Described as having a "distinctive topknot," this picture
doesn't show it. It IS a hammerkop, though.
Wednesday, March 28 (Day 12): Last game drive in the Masai Mara, and on to Nairobi.
One last 6:30 Maina wake-up, with cookies, coffee and hot chocolate. One more morning with Willie, and one last chance to find some leopards in Kenya. We realized that this was to be our last game drive in Kenya, but really didn't think about it too much as we were anticipating the mountain gorillas and additional game drives in Uganda, followed by game drives in Zambia, and maybe Zimbabwe.
We urged Willie on with instructions to "Find us some chuis!" He simply said, "I'll do my best." And he tried hard. Since our plane to Nairobi wasn't until 3:30 PM, we had scheduled another full morning drive complete with another picnic breakfast. We set off in high spirits. The day was not quite as cool as before, and it warmed up nicely as the morning progressed. We headed into the Masai Mara National Park with an air of anticipation.
The three hours before breakfast were pretty productive for locating animals and birds. We found in a tree a medium-large dark brown bird that Willie identified as a hammerkop. The lighting wasn't good, and we had to lighten the image quite a bit to give the bird any quality beyond that of a silhouette.
Described as having a "distinctive topknot," this picture
doesn't show it. It IS a hammerkop, though.
A few minutes later we were approaching a shallow pool with some bare dirt and short grass nearby, along with some thicker grass. We heard a bird crying out over and over, quite loudly, and couldn't figure out if it was in distress, sounding an alarm, or just making a lot of noise. We spotted the bird on the ground, and Willie recognized it as some kind of ibis. As we got closer, Linda noticed a small animal nearby in the grass. At first she thought it was a jackal, but it turned out to be a cerval cat! We were quite excited as this was a rare sighting, especially in the daytime! These mostly nocturnal cats are slightly larger than a house cat and spotted. We actually got several good pictures of this one before it disappeared into the taller grass.
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I don't know if the ibis was making its noise because of the proximity of the cerval cat, or for some other reason, but Carol managed to get a picture of it as well. Willie told us it was a Hadada Ibis (accent on the first syllable, "HA-da-da").
Our book says its voice is: HAH-HAH-HAH-de-dah.
We kept driving near the river and around trees trying to spot a leopard. The terrain alternated between open fields and groves of trees. At about 7:45 we surprised a waterbuck who waited long enough for us to snap its picture before bounding off towards the trees.
Shaggy and pretty.
Still no leopards. We took pictures of some white-browed coucals in a bush. I thought Willie was calling them "cou-cous," like the clock, but it was, in fact, "coucal." We didn't hear them chirp or make any noise, so I don't know if they actually SAY "cou-cou" or not.
White-browed coucals. The top one at right is showing off his plumage for you.
The next birds we found were several speckled mousebirds. These have quite a long tail, which unfortunately doesn't show up well in our pictures. Several times we wished we had a more powerful telephoto lens than our 180 mm maximum zoom. A 300 mm lens is recommended, but we didn't want to make the investment required for one since we didn't anticipate using the camera a whole lot other than for this trip. It would have been nice, but they are not inexpensive!
Speckled mousebirds, supposed to have a topknot and long tail. If you look reeeeeal
close…
Shortly after 8:00 we passed a very shallow muddy pool with about 20 yellow-billed storks wading around in it with their bills open and stuck down in the water. Every few seconds one of them would pop up with a 6-inch long fish in its mouth! We couldn't imagine that there were that many fish in that small, shallow pond. Willie told us they were "mud fish" that squirm down into the mud at the bottom. The storks were actually scraping their bills through the mud and would occasionally come across one of the fish and scoop it up for breakfast. In the picture below there is one marabou stork amidst all of the white yellow-billed storks. You can see the fish in the bills of a few of the storks!
What's that big red-headed guy in the dark coat doing here?
Our next picture is of a wattled plover, with bright yellow legs. The photo angle isn't the greatest, but sometimes the birds and animals just wouldn't cooperate with a nice pose.
Wattled plover showing the camera what he thinks of us. At right, a close up
of a yellow-billed stork with mudfish meal.
Just before 9:00 AM we found a sacred ibis. Compare this white bird with its black head and bill to the hadada ibis a few pictures back. They are clearly related, but different.
Holy Black-and-White Bird, Batman, a Sacred Ibis!
We rounded some brush and came upon four topi (three adults and one juvenile). This picture gives you an idea of the terrain we were traversing with fields and forests.
Topis trying to get away from the tourists.
Throughout the morning we had other sightings that just didn't turn out to be picture opportunities. There were several groups of warthogs, which by now we were all calling "wart-piggies," and other animals and birds that I'll list at the end (from our notes). One interesting bird that we DIDN'T see was a Tropical Boubou. So how do we know about it? We kept hearing a noise that sounded like the back-up alarm on a truck or piece of heavy equipment. The kind that sound like "Beep, beep, beep." Or, "Boo, boo, boo." We asked Willie what was making that noise, and he told us it was a tropical boubou.
I'll quote from our bird book: "The Tropical Boubou is a skulking bird, commonly heard but rarely seen!" OK, that fits! And, "Voice: variations include a bell-like boo-boo-boo, immediately followed by a huuee." Sounds like what we heard and Willie described!
It was getting close to breakfast time, and we were approaching the picnic spot near the river, so Willie decided it was time for our mid-morning break in the drive. As before, he "cleared the area" to make sure we wouldn't be gored, trampled or eaten. We wanted to HAVE breakfast, not BE breakfast! In the picture below, Willie is spreading our picnic blanket. In the background you can see the "private bushes" where we "stretched our legs" after Willie had made sure no dangerous animals were lurking nearby!
Our picnic breakfast spot. Private rest rooms, straight ahead.
Final game viewing, then on to Nairobi!
