Kenya wildlife and bird safari

Birds & big game safari, Kenya.
The highlights of this ‘Kenya Special’ trip includes visits to Porini Camp, Selenkay Conservancy, Amboseli National park, Lake Elementaita, Lake Nakuru and Mara Porini Camp, Mara. Some of these camps are well off the beaten track allowing you a truly unique safari experience whereby a feast of beautiful animals and birds can be seen in their natural habitats.

Selenkay Conservancy is well off the beaten track and has been visited by tourists only in recent years. It lies in the heart of Maasailand and is located to the north of Amboseli Park. In Selenkay the animals are truly wild and not fully habituated to the presence of vehicles. Within the conservancy the following animals have been seen recently: elephant, lion, leopard, cheetah, wild dogs, Thompson's and Grant's gazelles, gerenuk, impala, oryx, lesser kudu, zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, warthog, striped hyena, jackal, bat-eared fox, Caracal, African wild cat, serval cat, genet cat, honey badger, mongoose and ostrich. Birdlife is prolific, especially birds of prey.

Guests staying at Amboseli Porini Camp have game drives in both Selenkay Conservancy and in Amboseli. The snow capped peak of Mount Kilimanjaro rising above the clouds dominates every aspect of Amboseli. Established as a national park in 1974 it covers 150sq miles and supports a wide range of mammals (well over 50 of the larger species) and birds(over400 species). Years ago this was the locale around which such famous writers as Ernest Hemingway and Robert Ruark spun their stories of big game hunting in the wilds of Africa. Within Selenkay Conservancy you can learn how to identify animal spoor and about the traditional use by the local people of medicinal properties of the many plant species in the conservancy. Lake Nakuru, a shallow alkaline lake, is world famous as the location of the greatest bird spectacle on earth - myriads of pink flamingo whose numbers are legion, often more than a million and which literally turn its shores pink. Large numbers of pelicans concentrate by the fresh water streams that flow into the lake and thousands of other birds may be seen including African fisheagles, white winged black terns, stilts, avocets, ducks and in the Europeanwinter, the migrant waders.

You are also likely to see both Black and White Rhinos here, plus giraffe, waterbuck, zebra and Cape buffalo. Leopard are also frequently sighted and Lake Nakuru National Park is one of the places where visitors have the best chance of seeing these elusive big cats. The bushlands offer eland, warthog, impala, Mountain Reedbuck and dik dik,whilst rock hyrax and klipspringer occupy the cliffs and escarpment.

Mara Porini Camp has recently been set up in the exclusive wildlife conservancy of Ol Kinyei, one of the most beautiful wilderness areas in the Serengeti-Mara eco-system. This is pristine wilderness with open savannah plains, riverine forest, springs, streams and rivers, rolling hills and spectacular views across the Mara. Ol Kinyei belongs to a Maasai community who have recently set aside the conservancy as a sanctuary for wildlife. The conservancy holds a wide variety of the animal species for which the Mara is famous including a large resident pride of lions as well as resident leopards and cheetahs in addition to all the plains game found in the Mara.