September 9-11: Lake Nakuru National Park

After my unplanned visit to Ol Pejeta Conservancy I headed back west to Lake Nakuru National Park. In the map above you’ll find the Park due south of Lake Bogoria National Reserve. Lake Nakuru National Park (73 sq. mi.), established in 1961 and located on the floor of the Great Rift Valley roughly 93 miles northwest of Nairobi, is similar in its landscape setting to Lake Bogoria. Like Lake Bogoria, Lake Nakuru was best known for its thousands, sometimes millions of flamingos nesting (but see below) along the shores and feeding in the shallow warm alkaline waters. Indeed, they claimed that at times the surface of the shallow lake was often hardly recognizable due to the continually shifting mass of pink – must have been a sight to see, although I can’t imagine how it could top what I saw at Lake Bogoria!

The number of flamingos on the Lake is strongly affected by the alkalinity of the lake, in that when the alkaline levels are high the blue-green algae blooms and the flamingos remain, which in turn is affected by the fluctuating water levels. Apparently, in recent years the water levels have fluctuated dramatically between the wet and dry seasons, and it is suspected that this is caused by the increased watershed land conversion to intensive crop production and urbanization, both of which reduce the capacity of soils to absorb water and recharge ground water thereby resulting in increased seasonal flooding during the wet season and starving the lake of water input during the dry season. In addition, like all the other Great Rift Valley lakes, the lake basin has been receiving more precipitation during the past several years which has caused the lake level to rise significantly, resulting in the inundation of lakeside roads and campsites and the death of thousands of trees (“ghost trees”) on the lake fringe. According to one ranger I spoke with at length, the rising lake level has also prevented flamingos from nesting at Lake Nakuru for many years now. Whether this displacement of nesting birds is solely due to the loss of nesting areas along the shoreline – flamingos build mud platform nests on the ground – or changes in the algae food base of the lake due to change in the water chemistry, or both, is unknown. Today, the lake supports far more pelicans than flamingos. Here are some photos of what the lake and shoreline look like today:

The Park has a spectacular setting and a diversity of habitats, along with a surprisingly rich variety of wildife species. The lake sits in a confined basin (i.e., no outlets) with high escarpments on the east and west sides of the valley that create some awesome cliffs and rock outcrops and are covered with a mosaic of grasslands and dense scrub. The valley bottom includes some large grassland plains along with extensive acacia woodlands dominated by a very distinctive acacia tree (Acacia xanthophloea) that has smooth, lemon to greenish yellow bark that gives the woodland a distinctive yellow-green appearance. The common names for this tree are fever tree and yellow-barked acacia . Here are a few photos of the landscape:

My “special” campsite (i.e., private site without facilities) was called Rhino campsite. It was situated in the middle of an extensive acacia woodland close to the grassland plains. It had some large yellow-barked acacia trees, but given their sparse canopy, it didn’t have too much shade to offer, so I spent my siestas at other locations in the Park. The one exciting thing about this campsite was the sound that woke me up at 2:30 am the first night:

It may not sound like it in this recording but this guy was on the edge of my campsite! It turns out that this guy also spent the day resting in the shade in my campsite while I was gone based on the report of a guide I met the following day who had driven to my campsite on his wildlife drive. I guess I should have come back to camp for my siesta! Here are photos of my campsite and siesta site:

Here’s an anecdote that saddened my heart. My first evening in the Park I happened upon a couple of safari vehicles watching something of interest. It turned out to be a beautiful male leopard walking through the tall grass parallel to the road. Eureka! I had only seen leopards once on this trip, so needlesstosay I was excited. I managed to watch the leopard for about 20 seconds but then he moved too far out of sight so I decided to move farther up the road in the direction he was walking. At that very moment, ~50 safari vehicles – you know, the kind with a driver/guide and paying customers – came screaming into the road from all directions. It was total choas and absolutedly maddening. I had heard bad stories about the safari vehicles in Kenya, but this was beyond my worse expectation. There was no consideration for others, just a mad scramble to get into position to see the leopard. The rudeness and unethical behavior on display was unbelievable. I was cut off by a vehicle that drove up the bank on the side of the track and then cut in front of me while I was waiting to move forward. I tried to leave the pack and escape the frenzy but the vehicles were 2 lanes thick as far as I could see ahead and behind. I was literally trapped in place without any view but the side of a vehicle for ~40 minutes. No one moved on after 10 minutes of watching and photographing to allow others a turn as they were suppose to based on the general rules of conduct for safari vehicles. It was the worse wildlife experience I have ever had. As a follow up, two things. First, I ran into the assistant director of the Park the following day and his top administrative assistant and relayed the story. They were very sympathetic and apologetic and vowed to try to rectify the situation – good luck. Second, the next night I passed by the same spot to see if the leopard was around but I didn’t see him and started to move on slowly. As I moved on, dozens of safari vehicles started racing past me to get to the site I had just left. Clearly, the leopard had been seen again and the word went out on radio/phone to the safari guides in the Park who were once again in a mad scramble to give their paying customers their money’s worth. I kept driving as fast as I could in the opposite direction to get as far away from that site as possible.

For the remainder of my time in the Park I tried to stay off the main roads as much as possible and ended up seeing lots of wildlife, including quite a few white rhinos, lions and all the other megafauna. Here’s a composite video of my observations:

Lake Nakuru National Park composite video (22 minutes)

From the Wildside:

Photo Gallery: