Elephants, Hippos and Birdlife at Amboseli

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Our day started with a short flight from the Mara back to Nairobi, prior to driving south to Amboseli. As tends to happen in Africa, our 8.45am flight finally got away at 10.15am. The only disappointment was that on our way to the airstrip (note, I didn’t say airport!), we got word that a rhino (the only one of the ‘Big Five’ we hadn’t seen in the Mara) had been sighted some distance away. As we didn’t want to miss the flight, we passed up that opportunity but in fact would have had plenty of time to check it out. The bonus for us was that the strict 15kg total luggage limit, which would have had us both in trouble, was disregarded as there were only the two of us plus two Mexican women on the flight, which could have taken up to 12 passengers. The flight gave us a great panoramic view of the Rift Valley, and at around $150 was a much cheaper alternative than the $500 one hour air ballooning option.

Our concerns that we may have seen it all at the Mara and there would be nothing new to see at Amboseli proved to be unfounded. Amboseli is a totally different terrain. It is very flat, very dry (especially at the moment with minimal recent rains) but apart from its lake, which was at very low levels and almost represented a salt pan, it contains two very large swamps and marshes, which feed off the melting snow of the nearby Mount Kilimanjaro. This gave rise to three phenomena not present at the Mara - hundreds of elephants and dozens of hippos, both of which thrive in the slush, and a wide number of species of birds. This gave rise to a quite different and more relaxed safari excursion, further assisted by the fact that our new guide, Evans (no, there weren’t two of them!) didn’t have the same love affair with his accelerator as did Marvin.

As well as the hundreds of each of wildebeest, zebras and antelope varieties, which now seem standard at each game park, it really is some sight to come across a herd of up to 50 elephants at any one time, and this occurred quite frequently. While hippos were generally only in groups of three or four, the main benefit was that we could view them in their entirety, as distinct from the Mara River where we were lucky to see their head fleetingly appear above water. Another interesting sighting for us was when we just happened to come across two wildebeest engaged in a serious fight, which went on for several minutes before others came and broke them up.

For someone who would by no means be classified as a bird watcher, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the sightings at Amboseli. All in all, we viewed and clearly identified 28 different species of birds during the day, ranging from ostriches, storks, cranes, ibises, kingfishers, plovers, bustards, flamingos etc, with the latter being a particularly pleasant surprise. Our guide was unsure if we would see any flamingos at this time, but the remnants of the lake must have contained well over a thousand, which made for some great pics with their reflections off the still waters. I won’t go through all the birds seen, but at the conclusion of the safaris, I’ll pull together a separate blog on them all for any of you bird fanciers out there.

With the backdrop of Mt Kilimanjaro, there is the constant desire to take the iconic animal pic with the snow-capped mountain in the background. The trouble is that it is almost always covered in full cloud. But we got lucky and late in the day got a sighting, with a couple of animal pics as a bonus. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to line up a herd of elephants, and nor was the mountain particularly snow-capped (or easily visible), but you can’t win them all.

So tomorrow, it’s another day, another country, as we will cross the land border at Namanga into Tanzania as we head towards Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater. Tough gig, but someone’s got to do it!

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Photos

The iconic Amboseli pic
If you look closely, you can see Mt Kilimanjaro in the background!

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Great action shot
Nature at its finest.

[Nomad Old Farts]

Great action shots
Yeah, incidents like wildebeest fighting and vultures fighting over a carcass are the sorts of incidents you can't make a booking to see. Still, I'm not too disappointed I didn't see a lion in feeding mode!