Lake Nakuru National Park Stop

   After leaving Eldoret at ‘oh dark 30’ in the morning Kate and I arrived at Lake Nakuru national park at just after sunrise.  We paid the $90 entry fee and drove into the park’s main gate.  Even before entering the park, the first animals greeted us, in the form of a small Vervet monkeys. 

   The drive around the park took us slightly over 4 hours which included many photo stops along the way.  I was taken back at the beauty of the park and of the animals.  The following pictures are in the order of what we saw as we encircled the lake.  I took roughly 530 shots, and the processing of these 43 took me many hours, so I hope you enjoy.  I would like to thank BUC Chamberlain for his birding ability to find the names of almost all of the birds.

These are the Vervet monkeys at the entrance parking lot.  The sun was still low and made the faces really pop out.  And yes, the one is scratching its rear, and yes, it did smell its hand.

This is an olive baboon, one of thousands in the park.  Their large brow makes mid day shots of them difficult since the shadow hides their eyes, which are often filled with expressions that I want to capture.   

This is a Pied Kingfisher.  I have been trying to get a good Kingfisher shot for about 4 years, spending time along rivers and ponds trying to capture this small, agile bird.  This one was perched on a solitary branch on the side of the road overlooking a pond.

Another Olive Baboon, my lens was reflecting the morning light onto his face and distracting him.  I got the shot as the dot was directly in his left eye, probably upsetting him.

A Steppe Eagle.  These are absolutely massive birds, and appear to be much larger than a Bald Eagle.  The thick entangled branches make focusing on the bird extremely difficult, many shots of the series show a perfectly in-focus limb and fuzzy bird. 

A Thomson’s Gazelle, but I like the shot because of the bird in flight. 

A Water Buffalo with an Ox Picker on its neck.  The Ox Pickers would go into the animal’s mouth, nose, ears in search of the ticks it eats.  Some of the Buffalo had 6 birds working them over without the brute even caring.

In the lake were a variety of birds, including the White Pelican, Rosiet Spoonbill, and Flamingos.  Unfortunately we never took a road that got me close to the lake edge.  Also, the pelicans were tough to shoot since they were so white, even some underexposing was not enough for them not to flare out. 

 

The real gem of the day, a mother White Rhino and her calf.  We watched these two for about 20 minutes as they grazed and drank.  They even wandered very close to our vehicle and we waited for them to back away before we drove out. 

I was happy to grab this shot of two of the large mammals of Africa in the same frame. 

Captured this buffalo as it plowed through the water, especially liking the fact I caught the splash of the water.  The second shot was just a close-up of its surly face. 

After driving by the lake edge, we ventured up onto some cliffs overlooking the Lake.  I found this Red-cheeked Cordon Bleu in one of the scraggly trees. 

The views were amazing, providing some good landscaping shots.  The zoomed in shot shows a group of buffalo and white rhinos lounging around the ruins of a lodge by the lake.

On the cliff were these small animals that looked much like a Marmot.  From a reliable source, the guess is that this animal is a Rock Hyrax. 

Also there were lizards gorging themselves on the insects emerging as the morning warmed up.

Giraffes are never in a position to take a good picture since they are always tangled into the trees eating the leaves.

A Dik Dik that ran onto the road, I leaned out the window to grab this picture, hoping a lion (or angry baboon) wasn’t going to grab me.

We came across a small freshwater pond/bog that had three warthogs around it.  They are more skittish than any other animal we saw in the park, my one shot was as one of them ran off into the grass.

The mesmerizing zebras staring straight at me.

This is a blue helmeted guinea fowl, another BUC find.  These animals were running by, never stopping for me to compose a good shot.  Their blue heads were just too funny looking to pass up.

Another surly Buffalo that came close to investigate the truck. 

Majestic Zebras; they are everywhere in both the park and the rest of Africa.

 

This is a Waterbuck, an animal about the size of an elk with some really nice looking horns/antlers.

A young Olive Baboon in the arms of its mother.  Its face was so animated and happy.

The last zebras we saw before leaving the park.  This included a foal, the only one we saw the whole day.  Our drivers said that young end up as meals to hyenas and lions.