Lake Nakuru National Park Things to Do

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I am pretty much patient when taking pictures, especialy if sunrisings, sunsets or wild animals, but my patience didn't help much regarding flamingoes. They were totaly distrustful and keeping safe distance range from me. I had to take all my pics with 300 mm lens. Next time if there should be dressed in flamingoe, maybe it will help.
Anyway, there are so many of them at the Lake Nakuru, some says over a million the other says over two or three millions but even if few thousands only, it's nice to see them.

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I haven't seen much of giraffes in the Nakuru Park area, in fact this two giraffes were the only I have seen around. The guide told me Nakuru isn't one of the parks where giraffes could be find. Anyway, giraffe is friendly specie and was nice to see them around.

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Baboons aren't friendly specie, especially if having baby baboons around or if somebody is disturbing their territory. All this photos were taken from the car and I was awarned not to go out. Baboon isn't of gorila size but no matter that physically it is very strong, much stronger then humans are. Besides, his front pair of tooths are very big and could be deadly weapon. Sometimes they sit in the middle of the road and don't want to move, even if car is coming into their direction.

The best place to get a view of the park from above is to visit the lookout at Baboon cliff. Its like looking down on an artists painting, where all the colours of the water of Nakuru, the pink of the flamingo, and the black mud around, plus the dry savannah lands and green of the acacia's create swirls of colour like a surrealist piece of art.

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We last visited in January 2011. Driving down to the lake means that you see Flamingos. The only other places I saw flamingos in Kenya was at Lake Borgoria, a hot springs lake which is where they breed. Their bright pink colour of their feathers is because they eat a beta carotene they obtain from their food. The ones I used to visit in London Zoo were all white until they introduced this ingredient into the food.

There are two species of flamingo, lesser and greater. The noise they make sounds like a train. However, there were markedly fewer birds on this last trip.

You can also see spoonbills and pelican at the lake.

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Although still quite rare the black and white Rhino are still an impressive sight, even from a distance. A generally placid looking animal, when attacking can move its bulk at almost 50 kph. The colour of their hide means nothing,it is more the size and shape of the mouth which denotes the difference, the white Rhino being much squarer in the jaw. The white also has a hump of fat behind its head, and its forehead is more elongated. But if one charges you, don't stop to look and try to tell the difference.......

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I would say that this was the icing on the cake at Lake Nakuru, as this was a very lucky encounter and totally unexpected. Shortly after leaving the lodge around 7.30 am for Lake Naivasha, we gave way to another vehicle coming from our right. As this van was trundling along at 10 kph, our driver tried to overtake him, but he kept wandering into the middle of the track. After a couple of minutes of this the other van slowed and then stopped. We all started moaning and groaning "What's he doing stopping in the middle like that ?". Then we saw the other driver was pointing to our right. Unbelieveable, there they were 5 metres away, 3 cubs and 2 lioness tearing away at a Waterbuck. This was the closest we had actually been to Lions. We stayed about 25 mins and not once was there any aggressiveness towards us at all, just laid there enjoying their breakfast. Didn't see the male this time, 'though he couldn't have been far.

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This is one very wild creature and one that even the guides are afraid of getting too close to. Part of the co-called "Big Five" the buffalo is unpredictable in its nature, it is capable of hurling its ton of armoured body along at speeds up to 60 kph. Extremely agressive it needs no reason to charge, even lions only hunt the old, maimed or very young. Males differentiate from the females by being bigger, heavier and also the horns that meet above the head giving a more agressive look.