Lake Nakuru National Park

*Some of this text will appear on the SFS website and in its email newsletter.  I was in assigned to write the "From the Field" about our Lake Nakuru expedition.  Some of it is repetitive of what I've said before, sorry.

Our first Nakuru morning...

Kilimonjaro Bush Camp is being taken over by baboons!  Large, crazy, smart baboons.  But these baboons are like three year olds throwing temper tantrums compared to the colossal, fearless, and overwhelming in number baboons of Lake Nakuru.  Unless you have a large stick or slingshot in hand I do not advise you go after them.  You will most likely end up the one being chased. 

Such fearlessness is a common trait displayed by most of the animals of Lake Nakuru.  My classmates and I were within yards of cape buffalo, zebra, impala, jackals, waterbuck, and the rare Rothschild giraffe and white rhino.  The group favorites, however, were definitely the perching leopards waking to the waning light of dusk and the lions stalking a cape buffalo calf. 

Though charismatic megafauna are wonderful to behold, the scenery of Lake Nakuru itself was breathtaking.  The place is replete with lofting cliff escarpments, rolling grasslands, lush forests, fowl-filled waters, and dramatic rain clouds.  I cannot express how shocked I was at seeing so much water after spending so much time in the dry lands of Kimana Group Ranch.  I have to admit that one of my most memorable moments was simply exiting the car to step barefoot onto the soft grasses of our campsite. 

Expedition is by far my favorite experience in Kenya thus far.  By night I relaxed with my new family around a fire swapping ghost stories and embarrassing moments and by day I beheld amazing nature… and chased baboons with sticks.  

 Flamingos in the wild?  What!? They're not only in front lawns!?  They're real?....

Yay white rhinos!  The park also has black rhinos, though far less in number.  Rhinos went extinct from Lake Nakuru long ago but in the past decade or so a rehabilitation and conservation effort has been started for them here.  They are notorious for being very shy animals so it's amazing that we got to be so close to them on so many different occasions.  We also got to be part of the research based on their populations in the park, which was a lot of fun!  We've had absolutely amazing experiences that few other people get in any National Park.  Between Lake Nakuru and Amboseli, the only two premier parks in Kenya, we've been able to walk on foot in a National Park which is UNHEARD OF!  We've been apart of ongoing research, but also ground breaking research!  There is an experiment currently going on in Amboseli that fences out elephants and giraffes from plots of land but not other smaller ungulates and is exploring how the vegetation in those areas react, grow, and proliferate.  This is the first year a fenced area like this has ever been fenced in a National Park and we were the first ones to do transect research on foot for that enclosure!  It was awesome (especially when two hyenas ran within 40 meters of us)!

Sorry, getting carried away... back to rhinos!

Though rhinos are usually solitary (except for mother-offspring pairs), we saw so many congregating with one another.  It was odd but very interesting when applied to behavioral research.

I can't believe we saw so many rhinos!  We watched these four for a while and they ended up moving into a spooning position.  I am proud to say that I coined the name of our group:  The Spooning Rhinos.  I think it'd be a good band name too. 

Are these rhinos or cape buffalo?

Haha, trick question... they're both!  I'm in a great mood; can you tell?

Though I love seeing the animals, I think I am more intrigued by the behavior displayed by them.  These cape buffalo and impala pushed a pair of Black-backed jackals through threat displays.  It was interesting to see how the impala would push them and then run in fear if a jackal turned and looked at them even though there's no way a jackal could bring down a grown impala and there weren't any young that I could see.  We saw some amazing dominance displays, mating displays, hunting displays, and territorial displays this week from mammals and birds alike.

I think this may be one of my favorite pictures so far :D

I think zebras are my favorite.  

Lake Nakuru is one of the most diverse in birds places in Africa.  I've never seen so many water birds and birds of prey (BOP's) in my life!  

This is the African Crowned Crane; I've posted a close up of one from the zoo before.  There such beautiful but odd birds.  This isn't weird but it is a fun fact:  they are monogamous and a pair usually has two chicks but are lucky if even one survives.  I hope this little guys makes it.

Defasa's Waterbuck is Shem's favorite animal.  He did his grad work on solving one of their mysteries.  Back in the day waterbuck were dying in the park by the droves and no one knew why since no other hervbivores were dying.  Shem discovered the answer and then helped to restore their populations.  Don't ask me what he discovered.  I don't know and he won't tell me.  It might drive me mad.  Aren't they beautiful though?  This is a female.  I tried to get a good shot of the face of a male.  Their faces are dramatically colored and symmetriacal and the massive spiral horns just make them that much more stunning... because I'm not saying this female is not stunning, she definitely is.  

These are dikdiks.  They're hysterical little antelope that barely stand as tall as my knee cap- and might I remind you that I am also vertically challenged so they don't amount to much.  They are fascinating also in that they are monogamous and mate with the same partner for life.  They also do all of their pooping on specific piles that act as boundaries of their territory.  If you ever come across a huge pile of little round poops in Africa, it might very well be signs of a dikdik.

Cape buffalo are so darn cool, and SO dangerous!  They kill many people every year- I think only second to the hippo.  They are very fascinating though.  From the Land Cruisers, if you move your head in a challenging and aggressive way like they do, they get all bothered and pissed and start doing it back.  One group who was doing this even got chased by one IN THEIR CAR and thank goodness they had left their engine on and Ernest was able to drive quickly away or else we might be one Cruiser less. 

This is the Rothschild giraffe (and zebras!).  It is the largest and one of the rarest giraffe species.  Lake Nakuru is also one of the only places left where one can find this species.

And we saw lions... A LOT of lions!  Two different instances we saw lions stalking, but they didn't get their prey.  For most predators, hunts are successful only about 1 in 10 attempts.

Lake Nakuru is also one of the only places where lions climb and utilize trees.  Isn't the King of the Trees handsome?

Baboons are so much cuter when they're young.  This one was in the crook of a tree and it's mother was sitting on the ground about two feet below.  When she wasn't looking this little guys would tap her on the head and she'd be looking up as the young  would quickly retreat into his perch and pretend like nothing had happened, staring at the tree bark, the sky, other baboons.  This went on for several minutes until she figured out what was going on and went chasing him up into the canopy of the tree.

On the only day I decided to take a break from my camera we saw two leopards... figures.  But seeing them was still so fantastic... and lucky!  We were told that people almost never see leopards, let alone two of them!  We've just really got a great group, in more ways than one.