July trip to Tsavo

This past July I kicked off my summer break with an epic roadtrip to Tsavo West and East with my good bud Jackson. It was extremely dry throughout, but we still managed to scrounge up some good stuff.  

We left my house in the morning and arrived at Chyulu Public Campsite comfortably before dark. The campsite itself was out of commission because some elephants had uprooted the water pipe that serves the washroom, so the temporary arrangement was to either camp inside or adjacent to the ranger compound. Since the outside spot was taken by some other campers, we set ourselves up inside. It was a really nice place to chill and cook food, while checking the surrounding bushes and the water trough for bird action. Spotted from camp were: Pringle's Puffback, Jameson's Firefinch, Blue-capped Cordon-bleu, white Paradise Flycatcher, Sulfur-breasted Bush-shrike, Gabar Goshawk and Little Sparrowhawk. 

Jameson's Firefinch

Blue-capped Cordon-bleu

The ranger had been filling this little concrete water traugh with water every evening in order to keep the big animals out of the compound. He said that a leopard regularly frequents it, maybe one out of three evenings. This piqued our interest. 

Piqued it very much. 

You just need to sit quietly at the edge of the gate, he said, and listen for the sound of its tongue lapping up the water. On the first night, we heard the sound and got super excited. But my headlamp revealed not a leopard but a pair of hyenas drinking the water. Apparently, the leopard doesn't like comping to drink after the hyenas have been there (maybe they leave a bad smell?). Later that night, a giraffe came by and early in the morning, I peered over the wall to spy a thirsty elephant. 

On the second night, we heard the lapping sound again. This time, just a waterbuck. Two ladies had arrived to spend the night, although they had trouble with their tent so they slept in their car. We had just eaten dinner and were striking up a conversation over a beer. The whole time, Jack had one ear to the conversation and the other to the water trough. He told us to shut up and we duly obeyed his command. We could hear the lapping but it was more subtle than the other animals. He grabbed my camera for me while I trained my spotlight on the water trough. It was a young leopard judging by its quaint size, which was soon joined by a second of equal size. Perhaps siblings? We watched them for a couple of minutes before they walked off into the bush. What a rush! On the third night, they did not return. We had gotten extremely lucky (as Jackson and I have been many times!). 

Here are a few highlights from driving around in Tsavo West. Interesting birds seen were Ashy Cisticola, Tsavo Sunbird, Scaly Chatterers, Martial Eagle, Golden-breasted Starling, Red-naped Bush-shrike. 

Red-naped Bush-shrike, a Tsavo West specialty near the rhino sanctuary. Much easier to spot during the dry season. 

A handsome bird indeed! 

Black Rhino

This is the only black rhino we saw in the rhino sanctuary, which is open from 4 to 6pm only. We left at about 5pm in order to have enough time to drive back

Scaly Chatterer

Ngulia Mountains in in the distance - adding to the interesting topography of Tsavo West compared East

Mt. Kilimanjaro sort of visible in the distance

Mt. Kilimanjaro visible again in the distance

On one of the mornings, we took a drive to Mzima Springs. What a beautiful oasis in the middle of the vast dry scrub of Tsavo. Truly a gem of world heritage which is far less famous than it ought to be. With just the two of us this time, it felt as though we were one person short. I clenched my thirst in its cool, clear waters which burst forth from the porous rocks, a thirst-quenching force of nature. The moment was bittersweet. 

After three nights at Tsavo East, we decided it was time to head on over to Tsavo East to see what it had to offer. At the top of our minds was of course the Hirola Antelope, which we might have seen last trip but never happened to take a picture, leaving it in doubt, and the infamous Somali Courser, one of my nemeses. 

At the Mitito Andei gate, a big flock of starlings came through while I was bartering for some trinkets. Jackson says 4 of them were Shelley's Starlings, but I wasn't totally convinced. I saw them in flight but never got a confirmational photo. I did get pics of this one but I'm pretty sure it's a Hildebrandt's. 

We did a little afternoon drive then settled in the campsite for the first of 2 nights. That evening, several elephants put on a show as they commuted to a small nearby watering hole. We entertained ourselves with trying to peg on of the massive army of baboons with the slingshot. They always managed to get away by an inch. Later in the evening, I tried getting photos of Pearl-spotted Owlet and African Scops Owl in the campsite. 

The next day was dedicated to driving the triangle up north to Sala gate, then west to Lugard Falls, then back south-east to the campsite. The whole park was extremely dry, rendering our chances for Hirola very slim indeed. They prefer areas of recent rain where they graze the fresh, green shoots of grass when they're short. Not a blade of green grass in sight. A park ranger from Sala gate told us that it had recently rained near Luggard Falls, but his intel seemed to be incorrect since it was bone dry there as well. We even tried driving about 5 km north of the Gallana river crossing but turned back on Jackson's safety advice. 

Along the way we found these two male 'super tuskers' I would call them, grazing on some short shrubs by grabbing them with their trunks then shoving wads of it into their mouths. One of them deployed his 5th leg which was impressive. Quite impressive. 

Somewhere about halfway along the road that goes parallel to the Galana River, we came upon a small flock of Collared Pratincoles. We got briefly excited due to their resemblance to coursers. However, just 1km further down the road we did in fact spot a flock of 6 coursers fly across the road and land in an open expanse of dry scrub. They were quite far from the road but were undeniably Somali Coursers! We couldn't really do anything for closer views so we just headed further down the road hoping to find more. After our little probe north of the Galana River, we turned back and started heading back in a southeasterly direction. Just south of the junction for Luggard Falls, we found a family of 3 Somali Coursers standing right on the road. I got acceptable photos this time. And great views. 

Further along, there was this dried up seasonal river which reminded me of the one from the Obama documentary, the resemblance was uncanny. We were shocked to see crocodiles taking refuge in what tiny puddles remained. I wonder what they do when it fully dries up? There were a few elephants in there as well. It was very scenic. We saw a pair of White-headed Vultures at some point. 

A harmless Striped Sand Snake basking on a termite mound

Gerenuk/Giraffe-necked Gazelles

A pride of lions resting in the shade

On our second morning in Tsavo East, our focus was on exiting the park via Manyani Gate. There were reports of leopard and lions from the tour drivers, but we saw nothing of note during our exit. On the positive, we managed to get back to Nairobi with plenty of daylight left, dodging both traffic, protests and the notorious nocturnal driving. All-in-all, it was the perfect way to kick off a Kenyan summer. Plenty of wildlife, lifers, wild African bush camping and most of all, the company of an old and cherished friend. Oh, and we got the big 5! 

Mara Triangle: the Blue Swallow twitch

Over the summer I've been spending time decorating my appartment, gardening, getting in ridiculous shape and reading books. Of course I did a fair bit of camping as well. One trip I really wanted to do was to make the 5 hour drive to Tindaret forest to try for the Red-chested Owl at the campsite. My open invitation did not recruit anybody, until Wilson's availability opened up. Just before we were gonna go, I got an ebird alert that Adrian had seen Blue Swallows in the Mara Triangle. We had a change of plan. The new plan was to drive up on the Sunday, spend two full days in the triangle, then drive back on Wednesday. The targets were: 

Green-capped Eremomela

Blue Swallow

Rock-loving Cisticola

Rufous-bellied Heron

Golden-tailed Woodpecker

Black-backed Cisticola

Schallow's Turaco

We used the Ololoolo Gate which is the furthest gade located next to the escarpment. This is not the ideal gate to start your trip because with the new dumb rule, they will change you for the full day even if you arrive at 6pm. The permits are now 12 hours (which doesn't make any sense, because they don't count nighttime hours when you're sleeping). So they should really just call it a daily permit, not a 12 hour permit. So basically we paid an extra full day's fees (2600 ksh) just to drive 100 meters to the campsite (because it's inside the reserve boundary). Absolute stupidity but I digress. In the future, it would be best to start the safari from Talek Gate, because the campsite is just outside the park boundary. 

On our first day, the sunrise was epic. Hot air baloons were taking off on the horizon, glowing like tiny orange lanterns over the savannah. On our first stop, we checked a flock of cisticolas. They were mostly Pectoral Patch, but there was a single Black-backed Cisticola, singled out by its bright orange rump. This was the only one we got for the whole trip. Lifer! 

Green-capped Erememomela

Next we tried to find a way up the Ololoolo escarpment. We drove up a road that led to two lodges, Agama and Mara West. We were trying for Rock-loving Cisticola. One of the safari guides called ____ said he's had both Rock-loving and Trilling Cisticolas along this track but we came up empty and they seemingly don't respond to calls. We got permission to walk along the entrance road between the gate and the bridge over an artificial pond. We easily got 2 Green-capped Eremomelas there. We didn't have any luck with the Rock-loving Cisticola so we drove back down the road. Wilson had thought he'd glimpsed one earlier while I was driving up the hill but hadn't said anything at the time (he didn't expect to see one so easily). I had the idea to leave the park and drive up a road that goes up the escarpment based on ebird records. I also wanted to try the ___ valley but Wilson and the park staff said that without a guide, we could get unduly harassed by local masai who have been known to basically rob tourists. The local guide wanted 1500 should we choose to call him. We opted not, and tried the main road instead. But it was heavily overgrazed and pretty dead, plus lots of safari vehicles were driving by. We kinda changed our mind and decided to ask one of the locals to take us for maybe 500 bob, but the guys at the corner had disappeared. Wilson was frustrated at all the time we were wasting, so I agreed to give this one up and maybe figure out another plan the next day. We went back into the reserve and made our way toward the area where Adrian had had blue swallows, in the southeastern corner of the Mara Triangle. The main road took us past thousands of zebras and wildebeest. 

While photographing them, I was just mentioning the blue swallows when Wilson literally spotted one fly low across the road in front of us. It was part of a bigger flock of barn swallows and banded martins. We concluded there were 2 Blue Swallows: 1 male, 1 female. I managed some shitty photos of them, but we got really fantastic views as their metalic blue shone beautifully in the mid-day sun. They would soon return to their breeding grounds in the southern Tanzania mountain grasslands. The male's tail forked into two ridiculously long and thin streamers. What an amazing bird that could literally turn up anywhere in Masai Mara...how lucky were we???

Along the main road we also found two ponds that each had a single Rufous-bellied Heron. This is one of those special Mara Triangle birds that was next to impossible to get in the main reserve on my last trip with Dom, Melissa and Kelvin. Nice to get this one under the belt. 

We continued on past the bride to get to Adrian's swallow spot but ended up sidetracked by an interesting track along a river. Wilson got some practice driving stick. We chanced upon a female lion lying in a riverbed, and a male lion lying in the open grassland, from the same viewpoint. Two more for the cat tally, putting us now at 3. 

By this point it was getting a bit late so we turned back toward our campsite, the public campsite beside Serena Lodge was our plan. We followed a track that looked like it would take us in the general right direction, but it appeared that the stream might pose a problem. We tried crossing at one point but it proved too much for my 2wd Xtrail and I was barely able to reverse my way out of it. It took some seriously tactful manoeuvering to get us out of that one. Later on, we tried another crossing point. This time, I got cocky and took the turn too tight, without checking my blind spot which was in front of the left wheel. There was a very steep drop-off there. The result was that my car was teetering on its belly with only two tires in contact with the ground. The front left and rear right tire were up in the air. If you stood on one side of the car, the right back wheel was about 1 foot off the ground. It looked as though we'd be stuck for a long time. But somehow, we were rolling again in 5 minutes. How was that possible? 

The car was so perfectly balanced on its belly that I lifted it off the ground while Wilson shoved some rocks under the front left tire. I then got him to jump up and down on the rear passenger door opening. This put some weight on the right side which was just enough to get some traction, freeing us from our predicament. But even if we hadn't pulled off this amazing stroke of genius, we ran into Wilson's guide friend not even 200m up the road, who would have gladly towed us out. Some reasons why it is always pointless to panic in any situation! 

That being said, we looked at eachother and both agreed THAT IS THE LAST RISK WE'RE TAKING ON THIS SAFARI! 

We got to the campsite in good time but it was still sweltering hot so we decided to check out another campsite which was quite close by, down inside a tiny patch of forest which would be more promissing in terms of shade and possibly birds. 

The facilities in this camp, which set us back 1000 each, consisted of a drop toilet which also served as a bat roost. In other words, it was wild and primitive. We got a fire going and made a harty beef stew with some of the hardest to chew beef cubes I've ever eaten. I think I am still digesting them. We made a nice fire and kept it stoked throughout the night to keep the beasts at bay....

"What the f*** was that..." I whispered to Wilson, rudely awakened at 5:45am. "Lions" he said. "More than one." In fact, it sounded like they were having a battle. It was getting disturbingly close to the edge of camp. Our tent was strategically set right beside the car so we got out and opened the door to prepare for a quick retreat into the car if necessary. The need never arose, but the battle had come so close that we could see the bushes shaking and even glimpse one lion running away through the bushes. Then it was over. Starting our game drive for the morning, we were abruptly halted in our tracks by one of the victors, a huge male lion lounging on the driveway to the camp. His brother was lying in the bushes nearby. They were probably just shy of 50m from where we'd been sleeping...These guys were battle-marked and were marking their territory on the bushes. Our camp belonged to their territory. 

We drove south, the plan being to meandre along some tracks until we hit the escarpment, then follow the escarpment, crossing through some patches of riparian forest where hopefully we could bump into a Schallow's Turaco or a Golden-tailed Woodpecker. 

The birding was slow and access into forest patches was tricky and limited, but we had managed to come across 3 cheetahs taking a nap, and a few birds here and there, like the Temminck's Courser. 

We then stopped in a riparian woodland near the Ololoolo escarpment. We found a spot that looked like a campsite and made a small fire and roasted some weenies for lunch. We thoroughly doused our little fire with water from a nearby creek. We tried for the Turaco and Woodpecker but no luck. But we happened upon Rufous-tailed Weavers on the road, which was a Kenya lifer. 

We proceeded along the base of the escarpment, heading north, searching for any access up its rocky and bushy slope. One road looked like it led up there and there was a vehicle coming down. But we were told by the security gate people that our car wouldn't make it, that it is too steep. He offered to walk us up there, for a fee. But it was pretty hot and Wilson really wasn't up for that, and to be honest neigher was I. Wilson figured we just try again at the same spot as yesterday. Begrudgingly I yielded and that is what we did. 

Somehow, after like the second attempt, we called in a Rock-loving Cisticola from the road that leads up to Agama and Mara West lodges. It didn't make a single sound but its skulking could not escape Wilson's scrutiny. It spent a couple minutes checking us out and we got decent photos confirming its identity. We were able to study the field marks to full satisfaction, cementing an excelent lifer into our memory. 

From there we made our way back to the public campsite, where we made a hearty beef stew. We agreed that we were pretty happy with the birds we'd gotten so far and would be satisfied to make it our last night. Hopefully, we would not be eaten by lions. While we were setting up camp, Wilson played the call of the Golden-tailed Woodpecker. As luck would have it, a male cruised in and darted across the canopy back and forth, like a game of hide and seek. I cautioned Wilson not to probe too greedily and too deeply into the trees, for it was that exact spot that the lions had fought earlier that morning. Eventually he did give up getting a photo, but we had nice looks. 

While preparing dinner, we saw a safari vehicle parked up the hill, so we drove up to check it out. Our two big boys were back, out for an evening stroll. We followed them out into the plains for a short while. They were menacing beasts. 

The following morning, our aim was to make it to Sekanani Gate before the check-out time of 10 am. Our plan was to skeedadle at 6am and basically not stop unless we saw something really good. We downed our last cup of remaining water and cruised through the open plains as the sun rose, passing dozens of elephants, and thousands of zebra and wildebeest. A pack of hyeenas patrolled the bank of the Mara River. A young elephant trumpeted at us as we drove past. At one point, I spotted a male lion just chillng about 50m from the road. 

Further inspection revealed a female and 2 more males lying in the ditch just up ahead. This put our lion total at 9 for the trip (not incluing the 2 males which were chased away which we heard but did not see at the camp). We hoped they were putting a huge herd of wildebeest in their scopes, but it seemed that breeding was more on their mind, as the 3 males followed the lone female, who was a perfect specimen of a lioness. Another bird we spotted was a Magpie Shrike, which is only the second time I've seen this species in my life. 

We got to the gate at about 8:30, so with plenty of time to spare. We stopped for a cup of chai and some mandazi, and hit the road. Along that stretch, I'm told you can get Karamoja Apalis, but I didn't know that at the time. One for the next trip, together with Tabora Cisticola and Schallow's Turaco. I tropped Wildon off in Mai Mahiu and was hope by about 13:30.