From the Mountains to the Desert
- Faraaz Abdool
- 6 minutes ago
- 7 min read
After our safaris in 2024, I prepared a series of posts detailing our experiences, to be published with the accompanying images. Some have since been shared on this blog, but a few passages fell into oblivion, buried under piles of other ideas, recent trips, and far too many projects.
Both these environments rank highly among our preferred places to be. On "regular" safaris, we typically don't visit either, but we do occasionally run specialised trips that involve at least one of these gems. In fact, we're offering a photo-safari next June that takes us to the central Kenyan highlands as well as the dry country of Samburu. Although I haven't yet announced this trip publicly, only two spaces currently remain available. Please contact me directly if you're interested in this trip.
Anyway, please enjoy the following words and images from our safari in 2024. As usual, all images are clickable and best viewed on a large screen.
Kinangop Plateau & Aberdare National Park
The ascent into the Aberdare Mountain Range was gradual, the temperature slowly receding as we increased in altitude. Drifting among the high altitude grasslands were advertising banners – not the ones we are accustomed to, but advertisements of territory and virulence orchestrated by three different types of widowbirds. Attended to by scores of hidden feminine eyes, the males of these species fluttered lazily just above the tops of the grasses, grossly elongated tail feathers surely mesmerising the audience.
Higher into the mountains the vegetation changes to bamboo, which eventually – and almost imperceptibly – morphs into the moorland landscape that characterises this mountain range. Frequently encased by clouds, the peaks oozed life-giving water that formed icy tributaries that fed rivers that ran over boulders smoothed by millennia of churning water. Many of these rivers coursed through endless valleys three thousand metres above sea level for several kilometres before finding the edge of a mountain plateau. Falling freely and turning into mist, the river then continues at a significantly lower altitude.
Unique moorland vegetation and crystal clear waterways define this habitat. Highland jungle, home to elephants, leopards, and giant forest hogs!
The flora and fauna of this region must be willing to tolerate relatively cold weather as well as the continuous presence of water. If not directly in the path of flowing water, all is constantly misted throughout the day. This gives rise to an exceptionally mythical setting, where moss and lichen covered branches intertwined to form an opaque canopy. Stunted plants sprouted out of what was surely a perennially moist bed, thrusting fiery flowers into the darkness which danced on every minute gust of cold wind, no matter how infrequent. In the open moorland, clumps of specially adapted grasses flopped over each other, each blade festooned with generous droplets of dew.
Traveling in any direction across the ground can bring different versions of the same species, some that occur in more northerly dimensions for example. The same holds true for altitudinal travel – and within these earthly folds that spent millions of years caressing clouds and supporting the sky, there were several range-restricted or altitude-dependent species that would never be found away from the mountains.
Jackson's Spurfowl African Stonechat Hartlaub's Turaco African Dusky Flycatcher Blue-headed Coucal Moorland Chat Hunter's Cisticola Bushbuck Crowned Hornbill Brimstone Canary Kikuyu Mountain Greenbul
Mount Kenya
Mount Kenya is another shy mountain, much like Kilimanjaro to the south. Together, they are the two highest peaks in Africa, and on the clearest of days, one peak is visible from the other. This is, of course, not by personal experience but based on the accounts of climbers who actually scale the mountains instead of admiring from afar. Both mountains have their own individual presences, each imposing yet distinct.
Most times the peak of the mountain is shrouded in dense cloud cover – but weather changes continuously and clouds sometimes scuttle away and let the sun have its way with the highest rock faces. From a distance, the jaggedness of the unforgiving terrain is most evident, its rapidly diminishing glaciers still gleaming brightly in the direct light. The highest points have a climate too extreme for most plants, and thus most fauna tend to remain below the tree-line. Only the hardiest would venture beyond – most often smaller creatures that can shelter from the incessantly howling wind.
On its forested slopes, however, the largest of creatures roams with confidence and authority. Just as they contour the landscape in the savanna, so too do elephants forge pathways through the high elevation forest of Mount Kenya. Broken branches and footprints the size of dinner plates betray their presence; the silent beasts often remain hidden within the dense foliage.
Spectacular looking hornbills and colobus monkeys decorate the branches, while flowering shrubs attract sunbirds representing every section of the visible spectrum. The cold fingers of the night arrive long before the darkness does, and they postpone relenting their grip for as long as possible each morning. The first golden rays of light filter through the gnarled vegetation, warming only what is directly touched. From the moment the light is otherwise directed, coldness sets in again. It is only when the day is well and truly established that feathers need not be fluffed and coats can be unbuttoned.
Tacazze Sunbird African Stonechat Pin-tailed Whydah Silvery-cheeked Hornbill Mountain Wagtail Black Sawwing Black-headed Heron Black-throated Apalis Black-headed Apalis Black-necked Weaver Mountain Buzzard Chinspot Batis Northern Double-collared Sunbird Eastern Double-collared Sunbird Kandt's Waxbill Yellow-bellied Waxbill Fine-banded Woodpecker
Samburu & Buffalo Springs Reserves
Further north, the green that had been so evident of the recent rainfall gave way to the beginning of true dry country and the southern edge of the Somali Acacia ecoregion. This was a place where the ostriches had blue necks instead of pink and where the giraffes were of the Reticulated subspecies and not Rothchild’s or Maasai as previously encountered. Palm trees with wooden trunks and branches began to dominate the landscape as we entered the protected area, this was a different kind of wild.
Unstriped Ground Squirrels scurried from shrub to shrub, their large eyes forever aware of the dangers that lurked – for creatures that small, the list of potential predators is frighteningly extensive. Elephants, dwarfed by the massive Doum Palms, left heaps of dung that dried and disintegrated exceedingly quickly. Whether dung beetle or painted dog, actions here must be quick unless one can deter a larger predator or control the heat and humidity.
Isolated patches of green that persisted in the arid habitat attracted grazers. These green areas were concentrated around rivers and waterways, the lushest of which concealed small herds of elephants. The pachyderms eased through this habitat as effortlessly as they did any other.
The lithe, thorn-covered branches of acacias made futile attempts to escape the prehensile tongues of giraffes. Thorns are an unfriendly concept, but a study of the acacia reveals that thorns are a welcome adornment as they were often teeming with various forms of life.
The presence of thorns didn’t seem to deter much life, and in fact at times seemed to encourage it. Fiscals and shrikes impaled their prey on it, smaller creatures hid within it, and countless other birds would use it as a perch – whether the thorn-sized penduline-tit or the much larger coucal. There was a level of confidence that the dense maze of thorns would protect them from most predators.
Pygmy Falcon Savanna Elephant White-browed Coucal Yellow-bellied Eremomela White-throated Bee-eater Striped Hyena Rufous Chatterer Village Weaver Somali Courser Beisa (East African) Oryx Savanna Elephant Red-winged Lark Red-bellied Parrot Northern Red-billed Hornbill Mottled Swift Little Bee-eater Lilac-breasted Roller Grey Wren-Warbler Donaldson Smith's Sparrow-Weaver Nile Monitor Grant's Gazelle Golden Palm Weaver Eastern Chanting-Goshawk Black-faced Sandgrouse Superb Starling
Birding and wildlife viewing go hand in hand, and even though the tour was on the books as a birding tour, there is no reasonably sane person who would opt to move on after finding a Leopard. A Lilac-breasted Roller encouraged us to stop and switch off the vehicle. While basking in the presence of such a gorgeous, multicoloured bird – and wondering what colours dinosaurs could possibly have been – our guide turned to us and grinned “I’ve got a Leopard”.
Mention must be made of our collective ethos, one that – while at the end of each day we would pore over a list, ticking the species we had seen – prides itself on the enjoyment of all wild things, large and small, seen, unseen, common, and rare. Had we for a singular moment thought that we had seen countless Lilac-breasted Rollers already, our chances of the following experience would have instantaneously evaporated.
A cat can find comfort everywhere, and despite looking like a spotted pillow squeezed into a fork of an acacia tree, this Leopard was in dreamland. Its rotund outline led us to believe breakfast was already had, and this was digestion time. There's a book yet to be written entitled "how to know when a cat is going to wake up", surely that volume must comprise a single chapter: "you don't". Yet, there was no doubt that we were staying there until it did. What else was there to do? We had no meetings to attend, no children to pick up from school, no traffic to beat. And so, we waited, quietly, excitedly.
Fortunately, our collective patience was sufficient. Instead of seeing an amorphous amalgamation of spots, there was now a head. Silently, we stared, voyeurs to another world. Occasionally, the Leopard would turn our way, unconcerned by a lone LandCruiser in the middle of nowhere. Large eyes and small pupils gazed for twenty seconds at a time before eyelids would begin to become heavy. This interval grew longer until the staring reluctantly gave way to a massive yawn, then another. Then there was stretching, more yawning, more looking around – and finally, with a flick of a spotted tail, he melted into the landscape.
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