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Theme5/5/99 Into the Heart of AfricaText and Photos by Dan
Small In January, Kenya’s Maasai Mara is quiet at daybreak. The vast herds of wildebeest, gazelles and zebras that grazed here during the rainy season have crossed the Great Rift Valley south into Tanzania, following the rain. High in a lone acacia, a vulture surveys the broad savannah, whose lush grasses have been cropped to fairway height by the hungry herds. Here and there, a skull catches the rising sun, flashing a reminder that some must die so that others may flourish.
To a keen observer of North American wildlife, a Kenya safari offers the rare opportunity to compare the form, behavior and habitat of familiar species with those of their African counterparts. While the differences remain undeniable, the striking similarities leave equally lasting impressions. Forget the four seasons that mark the natural calendar for species that live in the Great Lakes region. Here, it is perpetual summer, with two rainy seasons: the short rains in October and November and the long rains from March to June. In between, much of Kenya is dry. Water, or its scarcity, defines the behavior of wildlife. Our safari begins with a drive into Kenya’s Central Highlands, where the rich soil, temperate climate and abundant rain support huge coffee, citrus and pineapple plantations and the small subsistence gardens of the native Kikuyu. Dense forests are home to rhino, elephant and buffalo, along with the shy, nocturnal bongo and bushbuck, two forest antelope that rely on their speed to elude their main predator, the leopard. Our minibus crosses a stream that tumbles toward the plain. Its clear, rocky pools look inviting. “Are there fish in there?” I ask Antonio, our tour guide. “Trout,” he replies. “Planted by British colonists who liked to fish for them. In some streams, they have replaced the native tilapia.” For an instant, I imagine myself wading up a riffle, casting a fly, as black- and-white colobus monkeys waltz through the treetops. Later, Antonio says many exotic plants, from grasses to eucalyptus trees, brought here like the trout by colonists, have also forced out native species. Were European brown trout a positive addition to Kenya’s ecology? I forget to ask if there are carp. On our way to lunch at Aberdare Country Club, we pass the golf course, where a dozen warthogs graze on their knees along the sixth fairway. From a distance, they look like broken toys. Back home, golfers must play through flocks of Canada geese that foul fairways and greens with their dung. How does a warthog react when you bonk it with your drive?
As dusk settles, my roommate, Larry Groth, and I watch from our “cabin” window as a herd of buffalo shuffles down to the water hole. Later, while photographing buffaloes and elephants from a ground-level bunker, a member of our party is surprised by a genet a small, cat-like predator that pops up in front of the bunker window. Through the night, a naturalist watches the floodlit arena for game, his finger on the button that sounds a buzzer in each cabin to announce the arrival of one of Kenya’s “Big Five:” lion, leopard, rhino, buffalo or elephant. Larry, who is the director of Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, Texas, jumps up at the first buzzer and runs out to the B deck balcony to see a lion stalking three waterbucks. The second buzzer signals a rare black rhino. Finally roused by the third buzzer at 4:30 a.m., I pull on a jogging suit and stumble out to see a leopard slinking through a fringe of cover around the salt lick. In my photos, it is a blur just outside the floodlight’s reach.
Past the checkpoint at Isiolo, we traverse 30 miles of rough gravel road. An occasional Samburu tribesman tends a small herd of goats. A cluster of low, round huts the color of the earth announces a village. Three Somali ostriches adjust flightless wings and stare as we bump by. On the banks of the Uaso Nyiro River, Samburu Serena Lodge is a cool, green oasis in this brown land. Staff members dressed in traditional red Samburu costumes and multi-colored beads greet us with trays of cold passion fruit, papaya and mango juice. A dip in the pool washes off the road dust and readies us for the afternoon game drive. Ten yards from the pool, a sign overlooking the river reads “Animals only beyond this point.” On a sand bar, a crocodile and a flock of marabou storks wait for supper. In a tree across the river, a ranger hangs a goat hindquarter for the leopard that sometimes comes after dark. There is nothing in America that compares with a game drive in a Kenyan national reserve. Granted, in some Western states there are fenced-in parks where you can drive around and photograph exotic animals, but not in the quantity found in Kenya, and not in their true habitat. In Texas, the lions won’t be in the same compound as the zebras, either. This is scrub desert, where most plants sport wicked thorns and small leaves that conserve moisture. The Samburu weave thorny branches into stockades to keep predators from their homes and livestock. The animals that live here are well adapted to this harsh environment. The dik-dik, a bug-eyed antelope the size of a long-legged beagle, feeds on leaves, roots and tubers. Every one we see is standing in the cover of some shady shrub, poised to bolt if a jackal or leopard appears. Another antelope, the gerenuk (“giraffe-necked,” in the Somali language), stands on its hind legs and stretches its long neck to feed on tender shoots between the reach of dik-diks and that of giraffes. Back home, whitetails feed in the same manner when lower browse dwindles in late winter. Like the dik- dik, the gerenuk can go indefinitely without water. Both are everywhere in the Samburu Reserve, in pairs or occasionally with young. It is breeding season for the impala, and we encounter several small herds. Both sexes are sleek and tawny, with vertical black lines that frame a white rump. Bucks have long, lyre-shaped horns. Each group of does is guarded by a lone buck, on constant lookout for rivals, much the way a bull elk guards his harem. Nearby, a bachelor herd bides its time. Antonio explains that rivals will constantly test the dominant buck. When he tires, one will replace him permanently or until he is able to run the rival off. Intent on each other, the impalas let us drive close enough to hear their vocalizations, which sound just like the grunts of our own whitetails. Other antelope appear at nearly every turn in the road, each a variation on a theme of gray or brown, with or without stripes, and wearing long, sharp horns: waterbuck, oryx, kudu, eland. Each fills a niche in the grazer/ browser category. All are fodder for lion or leopard.
Elephants, however, simply push over acacias and eat their foliage, thorns and all. Their numbers once reduced by ivory poachers, elephants are now so abundant in some game reserves that their destructive feeding habits threaten habitat important to the survival of many species. It is impossible not to notice Kenya’s colorful birds. Antonio tells us there are over a thousand different species. A young couple in our minibus, Simon and Jennifer Hackshaw, who work at Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, are avid birders. With their help, we identify 167 species while looking for bigger game. I am drawn to the birds that resemble those back home. We see a dozen different raptors: eagles, owls and hawks. Francolins, about the size of our ruffed grouse, scurry across the road in front of our minibus in pairs or small coveys, while larger flocks of vulturine guineafowl scratch up dry leaves for bugs exactly the way wild turkeys do. Our drivers find a leopard resting in a tree along the river the highlight of our afternoon game drive. The spotted cat slinks off its branch into the underbrush to avoid a confrontation with a troop of baboons that could kill it if they managed to corner it. Lolling in shade by the river, the lions are the least active creatures we find here. Then we see why: a partially eaten oryx lies half hidden in the brush. The full lion drama unfolds in the Maasai Mara in southwest Kenya. Here, a mated pair copulate three times in the 45 minutes we spend with them, 30 yards from our vehicles. Antonio winks and tells us they will mate as often as 30 times a day for a ten-day period, as part of the bonding that keeps the pride together. On a low hill nearby, a lioness nurses four young cubs. Behind a patch of high grass, another male barely opens an eye as our shutters snap madly. The next morning, a lioness tears at a fresh zebra kill, equally indifferent to our presence. It is unnerving how little attention they pay us. Smaller predators are shyer. A nervous cheetah trots across the plain, her one surviving cub scurrying to catch up. A black-backed jackal follows, looking for a chance to dash in and grab the cub. A herd of dainty Thomson’s gazelles also follows the cheetah. “They feel safer if they know where she is,” Antonio explains. At a water hole, another jackal tries to snatch a dead hare from a hyena, but settles for scraps. Wildebeest stop grazing to watch us drive slowly past. The few hundred we see are a fraction of the number that migrated south through this valley a couple months ago. On a bridge over the Mara River, Antonio invites us out of the vehicles. In midstream, vultures stand on what appear to be rocks. We wince at the stench and see these “rocks” are the bloated carcasses of wildebeest drowned or crushed by their kin as they swarmed across the river. Upstream, we walk the bank as hippos wallow in a deep pool. On our last morning here, three from our group take a balloon ride at dawn. Their tale of drifting over herds of antelope at treetop height convinces me to try it on my next trip in October. That trip should catch the tail end of the great wildebeest migration and I’ll see the life drama of the northern Serengeti in yet another season. Want to come along? Dan will lead a photo safari to Kenya Oct. 19-31, 1999. For information on this trip, call Park East Tours: 800-223-6078, ext. 321. ©2000 Milwaukee Public Television
March 3, '99:
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At first glance, Africa seems so utterly
foreign to an American visitor, its wildlife so exotic.
Lions, rhinos and elephants, those stolid residents of the
zoos of our childhood, have perhaps grown a tad more
familiar thanks to TV documentaries like Nature or The World of Survival, but from the comfort of home, we
can still view their behavior with detachment, or even
disinterest. All that will change when you cruise the gravel
roads in the heart of one of Kenya’s national game
reserves.
We spend our first night on safari in Aberdare
National Park, at a unique game lodge called the Ark. A
boardwalk high above a ravine takes us from the vehicles to
this ship in the forest, overlooking a water hole and salt
lick. This Ark has a roof that sweeps upward at both ends to
resemble the Biblical vessel and three decks that give
visitors sky-box seats for the evening show. Here, we are
captive viewers, and the roving zoo comes to us.
After breakfast, we head north. The road to
Samburu National Reserve drops 4,000 feet into the dusty
lava plain that marks the beginning of Kenya’s arid desert
land. It is warmer here, perhaps in the mid-80s, but dry. At
a pit stop on the equator, a bottle of Coca Cola costs 70
Kenyan shillings, about $1.15. A bottle of spring water
costs 200 shillings, more than three bucks.
Reticulated giraffes, their reddish flanks
covered with a network of sharply defined white lines, use a
prehensile upper lip and a long tongue to strip the tender
leaves and shoots from thorn trees without harm.