CLOSE-UP WITH WILDLIFE IN NAIROBI, KENYA: Part 3, Giraffe Center, Guest Post by Humberto Gutierrez Rivas

Reticulated giraffe feeding on bushes at the Giraffe Center, Nairobi, Kenya.

With many thanks to Humberto Gutierrez Rivas for his report and terrific photos of his family's trip to Kenya last January. His post about their wildlife experiences near Nairobi is in three parts, the first appearing two weeks ago, Part 3 today, and Part 2 last week.

This past January our family had the trip of a lifetime to Kenya for 12 days to visit friends in Nairobi, go on safari, and visit the island of Lamu.  There were many highlights of this trip, and one that got it started happened right there in the city of Nairobi.  

Less than 8 hours after our arrival, we were met at the front door of our friends’ house by Amos, our guide, and his safari van.  Our friends had coordinated a day expedition for us to Nairobi’s National Park, the Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage center, and Giraffe Center.

Amos drove us from the north to the south part of the city to get us to the park, so we also got to see the early morning activities of people walking to bus stops, walking to work, and opening shops along the road. 

Giraffe Center

Petting and feeding food pellets to a Rothschild giraffe.

Our last stop for the first day, after visiting the Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage and Nairobi National Park, was the Giraffe Center.  Although the Giraffe Center is not located right at the national park, as is the elephant orphanage center, it is near it. It’s a very popular place to visit. To enter the center you go through some stations where you are asked to wash your shoes and your hands because you will be in very close contact with the giraffes when you feed them. The center has a tall walkway that curves around the main building. 

Petting a giraffe.

All visitors get a handful of giraffe food in the form of pellets in a half coconut shell. Some giraffes come to the walkway to meet the visitor and get easy food--others feed on leaves in the nearby trees. There are signs that warn you to be careful so that the giraffe doesn’t bump you with its head. 

Masai giraffe.

We learned from other signs that in the area we are likely to see three species of giraffes. We can tell them apart by the skin pattern: the Reticulated (tile like marks), the Masai (maple leaf like marks), and the Rothschild (darker patches with white spaces between patches). My wife and daughter stopped to feed the giraffes. You put some small amount of pellets in your fingers and drop it into the giraffe’s tongue, but if you are not careful, a long tongue goes for the coconut shell instead of your hand. Giraffes have a grayish and slimy tongue. 

Warthogs and giraffe. A warthog family feeding from fallen pellets.

We also saw a family of adult and young warthogs resting and running between the legs of the giraffes to feed on pellets that fall to the ground.  We spent close to an hour at the center, and at 5:30 in the afternoon we were ready to go back to our friend's house. The next day would start very early with a six hour drive for a three day visit to the Masai Mara National Park

BOTSWANA, AFRICA, ANIMAL SAFARI, Guest Post by Ann Paul

Leopard, Botswana

My friend and fellow children's book writer Ann Paul and her husband Ron recently returned from a trip to Africa which included a trip to Botswana. Here is her report and some fantastic photos of the wildlife they saw. You can find out about Ann's books at www.annwhitfordpaul.net. Her newest book, If Animals Said I  Love You, will be published in the fall.

Botswana, a sparsely populated country of little more than two million people is mostly desert, savannah and grassy plains, but features some of the best animal viewing in Africa. Although our spring (Botswana’s fall) trip was off season (which meant lodges and safari camps were at their most reasonable) and we were warned wildlife might not be out in abundance, we were more than pleasantly surprised. Perhaps we were fortunate that the country had endured an especially rainy season, for we were greeted with some great sightings, including our first ever of a leopard out for a stroll.

And, a less than one-week-old hippo calf hitching a ride on her mother’s back....

a parade of over one hundred elephants that never seemed to end....

and a pack of wild dogs on the prowl. Here is just one of them. I love its perky ears.

Warthogs are usually a common sight. What is uncommon is to come upon two near their den and that they stayed still long enough for a decent picture.

A male lion making sure no other male suitor came after his females

These two male giraffes posed perfectly.

Then they put on a demonstration of their sparring technique, using their heads to lift up the other’s leg.

I’m particularly proud of this photo of a baboon high up in a palm tree taken with my new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000k camera which features a Leica lens and a view angle from 25 mm wide-angle to 16X optical zoom. (thanks to the suggestion of a dear friend.)

The camera allowed me to get some lovely bird photos which I’ll share in an upcoming post. For now, I leave you with this advice. If you’re planning a trip to Botswana, consider going off-season. The prices are cheaper. The lodges are less crowded, which means you’re not crammed into a vehicle for animal sightings and you get more personal attention.
On previous trips, I’ve traveled with a simple camera.
Never again.
If you’re going to the trouble of a long flight (22 hours air time from Los Angeles, not counting layovers in airports) make sure you can take quality pictures.

We stayed at Tubu Tree Camp in the Okavango Delta floodplains and Zarafa Camp located in the Selinda Reserve.  Our trip was arranged by LIVINGSTONE SAFARIS.