Heading out from camp in the early hours, the morning sun was working hard to penetrate the dense cloud cover. With a nip in the air we decided to scout the Talek River for Leopards. It was not long before we found our first animal, not the leopard we were hunting, but a lone Hyena. Could this be one of the clan we heard the night before? Did she find our new born Lions? Did our Lion cubs make it through the night?As we reached the river we could hear the unmistakable deep grunts of our camp’s resident Hippos. The pod had just reformed in their pool from a long nights grazing on the planes. The main male in the pod was putting everyone in their place, making sure they all knew he was the boss!
To our left on the rocks of the rivers edge stood fishing a Grey Heron. He stood perfectly still intensely looking into the river, poised to strike an unfortunate river fish that would wash into his path by the power of the river. Without any warning and lightening speed, the Grey Heron’s head darted in to the river! Not this time, the river fish was lucky. Now the Heron would need to wait, re position himself and wait for the fish to forget he was there.
Moving down along the river our game drive was tricky, we had to work as a team to spot the game. Black cotton soil that forms a base for the Red Oat Gras to grow had absorbed a lot of water in the recent short rainy season. This made driving very tricky, but for our skilled driver this was just another day at the office.
Today would not be the day that we would see our Leopard. As we headed back for breakfast five magnificent Masai Giraffe were gracefully walking along the Berrungat plains. Whenever we see Giraffe in the wild I feel like I’m in the film Jurassic Park. Giraffe walk so tenderly and elegant, giving the impression you are watching them in slow motion. After our therapy session with the Giraffe we headed back to camp for breakfast and a well earned cup of Kenya’s finest tea.