2024 African Safari Plus: Basecamp Wilderness Game Drives A (6/27-28/2024)

Thursday, June 27, 2024

The game drive on the way to camp: Connochaetes taurinus/
Blue Wildebeest; we used to call them gnus (KSS)

A mixed herd of Eudorcas thomsonii/Thomson's Gazelles
(with diagonal black side stripe) and the
larger Nanger granti/Grant's Gazelles

Greater variety of trees

Aepyceros melampus/Impalas

Alcelaphus buselaphus/Hartebeest (KSS)

A dazzle of Equus quagga/Plains Zebras and wildebeests,
who are often seen together as they do not compete for food
(zebras eat taller grasses) and zebras have better eyesight
while wildebeests have better hearing and smell (KSS)

Balanites aegyptiaca/Desert Date Tree

Lunch always had a bread and soup; this is cucumber soup

Roasted chicken with rice and veggies

Dessert of custard (I think every dessert
was drizzled with chocolate syrup)

Damaliscus lunatus jimela/Topi
with blue upper legs and yellow lower
legs, so that it is said he is wearing
blue jeans with yellow socks

A shift in tectonic plates created the Great Rift Valley,
and we see the eastern escarpment

Sylvicapra grimmia/Bush Duiker

Water crossing

Unlike Botswana, they have had too much rain
in Kenya and Tanzania

Another species: Giraffa tippelskirchi/Maasai Giraffe

Crocuta crocuta/Spotted Hyena: is he cute or is he
ugly? (one safari mate could not understand why the
hyena is one of the Ugly Five, until she saw him walk)

A confusion of Numida meleagris/Helmeted Guineafowl;
these birds are always running away, forgetting they can fly

We would also see glossy ibis, fork-tailed drongos, red-billed firefinch, red-billed oxpeckers, and a white-browed robin chat.

Lupulella mesomelas/Black-backed Jackal (KSS)

This male Panthera leo/Lion was in a deep sleep

Another water crossing

Found a pride of lions (KSS)

Tamiko shooting a lion (KSS)

The shot female lion

We would also see Cape buffalos.

On the night safari we saw a scrub hare, and a bat flew into the dining tent.

Friday, June 28, 2024

After the hot air balloon ride, we had lunch with a
differently-shaped bread and carrot-zucchini soup

The staff was so excited to offer us pork sausage pizza!

Handmade vanilla and chocolate ice cream

The afternoon game drive:

Hippopotamus amphibius/Hippopotami (KSS)

Mother and child hippos

A pod of hippos (KSS)

The savanna/a mixed woodland-grassland
ecosystem and biome (KSS)

Plants are greener along the waterway;
another water crossing (KSS)

Acinonyx jubatus/Cheetah

Pride of lions (KSS)

We would also see elephants, vervet monkeys, jackals, slender mongooses, hyenas, zebras, impalas, wildebeest, steenboks, and giraffes.

We would also see Egyptian geese, guineafowl, cattle egrets, white-crowned lapwings, a secretary bird, scarlet-chested sunbird, scaly-feathered weaver, superb starling, Marico flycatcher and the white-browed robin chat.

Next: Hot Air Balloon Ride.