hunting we find a lioness nearby. However, she seem much more interested in finding a nice shady resting spot than anything else. It is amazing how unaffected the lions are by the presence of our Range Rovers.

As we begin our afternoon game drive we almost immediately come upon a large troop of baboons. We know that the baboons were around because we can hear them howling at night near our camp. We stopped and observed the troop. Several of the animals were busy grooming each other. We also saw multiple mothers toting their babies.
As we moved on we came across one large male baboon sitting on a rock by the roadside. He was perfectly content to let us take all of the photos of him we wanted. A handsome devil he was.
We also saw a number of colorful birds that afternoon. The first was the “Little Bee Eater”. They are only about 6 inches long but have extremely colorful plumage. The other bird that we saw was the “Eurasian Roller”. The Roller is also a small bird but quite common in the acacia woodlands of Samburu.

Another unique animal that we observed was the gerenuk, also know as the giraffe antelope. According to Wikipedia:

“Gerenuks eat food from higher places than most other gazelles and antelopes. They do this by standing up on their hind legs, and stretching out their long necks to get food off of tall bushes or small trees. Most of their diet is made up of leaves and shoots of shrubs and trees, but also includes buds, flowers, fruit, and herbaceous plants . Gerenuks do not appear to drink water; they get enough water from the plants they eat. Because of this, they can survive in very dry habitats.”

Day 5 arrived and it was time to depart Samburu and head south to the Lewa Conservancy. As we departed Samburu we passed through the community of Archers Post. This is where the reality of economic life in Kenya became obvious to us. The community was composed of a variety of small Samburu huts, buildings and shacks. This was my first real experience in seeing a 3rd world country close up. The contrast with our luxury camp at the Samburu Intrepids was obvious.

gerenuk

Archers Post

The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy (also known as Lewa Downs) was formed in 1995. It is a wildlife sanctuary incorporating the Ngare Ndare Forest and covering over 62,000 acres. The Conservancy is home to a wide variety of wildlife including the rare and endangered black rhino, Grevy’s zebra and sitatunga. It also includes the big five (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and African buffalo). Lewa holds over 12% of Kenya’s black rhino population and the largest single population of Grevy’s zebras in the world (approximately 350 individuals).

As we arrived in Lewa we immediately observed some new fauna and flora. We saw our first yellow bark acacia trees. Unlike the acacias that we observed in Samburu the yellow bark acacias had a characteristic, almost luminous, lime green to greenish-yellow bark. We also observed bird specimens of the sacred ibis and crowned crane.

After arriving and settling in we headed out for our first game drive of the afternoon. We almost immediately came across some elephants, helmeted guinea fowl as well as black headed heron. However, our target for the afternoon was to find rhinoceros. Lewa is well know for having both white and the rare black rhinoceros. And it wasn’t long before we found them. We came across a trio of whites composed of a large male and a mother with a young rhinoceros. The male was huge. The white rhino is normally docile and is a grazing animal. We observed them for quite some time. However, the male became agitated at one point and charged one of our Range Rovers. It came within 5-10 ft before Henry could get them out of there!

White Rhino

We then spotted a black rhino and followed it for a bit. The black rhino is smaller and is a browser, eating tree branches and shoots primarily. The names black and white have nothing to do with the animal’s color. According to Wikipedia:

Black Rhino

“These common names are misleading, as those two species are not really distinguishable by color. The word white in the name "White Rhinoceros" is a mistranslation of the Dutch word wijd for wide, referring to its square upper lip, as opposed to the pointed or hooked lip of the Black Rhinoceros. These species are now sometimes referred to as the Square-lipped (for White) or Hook-lipped (for Black) Rhinoceros.”

Come back tomorrow for more explorations of Lewa.