One of the most interesting things I learned on this safari trip is that there are several giraffe subspecies. The three game reserves we visited - Samburu, Lake Nakuru, and Maasai Mara - had their own giraffe subspecies that wasn't present in the others. We were very lucky that we got to see all three of them.
Reticulated giraffe
This subspecies is the only one you can find in Samburu and you can find a whole lot of them here! The reticulated giraffe has clearly defined brown-orange patches with clear white lines separating them. It was the first large mammal we spotted along the dirt road in Samburu upon our arrival. (I say large mammal because my brothers said that they saw a squirrel at the Samburu gate.) On our first game drive, the reticulated giraffe was also the first mammal we saw.
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| Reticulated giraffes in Samburu |
We saw so many of them in Samburu. On our second game drive, we got pretty close to several giraffes that were next to the road.
One of the large male giraffes was trying to woo a smaller female giraffe. She seemed completely disinterested in all his seeming attempts to mate with her. By the time we left this area after several minutes of taking photos and giraffe-watching, the female was still rebuffing the male's advances.
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| A giraffe trying to woo another giraffe |
On our third Samburu game drive, we saw a whole tower of giraffes (apparently and appropriately, a group of giraffes is called a tower). There were more than a dozen of them all around us. I couldn't get them all in a single photo though, so this next photo with about 10 of them in one shot was the best I could do.
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| This is the most giraffes I managed to get in one shot |
Rothschild's Giraffe
The Rothschild's giraffe is one of the most endangered giraffe subspecies and is the only one you can find in Lake Nakuru. It differs from the reticulated giraffe in that it has more irregular lines separating its brown patches which don't fully extend down its legs. We lucked out seeing a lone one shortly before we left Lake Nakuru. It was a very long distance away from us but we were happy to see it. (Thankfully, my phone has pretty good zoom.)
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| Rothschild's giraffe in Lake Nakuru |
Masai Giraffe
We got to see a solitary masai giraffe in Maasai Mara. It's a bit similar to the Rothschild's giraffe in that is has jagged lines separating its patches. The difference is that its patches are darker (supposedly the masai giraffe has the darkest patches among all giraffes) and they go all the way down its leg.
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| Masai giraffe in Maasai Mara |
We saw one more masai giraffe in Crescent Island. I also love the fact that we got to stand pretty close to it and have our photos taken with it.
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| Selfie with a masai giraffe in Crescent Island in Lake Naivasha |
Next: The Elephants of Kenya
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