For Bob

 This past week our good friend Bob Taylor passed away. A brilliant photographer with a sharp eye and a long list of published books, he was a passionate voice for conservation and nature. Running tours through the Canadian arctic (particularly the bears of Churchill) as well as Eastern Africa he was always on the move and always charming, professional and patient.

 My father toured Kenya with Bob in 1986 and took me with him in 1996. The incredible experiences I had in that country were directly responsible for Kathryn and my tour with him in 2010. Bob strongly recommended the Galapagos and Quest tours to us at the time which obviously contributed to our end decision to visit the islands with that very company. Furthermore, Kathryn has been incredibly inspired by his efforts in photography and conservation and his influence certainly contributed to her working as a naturalist this past summer.

Through decades of tours in Eastern Africa, Bob built up a special rapport with many of the safari drivers and lodge staff. Henry Nzioka poses at Sweetwaters with him in the photo below on one of their many tours of Kenya over the years. Henry was a driver when I went with my father in 1996 and their friendship was already long established then.

 

I think Kathryn summarized it best:

A wonderful man of the world and naturalist died. Bob Taylor you opened up another world for me. No thanks will ever be adequate. I know that there are more worlds for you to explore.

Sweetwaters

This is our last video post from Africa so for those of you reliving your trip from home, thanks for being there and making the tour everything it was. The DVDs will hopefully be done by early to mid September and mailed out shortly thereafter. If you have already sent me your address then kick back and relax, if you have not gotten around to sending me a mailing address, please do so in the next week or so.

Sweetwaters was the last stop in our tour for many of our group, so I figured it was a good choice to end our recapped journey with as well. It was a very nice mellow place where there were almost as many animals coming to the waterhole infront of our tents as there were to be seen on game drives.

Music: "Now We Are Free" by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard

Speaking of tents, the picture below shows the safari version of 'roughing it' with Kathryn tucked infront of our tent. The waterhole is directly infront of our tent and was almost constantly packed with giraffes, waterhogs, impala and lots of storks and ibises as well as night visits from buffalo and rhinos.
This is the interior of our tent, complete with separate bathroom with toilet and shower to further illustrate that a 'tent' can mean very different things in different places. We slept very peacefully here except on a few points in one or two nights when the shrieks of tree hyraxes jolted us awake, they have a very weird call that we were totally unprepared for.

Chimpanzees

Sweetwaters was not only a game park where we could see Kenyan wildlife in the open, it was also an animal sanctuary. We mentioned earlier their blind rhino but they were also host to a troop of chimpanzees whose homes in west africa were so unstable that they have been rescued and are attempting to rehabilitate them.
Kathryn and I have very different feelings about most primates. I have read very little about them or early peoples and therefore find them fascinating because they are so like us, while Kathryn has read extensively about them and finds them enough like people to be a little off-putting. But there was something about this confused, tired, bald old ape that I could relate too ;)
The troop consisted of perhaps a dozen individuals and while birth control is being added to their food (which has to be provided since their natural diet is not found in the indigenous plants of Kenya) they had managed to have a baby as well, which while an additional strain on the park has apparently been very good for the chimps morale and behavior.
While it is noble that they are being conserved in Kenya it is sad that their natural habitat is so broken and anyone looking to lose a little more hope in mankind should read about the Democratic Republic of Congo and the hell that people and apes alike are going through in that particular corner of the world.

Samburu

Samburu was wonderfully unlike many of the other places we went as it was nearly all desert with a thin river running through in. There were a great deal of unique animals here such as painted dogs, beisa oryx, gerenuk, grevy's zebras and many more. We also had an unforgettable encounter with a family of elephants crossing the river; although there are crocodiles in the water, they have nothing to fear from them.

Music: "Discworld Theme" by Keith Hopwood & Phil Bush

The lodgings at Samburu were very nice little cabins. You can see me resting on the front porch of ours below and during the day young vervet monkeys would delight in climbing the spindly tree on the rigth and then either dropping down to the ground or running around on our roof.

This panorama (click it to enlarge) is the front view off of our patio. It both contrasts the dryness of the mountains beyond with the greenery flourishing along its banks. These picture should also help illustrate the incredible flooding that can happen in this area; a few weeks after we had left the river flooded so badly that people were having to take shelter on the roofs of the cabins to avoid the rising water and crocodiles. The lodge itself apparently sustained quite a bit of damage which is certainly a shame as it was a lovely place and everyone working there was so friendly.

Lakes Naivasha and Nakuru

We visited two lakes in Kenya in the space of a few days. We would have very much liked more time at both, but that was the case with everywhere we went. The highlights of Lake Naivasha was a boat ride where we could watch hippos swimming and see lots of birds. Lake Nakuru offered flamingos and white rhinos as well as our only striped hyena sighting.

Music: "Crossing the Bridge" by Jerry Goldsmith.

Lake Naivasha had stunning grounds that we were able to explore during the day provided we were alert for any irate Cape Buffalo. After dinner we had a guard escort us all back to our rooms to be sure we weren't attacked by startled grazing hippos; this was our only time in life we have been able to say we tipped our hippo guard. We also had some lovely encounters with grazing giraffes and duelling waterbuck on the grounds.
Our room at Lake Nakuru was perched on a little hill wher we could overlook the area and wander around. There were several bird feeders on the grounds and one of the highlights was the nest of a paradise flycatcher we could see through the branches. There were displays of local dancing in the evening and we enjoyed the pool during the hottest parts of the day.

Matbronze Gallery

One our last day in Nairobi we took in several tourist sites such as the Giraffe Sanctuary and a number of curio shops. We also had a visit to the Matbronze Gallery which is equal parts coffee shop and art boutique for rich folks. The grounds themselves are very pleasant with lots of sculptures of African wildlife which are free to roam around.
The interior is quite pleasant as well with numerous works of art in all shapes and sizes as well as a window you can look through to see artists creating their next sculptures. While all of it was beautiful, it fell in the unfortunate categories of 1) too expensive to buy and too huge to move OR 2) affordable and so small you'd lose or forget it.
We did make friends with the local cat however and were able to get this picture of him juxtaposed as Kenyas greatest predator.

Herons

The networks of lakes and rivers that criss-cross east Africa are a bountiful source of food for many animals, and herons are one family of great opportunists for wetlands hunting. This Black-Headed Heron was a common sight throughout our trips and very comparable in size to our Great-Blue Herons here in Canada.
Smaller in stature but every bit as charming, this Squacco Heron (perhaps the most enjoyable heron name ever) was about the size of a bittern and resting in the reeds in Amboseli.
Since Africa gets a giant version of everything, they also have the Goliath Heron, which the photo below doesn't really do justice to since there's very little else in frame for scale. This particular bird can get up to 5ft tall or more and this particular one was very striking as it strode through the Mara River in Kenya.

Amboseli Highlights

We spent several days at Amboseli in a forested lodge near the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro. The biggest draw of Amboseli is its resident elephant population which I think the video below showcases nicely. We were able to watch them cross the road infront of and behind us a few times on game drives and the experience is breathtaking. There were several prides of lions there as well and we could see them on the prowl from our lodge one night. Unfortunately the mothers and cubs never came close enough for closeups, but we still got some nice family shots.

Music: "Old Bagdad" by Jerry Goldsmith.

The lodge at Amboseli was very nicely concealed from view (as most of the lodges on our trip were) by being completely surrounded by lush jungle. This also helped keep the sun off during the day and kept the pool nicely shaded for easily-burned people like myself.
The decor at Amboseli was very nice as well as all the bedrooms and dining room had stylized paintings of animals and birds in them. We really lucked out there and wound up with a double suite and patio so what little time we did spend in the room was certainly spent in luxury. We didn't get much mileage out of the patio since although you could see elephants in the distance from it there were also baboons directly outside of it and we didn't feel like trying our luck with them.

Baby Things

Since the last post was a bit grim and red in tooth and claw, I thought I'd lighten the mood with some baby things...
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
This little white rhino was carefully following its mother in the forest not far from our lodge at Lake Nakuru.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
This lion cub was part of a pride of lions in Ndutu and was thoroughly charming. There were a pair playing together but this particular photo wins for cuteness due to his 'awe shucks' grin.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
We saw this tiny baby elephant (which Kathryn and I dubbed 'The Smallephant') in the Maasai Mara. Our guides told us it was likely only a few months old and is so cute it boggles the mind.

Clash of the Titans

One of the most amazing things I have seen in my life was this battle between two bull cape buffalo at the Ark. The stakes were the leadership of their herd of buffalo and neither male was at all interested in backing down. I do warn all viewers that there is violence throughout this but it was neither staged nor forced. Either animal could have ended the battle at any point if they were willing to back down, so I think it is spectacular and natural rather than being tragic or exploitive.

Music: "Elite Guard Attacks" by Basil Poledouris.

Those of you that recall my post on the structure of The Ark from last week will be able to see how Kathryn and I were able to position ourselves to get different angles and lots of coverage of this event. I switched between the bunker (in red) and the outdoor side deck (purple on the right) while Kathryn filmed the entire thing from the top outdoor deck (purple and higher). This resulted in us both having plenty of footage and coverage for each other when the animals were behind bush or too far for one of us to see.
The full battle itself was 15-20 minutes in length and totally draining just to watch. There were staff at The Ark who said they'd been there for years and never seen anything like it, so we were incredibly lucky to catch it in the 14 hours we were there. There was also divided consensus on which bull actually won the fight. Although the previously dominant male broke a horn and chased the other away, he then stayed away from the herd so there was varying opinion on who won. Several staff said the two had been looking at each other for awhile and that there could well be a follow up battle to decide a victor, but that didn't happen while we were there.

Driving Among Giants

Its not just lions which are generally unphased by passing vehicles. Elephants have very few things to fear in protected parks and generally seem to know that there is nothing to fear from us. The elephant below walked through our convoy in Ngorongoro Crater and didn't even bat at eye at us. We were quite pleased at this as it was the first time we were that close to an elephant and they make a real impression up close. Any moment you are close enough to hear an animal breathing is an incredible time.
This elephant in the Maasai Mara made sure that everyone could get photos of it with other vans in frame for comparison. The roads in the Mara are very simple dirt tracks for the most part but the elephants wander about as they please quite happily.
The "pygmy" elephants of Lake Manyara were equally unconcerned with this one wandering across the road for better foraging on the other side amid quite a pile of vehicles.

Smaller Animals of the Ark

We spent a single night at The Ark in the Aberdare Forest but we had some pretty neat encounters there all the same, enough that this video is only part of what we saw there with the other half coming next week. This round focuses on the smaller animals such as bee-eaters, mongeese and suni which we saw and which often don't get the spotlight in these shorts as they can be very elusive and hard to get good footage of. Such was not a problem in the Aberdare.

Music: "Melee Map" by Michael Land.

There's pictures of the Ark in the post above and footage of it in the clip, so I won't bore you with information about the entrance. Below is a stock photo from the internet (and apparently the only one of its kind) which I am forced to use since the back is inaccessible as its typically full of elephants or cape buffalo. The areas marked in yellow are enclosed viewing decks, the areas in magenta are outdoor viewing decks, the cyan box is our approxiamate window position and the red outline is my personal favorite: the bunker which puts you at eye level with the animals and creates an experience I have yet to find anywhere else.

Our room was snug but functional. We had a pretty quiet time for larger animals while we were there and didn't get a terribly good nights sleep since there is a buzzer system in place to alert you if neat animals show up and we were both awake most of the night waiting for it to go off. We also aren't really used to twin beds which would likely account for some rough sleep as well.

Walking Birds

While many of the birds we saw in Africa were magestic eagles and tiny sparrows, there were a handful of magnificent ground birds. Not all of them were flightless but they were all certainly striking in their own way, starting off with the obvious ostrich. There were 2 varieties to be seen, the Common Ostrich which we saw throughout Kenya and Tanzania and the Somali Ostrich which we hoped to see in Samburu but were unable to find.
The Kori Bustard was always an impressive sight. They are apparently the largest birds capable of flight, but we consistently saw them on the ground. They have a very striking courtship ritual in which the male tucks his head and seems to inflate his neck in a strange way but we only saw this from a distance or in a moving car and don't have any good pictures to back it up.
Rounding out the set, Secretary Birds were an infrequent treat that could be seen searching for lizards, snakes and insects in the grasses. There were several occassions where they were walking along parallel to the road and we could see them well, and a few occassions where we saw them in flight.

Maasai Mara - Highlight Reel

We were in the Maasai Mara for about 6 days as an optional extension at the end of our safari. About half the group opted not to do it but we were certainly glad to. For anyone in our group that missed it, this can at least fill in some of the gaps for you, and for anyone considering an extension there, we heartily recommend it.

Music: "He Lives in You" by Lebo M.

The lodges in the Mara were often tricky to get nice pictures of as the building themselves are usually tucked well into the brush at the tops of hills and under dense foliage. This is done more to conceal the buildings and make the landscapes seem uninterrupted then to hide ugly architecture. The Mara Serena lodge (shown below) is particularly charming, situated at the top of a hill its buildings all seem to lack 90 degree angles thanks to smooth concrete and stucco.The view from the top was wonderful as well and the sunrise timelapse and one of the pans in the video above were both shot there.We stayed in two tented camps in the Maasai Mara as well, and just to show that a tent in a safari lodge is different from a tent when you go to the lake on the long weekend, here's a picture of one tents interior. Notice the twin beds and attached bathroom with lighting, just like your typical tent. Roughing it every step of the way ;)

Baraka, the Blind Rhino

One thing that set Sweetwaters apart from some of the other parks we visited was that they also had several areas in the park set aside for injured or displaced animals. One such resident was a black rhino named 'Baraka' (which is Swahili for blessing). Despite being very large and healthy he is completely blind, having lost one eye in a tussel with another rhino and the other eye to advanced cataracts.
Being blind is bad news for rhinos, even though their vision is quite poor to begin with, so he has become an ambassador for people, replacing another rhino in the park that had recently died of old age. This way he is cared for and can continue to live a healthy life while also helping educate people. His horn was originally over a meter in length and had to be cut off to fit him in the container to move him to the park. Since their horns are made of keratin, having it trimmed was no more painful for him than having your hair or fingernails cut and it is growing back slowly.
Kathryn was even lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and get to feed him some sugarcane as part of his lunch. At the same time she was able to pat his nose and horn a little which made her day.

Kenya/Tanzania 2010 - Best Of

We shot a lot of great footage between the two of us, and trimming it down to something we felt we could make other people sit through was no small feat. The clip below includes many of the highlights from our trip.

Music: "Theme from Jurassic Park" by John Williams.

99% of the footage we shot was done handheld in a crowded little mini-bus with a pop-up roof. With 5-6 people moving around at all times trying to get the best shots and working around the metal posts that propped the roof up it was a bit of a challenge, but one that we thoroughly enjoyed.
With each new video upload I will also try and highlight the lodges we stayed in to help dispel any notions that they were tiny tents or Maasai huts. The lodge below was the first one we stayed in just outside of Arusha in Tanzania and while we were too jet-lagged and eager to get moving to fully enjoy it, it was very pleasant all the same

Fellow Travellers

I've posted lots of pictures of mammals and birds and scenery but until now not actually done a proper post on our tour group (though you can already learn all about our guides). So here's a group photo taken in our last few days in Kenya. We had lots of meals and chats with everyone in the and plan to stay in touch as best we can, although we're more likely to visit with people in BC than Utah (but we'll do our best).
The tour was lead and organized by Bob Taylor (no relation) who lead the tour my dad went on in '86 as well as the one dad and I went on in '96 so he has a ton of experience and clearly runs a great expedition. He's shown below with his girlfriend Jennifer who was also on the trip and a total sweetheart.
And finally out of tradition of showing 3 pictures per posting, here's one of the pair of us at Ngorongoro Crater. Sorry for the recent lull in postings, we had a busy week and then a long weekend on Vancouver Island out visiting friends from this trip, so the next week or two may shift to have a more BC-centric viewpoint, but we have lots left in Africa yet and some video coming together too.

Giraffe Sanctuary

The city of Nairobi has a giraffe sanctuary which I had been telling Kathryn about for ages. I was mildly worried that it wouldn't live up to the hype, but it still delivered in spades when we got there. The first trick that was new to me was the 'french kiss' where you put a food pellet in you mouth and they'll nibble it away from you as seen below.
Since each food pellet is tiny and giraffes are sizeable beasts, they are quite happy to eat little pellets all day, so we had time to play around and have them eat of Kathryns hat as well.
Being at head height with these wonderful animals is truly a joy and it was wonderful that we could fit it in during our last few hours in the country. After seeing these guys so many times in the wild it was great to get up close and personal.

Smaller Hunters

The enormity of the biomass in eastern Africa creates niches of all sizes. While many of our earlier posts on carnivores have focused on the big cats and dogs, there are of course smaller predators for smaller prey throughout the landscape. The only trick being that since they are smaller they are much harder to spot in comparison. This Serval was the only one we saw but we were lucky enough to watch it hunting for small reptiles or rodents on our way out of Ngorongoro Crater.
At the other end of the rarity spectrum, jackals were quite common throughout our trip and always busy looking for smaller prey or the remains of a kill. This silver-backed jackal was out in Sweetwaters on a hunt. They typically seemed to work in pairs and we had a handful of charmingly close encounters but for the most part they kept their distance.
There are a surprising number of breeds of mongoose on the ground out there if you are lucky enough to spot them. We managed to get a sighting of each of the five main species but were only able to photograph two of them. This Dwarf Mongoose was part of a troop in the Maasai Mara in one of our lodges that were quite photogenic, running alongside the path and digging for beetles.

Spare a Few Bucks?

Rounding out or collection of every conceivable variant of east african antelope, here's a selection of animals that all end in 'buck.' First off, this bushbuck was seen at the salt lick outside The Ark where a few of them were very cautiously feeding around a herd of buffalo. This particular salt lick was also very thick with Ox Peckers which were eating parasites off the passing animals and some of the female bushbucks were covered in them and quite frightened by the number of birds swarming on them.
The most elusive buck of all for our trip, this reedbuck was seen by a stream in the Serengeti and when I say elusive, I mean that we only saw maybe 3 in a full month of being out and about and came home with just five pictures of them. They are lovely animals with distinctive forward-curling horns and beyond that I can't say much about them.
The most common buck we saw were waterbuck, this one in particular was posing quite nicely at a roadside in Sweetwaters. We saw two types, Defassa and Common, though I have a hard time telling them apart. They are the biggest of the bucks we saw and apparently their thick fur makes them hard for lions to eat comfortably as it bothers their mouths and their meat doesn't taste very good. I'm sure this defense mechanism doesn't work all the time but it seems to give them a degree of safety from predation. We had several other nice encounters with these animals including seeing some of them sparring for females during a walk we took in the evening at Lake Naivasha.