Shivani picked us up at 10:00 and we headed to Buffalo Spring Reserve across the river south of us. We had never been to that reserve. When we were here two years ago the bridge across the river was out. We searched 4 hours for a 3-year old male lion they want to collar. We never found him. It showed us just how difficult their job is. There are a gazillion bushes lions can hide under in the heat of the day. We are going back to look for him tomorrow.
We did find a lioness’ tracks. Shivani thinks they were of the oldest lioness in Samburu, who has no teeth. The tracks led us to a field of bushes. We didn’t find her. We could have gone right by her.
We did see a Somali ostrich, the same elephant family we had seen the day before across the river, waterbuck, zebra, gazelle and Impala. There is quite a bit of flat grassland in Buffalo Springs, unlike in Samburu, and so we saw large herds of Beisa Oryx, only found here in Samburu. We also found hippo tracks–seems there is one hippo in Samburu.
We had another picnic lunch in the bush with Shivani and 3 Samburu Warriors.
This is one of our favorite things to do. Here are two warriors fixing lunch.
They don’t bring sandwiches but Bunsen burners to heat vegetables and to make tea. We get a box lunch from the lodge ( it’s been chicken every day) but we all share our food with one another. Here is our view.
After lunch we found two separate herds of cows in the reserve. Domestic animals are not allowed in the reserve. Yeselai (one of the warrior who came to DC in May) went to talk to each herder to tell him to move his herd. They also reported it to the Rangers. It was interesting to watch them do that part of their work.
Finally here are some shots of the monkeys at our lodge.
Looking Out Seeing Within 