Lake Naivasha

My last couple days in Naivasha were great…lots of walks in the riparian and at the lakefront, I saw all the great mammals, including a group of giraffe that had three very small giraffe, they couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8 feet tall, really young and so fun to watch. They could completely disappear behind some of the acacia trees and then reappear moments later to look for leaves on a new tree. They would wonder away from the others and then run to get back to the rest of the crew. And what was even more incredible was how close we all were to each other and they didn’t even seem to notice I was around, have I become just another grazer on the land?

At the lake, I was seeing and hearing many fish eagles and in the morning, I saw four eagles on these large rocks right at the shoreline, they were all in a row, what were they waiting for? Three marabou storks were at the edge of the water as well, then wandered into the grass and sat down right in front of me. Hundreds of cormorants fly overhead each morning and the kingfishers are fishing right in front of me.

My last night involved camping on the other side of the lake so we could go out on the boat to track the eagles that have transmitters on, we found two of the three. The water was really choppy, so taking pictures required some creativity. Believe it or not taking pictures is also key (I know, its awesome, isn’t it?). If we can get a photo of them eagles legs, then we can see if there is a band and what the letters are, making them easy to identify.

That night, I could have sworn the hippos were nearly in our tents…they were on the other side of a short electrical fence (would that really stop a hippo from crossing?) and they were definitely living it up! There was lots of snorting and dining on the lush green grass ALL night long (or it seemed so), it was awesome, but I didn’t dare look out.

We were back out on the boat before the sun rose and I’m surprised that we didn’t encounter any hippos on our way to the boat dock, we did make it onto the boat without incident. We saw lots of eagles, a great sunrise and even some other great birds (and hippos on the water). Herons, kingfishers, pelicans, night herons, the highlight was a black egret looking for fish right in front of us!

I spent the afternoon with Munir and Sarah and their lovely boys (who are going to Disney World this week!) before traveling to the airport, such a fun family! Too bad I wasn’t ready to leave Kenya.