17-Day Kenya Birds & Big Game Photo Tour

Arrive early in the morning at Nairobi’s JKI Airport or be picked up early in the morning from your hotel and transfer to Samburu National Reserve. (It’s recommended to arrive the previous night for ample rest time before embarking on our epic birds and a big mammals photo tour. Hotel room previous night could be arranged)

After breakfast, we’ll pass through pineapple plantations in Thika and coffee farms and later cross the open plains between the Mt. Kenya and Aberdare Ranges where stunning Long-tailed Widowbird in their breeding plumages excites each and every participant. Arriving at Samburu for lunch. We’ll spend the next 4 nights here and the game drive should take us through the three famous national reserves namely Samburu, Buffalo Springs, and Shaba (George and Joy Adamson did live here).

Overnight at Ashnil Samburu Tented Camp

Big Game here includes species well restricted to the arid conditions and nearly north of Equator such as Gravy’s Zebra, Somali Ostrich, Reticulated Giraffe, Gerenuk among large herds of Elephants, Impalas, Grant’s and Thompson’s Gazelles.
Vulturine Guineafowl is a species we hope not to miss. The Samburu tribesmen (closely resembling and sharing the Maa language with Masai) inhabits the area and a visit to their homestead is a treat to remember.

Overnight at Ashnil Samburu Tented Camp

After an early morning, breakfast and game drive leave for Naro Moru on the base of Mt Kenya. Enroute via Mt Kenya National Park.

Overnight at Naro Moru River Lodge

After breakfast a short bird walk on the lodge compound. This may as well be a morning with sunbirds, which may include Collared, Northern Double-collared, Variable, Bronze, Tacazze, Green-headed, Amerthyst & Scarlet-chested. Lunch along the way before entering the park.
The park host a great variety of mammals including the Lion, Leopard, Black & White Rhinos, large herds of Cape Buffalo, Common Waterbuck among other herbivores. The lodge where we stay is located in the hills.

Overnight at Lake Nakuru Lodge

Spend the day birding and photographing in the park.

Overnight at Lake Nakuru Lodge

After an early morning breakfast and gamedrive, we transfer to Lake Naivasha, one of the two freshwater lakes along the rift valley.  A boat ride on the lake gives us opportunities for close shots of some waterfowls such as the Great White Pelican, Goliath Heron among the gulls.

Overnight at Elsamere Centre

(The former house of George and Joy Adamson of the Born Free, Living Free, To Walk with the Lions films etc)

After early morning breakfast, we’ll head to our final destination, Masai Mara National Reserve where we’ll spend our next 5 nights in the far western part of the reserve and on the Olololoo Escarpment and not far from the banks of the Mara River in a luxurious tented camp.

Overnight at a Matira Bush Camp

In the camp’s forest, a flock of both the Shallow’s and Ross’s Turacos may appear and herds of large mammals may be well visible from the dining area. During the famous Wildebeest migration the big herds fill the area and you may frequently encounter large cats such as Lions, Hyenas, and Cheetah.
Here we may also opt to take a bird’s eye view balloon flight over the plains and wildlife of Masai Mara.

Overnight at Matira Bush Camp

We take a morning game drive and after breakfast fly back to Nairobi with lunch at the Giraffe Manor with giraffes later visiting the Giraffe Centre. Dinner at a Nairobi Restaurant before transfer to the airport for your outbound flight.

Overnight at Ole Sereni Hotel

Early morning transfer to Amboseli National Park, located on the leeward side of Africa’s highest mountain the Kilimanjaro on the Kenya/Tanzania border. Though a relatively dry, dust and mainly open area, it collects lots of underground water from Mt. Kilimanjaro hence several springs of swampy habitats of papyrus that attracts huge concentration of wildlife especially elephants, buffalos, wildebeests with a variety of waterfowls. There’s also the open acacia woodland and Commiphora bushland around the park.

Birds includes the Common Ostrich, Great White Pelican, Common Squacco, Goliath & Grey Herons, Hadada, Sacred & Glossy Ibises, African Spoonbill, Lesser Flamingo, Red-billed Teal, Secretary Bird, African White-backed & Lappet-faced Vultures, Bateleur, Black-chested Snake Eagle & Brown Snake Eagle, Tawny Eagle, African Hawk-Eagle, African Fish Eagle, Pigmy Falcon, African Harrier Hawk, Gabar & Eastern Pale Chanting Goshawks, Crested Francolin, Buff-crested, Hartlaub’s & Kori Bustards, African Jacana, Collared Pratincole, Long-toed & Kittlitz Plovers, Black-winged Stilt, Curlew & Marsh

Sandpipers, Black-faced Sandgrouse, Namaqua, Ring-necked, Laughing & African Mourning Doves, Donaldson-Smith Nightjar, Speckled, Blue-napped & White-headed Mousebirds, Green Wood-hoopoe, Southern Ground, Von der Decken’s, Yellow-billed, African Grey & Red-billed Hornbills, Fawn-collared, Rufous-naped & Singing Bush Larks, Rufous Chatterer, Little Rush Warbler, Yellow-bellied Eremomela, Banded Parisoma, Desert Cisticola, Grey-backed, Taita Fiscals, Fischer’s & Wattled Starlings, Grey-capped Social-Weaver. ­­

Overnight at Amboseli Serena Lodge

Spend the day photographing in the park

Overnight at Amboseli Serena Lodge

After an early morning breakfast en-route game drive and photography. Later transfer to Nairobi

Overnight at Ole Sereni Hotel

And the last day we spend the whole day birding and photographing in Nairobi National Park, only 10km off the cosmopolitan city and has one of the greatest avifauna with a record of over 520 species in an area of only 117km².

Birds in the park includes Common Ostrich, Great, Long-tailed Cormorant, African Darter, Great Egret, Saddle Billed Stork, Common, Madagascar Squacco, Black-headed, Grey Heron, African Spoonbill, White-faced Whistling, Knob-billed Ducks, Red-billed Teal, Secretary Bird, Black-shouldered Kite, Lappet-faced Vulture, Black-chested Snake-Eagle, Martial Eagle, Shelly’s & Yellow-necked Spurfowls, African Finfoot, Black-bellied, Hartlaub’s Bustards, Emerald Spotted Wood, Laughing Doves, Hartlaub’s Turaco, White-bellied Go-away-bird, White-browed Coucal, African Palm Swift, Blue-napped Mousebird, Little & Cinnamon-chested Bee-eaters, Lesser, Greater Honeyguides, Eastern Honeybird, Nubian Woodpecker, White-tailed, Rufous-naped Larks, Wire-tailed, Lesser-Striped Swallows, Rock Martin, Yellow-throated, Pangani, Rosy-breasted Longclaws, Pale, African Grey, Southern Black Flycatchers, Lesser Swamp Warbler, 9 species of Cistocolas, Abyssinian white-eye, Red-throated Tit, Jackson’s Widowbird, Red & Yellow-billed Oxpecker, among others.