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Aberdare National Park Map
The Aberdare National Park was created in 1950 to protect the forested slopes
and moors of the Aberdare Mountains. The park has elephant, lion, rhino, black
leopard and the beautiful but elusive bongo antelope, and is often part of a
bigger safari itinerary that takes in the Masai Mara, Samburu National Reserve
and Amboseli National Park.
The lodges are one of the main attractions of the Aberdare. Both Treetops and
The Ark are built above the ground beside floodlit waterholes with salt licks.
Visitors must book in advance and cannot make their own way to the lodges in
private vehicles. Instead check-in is at the Aberdare Country club for The Ark
and the Outspan Hotel for Treetops, from where guests are bussed to their
respective lodges.
Treetops is one of Kenya's most famous hotels - this is where British Princess
Elizabeth was informed that she had become Queen in 1952 on news of her father's
death. The Ark, however, offers better game viewing, especially at night.
Nocturnal game viewing is taken so seriously round these parts that there is a
bell in each room which sounds if an unusual animal turns up at the waterhole.
Elephant, buffalo, rhino, leopard and bushbuck are regular visitors. The hotel
is reached via a gangway which takes you to the level of the forest top.
LAKE NAKURU NATIONAL PARK:
Lake Nakuru is one of the Rift Valley soda lakes. It lies to the south of
Nakuru, in central Kenya and is protected by a small Lake Nakuru National Park.
Greater and Lesser Flamingos flock to the lake. The lake's abundance of algae
attracts the vast quantity of flamingos that famously lines the shore.
Other birds also flourish in the area, as do warthogs, baboons and other large
mammals. Black and White rhinos have also been introduced. The lake's level
dropped dramatically in the early 1990s but has since largely recovered.
Nakuru means "Dust or Dusty Place" in Maasai language. Lake Nakuru National
Park, close to Nakuru town, was established in 1961. It started off small, only
encompassing the famous lake and the surrounding mountainous vicinity. Now it
has been extended to include a large part of the savannahs.
Lake Nakuru National Park
Lake Nakuru National Park (168 km˛), created in 1961 around Lake Nakuru, near
Nakuru Town. It is best known for its thousands, sometimes millions of flamingos
nesting along the shores. The surface of the shallow lake is often hardly
recognizable due to the continually shifting mass of pink. The number of
flamingoes on the lake varies with water and food conditions and the best
vantage point is from Baboon Cliff. Also of interest is an area of 188 km around
the lake fenced off as a sanctuary to protect Rothschild giraffes and black
rhinos.
The park has recently been enlarged partly to provide the sanctuary for the
black rhino. This undertaking has necessitated a fence - to keep out poachers
rather than to restrict the movement of wildlife. The park now has more than 25
rhinos, one of the largest concentrations in the country, so the chances of
spotting these survivors are good. There are also a number of Rothschild's
giraffe, again translocated for safety from western Kenya beginning in 1977.
Waterbuck are very common and both the Kenyan species are found here. Among the
predators are lion and leopard, the latter being seen much more frequently in
recent times. The park also has large sized pythons that inhabit the dense
woodlands, and can often be seen crossing the roads or dangling from trees.
Habitat and Wildlife
Lake Nakuru, a small (it varies from 5 to 45 square kilometers) shallow alkaline
lake on the southern edge of the town of Nakuru lies about 160 kilometers north
of Nairobi. It can therefore be visited in a day tour from the capital or more
likely as part of a circuit taking in the Masai Mara or Lake Baringo and east to
Samburu. The lake is world famous as the location of the greatest bird spectacle
on earth - myriads of fuchsia pink flamingos whose numbers are legion, often
more than a million - or even two million. They feed on the abundant algae,
which thrives in the warm waters. Scientists reckon that the flamingo population
at Nakuru consumes about 250,000 kilos of algae per hectare of surface area per
year. There are two types of flamingo species: the Lesser flamingo can be
distinguished by its deep red carmine bill and pink plumage unlike the greater,
which has a bill with a black tip. The Lesser flamingos are ones that are
commonly pictured in documentaries mainly because they are large in number. The
number of Flamingos has been decreasing recently, perhaps due to too much
tourism, pollution resulting from industries waterworks nearby who dump waste
into the waters or simply because of changes in water quality which makes the
lake temporarily inhospitable.
Usually, the lake recedes during the dry season and floods during the wet
season. In recent years, there have been wide variations between the dry and wet
seasons' water levels. It's suspected that this is caused by increasing
watershed land conversion to intensive crop production and urbanization, both
which reduce the capacity of soils to absorb water, recharge groundwaters and
thus increase seasonal flooding. Pollution and drought destroy the flamingos'
food, Cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, and causing them to migrate to the
nearby Lakes, more recently lakes Elmenteita, Simbi Nyaima and Bogoria. Local
climate changes have also been hypothesized to contribute to the changing
environmental conditions in the lakes catchment. Recent media reports indicate
increasing concern among stakeholders, as mass flamingo migrations and deaths
could spell doom to the tourism industry. The flamingos feed on algae, created
from their droppings mixing in the warm alkaline waters, and plankton. But
flamingo are not the only avian attraction, also present are two large fish
eating birds, pelicans and cormorants. Despite the tepid and alkaline waters, a
diminutive fish, Tilapia grahami has flourished after being introduced in the
early 1960s. The lake is rich in other birdlife. There are over 400 resident
species on the lake and in the surrounding park. Thousands of both little grebes
and white winged black terns are frequently seen as are stilts, avocets, ducks,
and in the European winter the migrant waders. Also they have a bunch of Zebra.
