Savannah Safari
I specifically slept without my ear plugs as Patrick told us we might be able to hear the animals at night, and I did indeed hear some hyenas making hyena noises, and later the balloon people getting up. In fact the non ballooners had a luxuriously late 7am breakfast, so I was well rested come my alarm
I exited my tent to find Evil watching me! My tent is in the foreground, and there is a Black Faced Vervet Monkey in the tree. To be fair these guys were not at all aggressive, and that one sat quite calmly there as I went in and out of my tent for breakfast (cereal, pancakes), to brush my teeth etc. It did grab the branch and bob it’s head up and down at me one time, but I’ve no idea what that means. Between these and the Gibraltar Monkeys I’m starting to come around to the idea that not all monkeys are Evil.
The last time I stopped off at my tent I even had to break up a monkey fight! Well, I walked to my tent, and they stopped and ran off, but same thing really. Today was to be a full day game drive on the Masai Mara, so without further ado...
Our first big sighting of the day was a male and female lion, with the female being quite far away (out of shot)
They walked off into the endless plains!
Told you there’d be a better photo of Wildebeest!
White Bearded Wildebeest to be precise. And quite a few, it is their migration season after all
This and the next picture show 3 different kinds of vulture living together in harmony. How nice!
Lappet Faced Vultures, Rupels Vultures, and White Backed Vultures. Just don’t ask me which is which! The black to the left is the ones from the picture above.
Our noisy night friends, Spotted Hyenes
Quite a few too. And “surprisingly attractive” according to Christine
It’s hard to see, but there are actually 2 male lions in this shot. One is a bit obscured by bushes to the left. They were very close to us too!
A nice shot of a Thompson’s Gazelle. They wag their tails like dogs!
And lick themselves like dogs...
In general they are very nice little animals
Spot and name the 5 types of animal in this photo. We have seen all of them before, and as further clues: there is only one of one of the types of animal, and some are very far away!
A babyish Common Zebra. Remember they are browner
A Topi up close. I’m pretty sure that is mud on the neck and not wounds
They hide surprisingly well in the grass!
It stretches on forever. And apparently the Serengeti is ten times bigger!
A male and female Masai Ostrich. The female is the greyer one, and sits on the egg during the day for camouflage. The Male does the night shift for the same reason
The eggs can weigh 1.6 kilograms, and apparently if there is a fire near the eggs the Masai Ostrich can carry water in its wings and put it out!
Hyenas have immense jaw strength, and hunt in packs to harry their prey to death
A Hartebeest (don’t quote me on that spelling!), so called because their horns form a heart shape
A fine example of a Pumba (Warthog)
There was a whole pack of African Elephants! I know they aren’t actually called a pack but I like it. I didn’t mean to catch this guy eating, but I’m happy with the result
I DID mean to catch this guy eating. I love his expression, it’s like he’s saying “you want this plant don’t you?! Well tough, I’m 10 times your size and I’m smug about it!”
The pack is all here. One of the small ones is less than one year old, as it can stand under it’s mother’s belly
Some bird flying. I didn’t have time to ask Patrick. Let’s call it an Ibis, it has the right beak! Edit: it is a Sacred Ibis. Me pro animal identifier
Hippos! I like the one that is sitting up like a dog
This was shot through a Hippo Track (a passage they use to climb out from the river). Behind them you can see their hippo nest.
A Termite Mound. Made by Termites. Full of, you guessed it, Termites
A duality of Hippos. This is the correct name for 2 Hippos. Trust me
I was there too. The Slaughter (proper collective noun) of Hippos and their nest is in the background.
“Mother I wish to go see the Mara Crocodile” - baby hippo, probably
“Get away crocodile!” - Mother hippo, probably
“Hippos are mean” - Mara Crocodile, probably
This one has its paw stuck out. Cute! The rest of it’s slaughter is less photogenic
“I hope the Hippos leave me alone here” - Mara Crocodile, probably. Yes it is the same one!
I have decided I like photographing flowers. They almost never run off
I was at the Mara river too! We also had packed lunches with the Hippos. We were the packed lunches for the Hippos. Only joking; Hippos are vegetarian. They just kill you. That’s why they come in slaughters. PS. They don’t build nests, that was just a jumble of branches brought there by a flood that happened to look like a giant nest!
This one tried to run, but I soon put a stop to it!
Very Small Bird. That is its name. Honest...
This is a regular Agama Lizard according to the local guide with the AK-47 who protected us from Hippos and crocs (that is not a joke... ok it might have been the other guy with the bolt action rifle who told us, not sure). It is eating chicken like all good lizards do
The grey one was a girl. This one is a boy
And a very handsome young man he is too!
The boundary between Masai Mara and Serengeti
A lone elephant we spotted close to the road on the way back
New animal alert! Saddle Billed Stork has entered the game!
You can see it has caught a lizard... this did not end well for the lizard. Revenge for that chicken earlier
Looks very pleased with himself
We then left the park once more, with the option of a Masai village visit. If you have read any of my previous blogs you will know that this is not my kind of thing. I think it is very awkward, and there will inevitably be a degree of staging, they always pressure you to buy stuff at the end, and at the end of the day it ends up pretty much like visiting the zoo, except the animals are people. There can be interesting insights into different ways of life, but the fact that they will take money to show you means that they have to some degree shed this way of life. You would therefore be unsurprised to discover that I did not visit the village for $20.
He’d obviously forgotten something at the campsite
Tea was traditional Kenyan food. All I can say is that I can see why there aren’t many Kenyan restaurants about! Mainly it wasn’t bad (cabbage aside: die cabbage die), we had lamb, lentils, ugali (which is a sort of corn flour cake which takes a similar role to rice, except even more tasteless!), and kale. It was quite bland tasting overall, not something I’d rush to have again.
I exited my tent to find Evil watching me! My tent is in the foreground, and there is a Black Faced Vervet Monkey in the tree. To be fair these guys were not at all aggressive, and that one sat quite calmly there as I went in and out of my tent for breakfast (cereal, pancakes), to brush my teeth etc. It did grab the branch and bob it’s head up and down at me one time, but I’ve no idea what that means. Between these and the Gibraltar Monkeys I’m starting to come around to the idea that not all monkeys are Evil.
The last time I stopped off at my tent I even had to break up a monkey fight! Well, I walked to my tent, and they stopped and ran off, but same thing really. Today was to be a full day game drive on the Masai Mara, so without further ado...
Our first big sighting of the day was a male and female lion, with the female being quite far away (out of shot)
They walked off into the endless plains!
Told you there’d be a better photo of Wildebeest!
White Bearded Wildebeest to be precise. And quite a few, it is their migration season after all
This and the next picture show 3 different kinds of vulture living together in harmony. How nice!
Lappet Faced Vultures, Rupels Vultures, and White Backed Vultures. Just don’t ask me which is which! The black to the left is the ones from the picture above.
Our noisy night friends, Spotted Hyenes
Quite a few too. And “surprisingly attractive” according to Christine
It’s hard to see, but there are actually 2 male lions in this shot. One is a bit obscured by bushes to the left. They were very close to us too!
A nice shot of a Thompson’s Gazelle. They wag their tails like dogs!
And lick themselves like dogs...
In general they are very nice little animals
Spot and name the 5 types of animal in this photo. We have seen all of them before, and as further clues: there is only one of one of the types of animal, and some are very far away!
A babyish Common Zebra. Remember they are browner
A Topi up close. I’m pretty sure that is mud on the neck and not wounds
They hide surprisingly well in the grass!
It stretches on forever. And apparently the Serengeti is ten times bigger!
A male and female Masai Ostrich. The female is the greyer one, and sits on the egg during the day for camouflage. The Male does the night shift for the same reason
The eggs can weigh 1.6 kilograms, and apparently if there is a fire near the eggs the Masai Ostrich can carry water in its wings and put it out!
Hyenas have immense jaw strength, and hunt in packs to harry their prey to death
A Hartebeest (don’t quote me on that spelling!), so called because their horns form a heart shape
A fine example of a Pumba (Warthog)
There was a whole pack of African Elephants! I know they aren’t actually called a pack but I like it. I didn’t mean to catch this guy eating, but I’m happy with the result
I DID mean to catch this guy eating. I love his expression, it’s like he’s saying “you want this plant don’t you?! Well tough, I’m 10 times your size and I’m smug about it!”
The pack is all here. One of the small ones is less than one year old, as it can stand under it’s mother’s belly
Some bird flying. I didn’t have time to ask Patrick. Let’s call it an Ibis, it has the right beak! Edit: it is a Sacred Ibis. Me pro animal identifier
Hippos! I like the one that is sitting up like a dog
This was shot through a Hippo Track (a passage they use to climb out from the river). Behind them you can see their hippo nest.
A Termite Mound. Made by Termites. Full of, you guessed it, Termites
A duality of Hippos. This is the correct name for 2 Hippos. Trust me
I was there too. The Slaughter (proper collective noun) of Hippos and their nest is in the background.
“Mother I wish to go see the Mara Crocodile” - baby hippo, probably
“Get away crocodile!” - Mother hippo, probably
“Hippos are mean” - Mara Crocodile, probably
This one has its paw stuck out. Cute! The rest of it’s slaughter is less photogenic
“I hope the Hippos leave me alone here” - Mara Crocodile, probably. Yes it is the same one!
I have decided I like photographing flowers. They almost never run off
I was at the Mara river too! We also had packed lunches with the Hippos. We were the packed lunches for the Hippos. Only joking; Hippos are vegetarian. They just kill you. That’s why they come in slaughters. PS. They don’t build nests, that was just a jumble of branches brought there by a flood that happened to look like a giant nest!
This one tried to run, but I soon put a stop to it!
Very Small Bird. That is its name. Honest...
This is a regular Agama Lizard according to the local guide with the AK-47 who protected us from Hippos and crocs (that is not a joke... ok it might have been the other guy with the bolt action rifle who told us, not sure). It is eating chicken like all good lizards do
The grey one was a girl. This one is a boy
And a very handsome young man he is too!
The boundary between Masai Mara and Serengeti
A lone elephant we spotted close to the road on the way back
New animal alert! Saddle Billed Stork has entered the game!
You can see it has caught a lizard... this did not end well for the lizard. Revenge for that chicken earlier
Looks very pleased with himself
We then left the park once more, with the option of a Masai village visit. If you have read any of my previous blogs you will know that this is not my kind of thing. I think it is very awkward, and there will inevitably be a degree of staging, they always pressure you to buy stuff at the end, and at the end of the day it ends up pretty much like visiting the zoo, except the animals are people. There can be interesting insights into different ways of life, but the fact that they will take money to show you means that they have to some degree shed this way of life. You would therefore be unsurprised to discover that I did not visit the village for $20.
On the way back, those of us that took the bus were treated to the sight of an elephant randomly wandering along the roadside, closer than any we’d seen before (probably 3 meters away at first, but it ran off a bit by the time I got my camera)
He’d obviously forgotten something at the campsite
Tea was traditional Kenyan food. All I can say is that I can see why there aren’t many Kenyan restaurants about! Mainly it wasn’t bad (cabbage aside: die cabbage die), we had lamb, lentils, ugali (which is a sort of corn flour cake which takes a similar role to rice, except even more tasteless!), and kale. It was quite bland tasting overall, not something I’d rush to have again.
Another 6:30am breakfast meant another early night, so after tea and a quick hot drink it was bedtime
Comments
Post a Comment