[Kenya] Lake Nakuru

The next stop on our multi-game reserve Kenyan safari was Lake Nakuru.

Entrance to Lake Nakuru National Park

Our guide Zachary told us that Nakuru is the fourth biggest city in Kenya. What amazed me is that Lake Nakuru is a game reserve located within city limits. How awesome is that? As I was marveling at this piece of information, Zachary told us that Nairobi is the only capital city in the world that has a national park. Wow!

Lake Nakuru

It is here where we got to see plains zebras for the first time. It is interesting to note - and Zachary told us about this as well - that zebras don't seem to fear humans. (Antelopes tend to be skittish and move away when humans get close to them but zebras don't, making it easy to take photos of them.)

Plains zebras

It is also here where we got to see the African cape buffalo, one of the Big Five, for the first time.

African cape buffalo

While we only spent a couple of hours in Lake Nakuru, we did get to see a few animals here that we didn't get to see elsewhere, such as the hadada ibis (it has beautiful iridescent feathers which you can't see very well in this photo),

Hadada ibis

the colobus monkey (once again, I have no idea how Zachary spotted this colobos monkey high up in the branches while driving),

Colobus monkey

and the Rothschild's giraffe, another giraffe subspecies.

Rothschild's giraffe

It is in Lake Nakuru where we got to see lions for the first time. It seemed like there was one female (though I can't be sure if it was female or just a very young male with no hint of a mane yet) and two young males several meters behind her. It was exciting!

Lions

We also got to see what looked like a crested eagle eating its prey. Zachary somehow spotted this eagle perched on this tree and as I took its photo, it started to eat what looked like a rodent that it had in its talon. Great timing!

An eagle with prey in its talons

We also saw a fish eagle in its aerie.

Fish eagle

I was hoping that we would see flamingos in the lake area. Unfortunately, there weren't any when we got there but we did get to see lots of other birds around the lake, including the sacred ibis,

Sacred ibis

marabou storks,

Marabou stork

and lots of pelicans.

Pelicans

It took us about 7 hours to get from Samburu to Lake Nakuru (although we did have about a 45 minute stop for breakfast along the way), which was quite tiring. Thankfully, it was in this drive that we got to pass by Solio Ranch to see several white rinos.

White rhinos in Solio ranch

After seeing the mountains and hills of Samburu, it was great to see the majestic Lake Nakuru.

Next post: Maasai Mara