SVABW 006: 8 Nights/ 9 Days Kenya Bird Watching Safari: Lake Magadi Lake Naivasha Lake Nakuru Lake Baringo Samburu Mt Kenya
This Kenya safari or Kenya bird watching safari takes you to Lake Magadi, Lake Naivasha, Lake Nakuru, Lake Baringo, Samburu and Mt Kenya. You'll start with a Nairobi city tour on the first day.
Day 1: Nairobi City Tour
Your bird watching safari in Kenya starts with a Nairobi city tour.
0900hrs-1000hrs: Karen Blixen
Depart your hotel at 0900hrs and head to Karen Blixen Museum, a beautiful farmhouse where Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa, lived between 1917 and 1931, until she left Kenya after a series of personal tragedies. Karen Blixen Museum has been restored with many of her own furnishings, as well as replicas made for the movie. It's located in Karen, 15 Kilometers outside Nairobi City, and opens at 9.30am.
1000hrs-1200hrs: Nairobi Animal Orphanage and Nairobi Safari Walk
Depart Karen Blixen for a tour of the Nairobi Animal Orphanage and Nairobi Safari Walk.
1200hrs-1400hrs: Lunch at New Rangers Restaurant
Lunch at New Rangers Restaurant. The restaurant is located at the Nairobi National Park main gate. The restaurant's Twiga Terrance offers a perfect view of wild animals grazing and drinking water at Kisima water hole just 10 metres away as you enjoy your lunch.
1400hrs-1600hrs: Giraffe Center
Afterwards, depart for the Giraffe Center located near Hardy Shopping Centre in Nairobi's Lang'ata suburb. The visit gives you a completely up close and personal interaction with giraffes and you will be allowed to feed them. You feed giraffes by hand, take a guided nature walk and see a bull in the wild if you're lucky, learn about the different types of giraffes.
16150hrs: Giraffe Centre-Panafric Hotel
Transfer to Panafric Hotel for evening rest and overnight. Accommodation at Panafric will be on bed and breakfast. The hotel has a restaurant where you can buy dinner (at your own cost).
Meal: Bed and Breakfast
Accommodation: Panafric Hotel
Day 2: Nairobi- Lake Magadi
After breakfast at your hotel, depart for a day trip to the salty Lake Magadi (carrying packed lunch). The lake sustain thousands of flamingos each year to feed on the green algae and crustacean at the lake's shore safe from any potential predators such as Fish eagle. Freshwater springs at the Lake's shore attract a host of other birds like the specialty of this lake the Chestnut Banded Plover, Common Sandpiper, Common Greenshank, Wood Sandpiper to name a few. Later in the afternoon we return to Nairobi arriving late evening.
Meal: Bed and Breakfast
Accommodation: Panafric Hotel
Day 3: Nairobi – Lake Naivasha
After breakfast, we depart from our Nairobi hotel for a scenic drive through the great North road to Lake Naivasha. Stop en-route at the viewpoints of the Great Rift Valley for stunning views arriving Lake Naivasha by midmorning for bird walk before time for lunch at your lodge. Lake Naivasha being a fresh water lake on the Rift floor is home to an incredible variety of species. Over 450 species have been recorded here. An optional afternoon visit to the Cresent Island is ideal. A walking birding excursion at the nearby Hell's National Park through cliffs, rocks, and shrubs may give increase your lifers list.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Accommodation: Lake Naivasha Country Club
Day 4: Lake Naivasha – Lake Nakuru
After breakfast, we leave Naivasha and head for Lake Nakuru Park, regarded by avid birders' as the greatest World ornithological spectacle on the Earth. The park is famous for its millions of pink flamingoes, arriving by mid morning at Lake Nakuru for a game drive en route before checking-in at your lodge in time for lunch. Afternoon game drive followed by a walk along the shores which will also allow us to see the many wild animals in the park and especially the park is the Sanctuary to the Black Rhino, White Rhino and the Rothschild Giraffe. Here we'll have the chance to look out at some of the common species like the Lesser and Greater Flamingoes, African fish Eagle, Tawny Eagle, Green Wood Hoopoes, Cliff Chat, Great White and Pink Backed Pelicans plus other intra- African Migrants.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Accommodation: Lake Nakuru Lodge
Day 5: Lake Nakuru – Lake Baringo
After breakfast, depart Lake Nakuru and drive further North to Lake Baringo. Arrive at Lake Baringo Club mid – morning for bird walk around the lodge. Lake Baringo is fresh water has it own share of bird life species like the White Faced Scopes Owl, Brimstone Canary, Bristol Crowned Starling, Goliath Heron, Little Weaver, Jackson's and Hemp Rich's Hornbill. We'll check-in at Lake Baringo Country Club a superb and compact hotel set at the shores of Lake Baringo. After a relaxed lunch we'll descend down on to the cliffs to look for the white faced Scopes owl, Black throated barbet, mouse collared tit before returning at the lodge.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Accommodation: Lake Baringo Club
Day 6: Lake Baringo – Mt Kenya
After breakfast, depart Baringo and head Mt Kenya. Rare species likely to be seen include; Green Ibis, Lesser Spotted Eagle, Harrier Hawk, Rufous Sparrow hawk, Ayre's Hawk Eagle. Black stork, Red Fronted Parrots, Green Ibis Common snipe, Mountain Buzzard, Bronze napped pigeon Mountain white-eye, Abbots Starling, Sharpe's Starling, Mountain Oriole and Thick-billed seedeater.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Accommodation: Alliance Naro Moro Lodge
Day 7: Mt Kenya – Samburu
After breakfast, depart Mt Kenya and head Samburu, a place of endless skies, dust-red plains and palm-fringed rivers, Samburu National Reserve lies on the fringes of the vast and arid desert once known as the Northern Frontier District, whose heat-scorched scrublands extend all the way to the jade-green waters of Lake Turkana and beyond. As for wildlife, Samburu provides one of the few sanctuaries in Kenya for the endangered Grevy's zebra, the rare Beisa Oryx, the long necked antelope “Gerenuk” and the Blue-shanked Somali ostrich whilst large herds of elephant roam the gaunt hills during the day before returning to bathe on the banks of the river in the evening. Birdlife in this reserve is not raging behind as it is profuse, and species such as Somali and white throated bee-eaters, golden pipit, Vulturine guinea fowl, White headed Mouse bird, Buff Crested Bustards, Black capped Social Weaver, Donaldson-Smith's Sparrow Weaver, Golden Breasted Starling among other dry land species.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Accommodation: Sarova Shaba Game Lodge
Day 8: Samburu
Today we will spend the whole day bird watching and game watching in the park. Doum palm tree is also rare in the northern hemisphere along the Ewaso Nyiro river In the afternoon we have some time to relax before embarking on our late afternoon game drive to try and capture what was not seen during the day before the dusk catch up with us.
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
Accommodation: Sarova Shaba Game Lodge
Day 9: Samburu – Nairobi – Depart Home
After concluding your birding expedition, depart Samburu for Nairobi via the fertile cultivated agricultural land of Central Kenya. Stop at Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi for lunch. Transfer to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to catch your international flight home.
