Thursday 20th to Sunday 23rd November 2025. Here we are in Malawi, our final destination on this particular trip. We are staying at Mvuu Lodge on the shores of the Shire River which forms the western boundary of Liwonde National Park. Mvuu translates to Hippo, an apt name since those lumbering creatures abound. Wherever you…
Category: Trips to Foreign Lands
Elephant Encounters
On our journey through Kenya and Malawi we have been fortunate to experience several magical Elephant encounters. The first at Buffalo Springs in Kenya, involved a line of these beasts, females and their calves, that were walking line astern along a trail perpendicular to where we had parked up to watch them. We realised that…
Somali Bee-eater
Monday 17th November 2025. I’m in celebratory mood, with good cause I fancy. Let me explain. As mentioned in a previous post, the chief reason for coming to Samburu was to try and find a Somali Bee-eater. This is the only area in Kenya that this species can be encountered, indeed it represents the only…
Buffalo Springs
Sunday 16th to Wednesday 19th November 2025. After an overnight stop at Naro Moru in the foothills of Mt Kenya, we continued our journey north to Buffalo Springs National Reserve in Samburu. If the first hour after our arrival was anything to go by we were in for a treat. In fact you don’t have…
Lake Nakuru
Thursday 13th to Saturday 15th November 2025. I notice things. I can’t help it. That’s not to say I see everything, that simply wouldn’t be true. I’ve failed to see lots of things over the past couple of weeks, ‘Where is it?’ ‘Which tree?’ ‘I know elephants are big, but where are they?’ But I…
Butterfly Day
Wednesday 12th November 2025. Although the main focus of this African adventure is birds, there are many other forms of wildlife worthy of attention. Birding in the forest today was a little slow, some of the targets simply wouldn’t show, others afforded brief glimpses before merging back into the thick tangle of luxuriant growth. That’s…
Kakamega
The Kakamega Rainforest in western Kenya, close to Lake Victoria and the Uganda border, represents the country’s only remaining remnant of what was once a belt of tropical forest sweeping across the African continent. It is home to a range of wildlife found nowhere else in the country, including an outlying population of the Blue-headed…
The Bale Mountains
We spent the month of November 2025 exploring parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Malawi in search of exotic birds and rare mammals, many of which are endemic to a particular area. The trip was arranged via Naturetrek and was a tailormade, wildlife focussed adventure that produced a wealth of wonderful encounters. Everything ran very smoothly,…
Mexico – Mountains and Mangroves
Completing our trilogy of reports from Mexico – Mountains and Mangroves. Towards the end of our Mexico adventure, we were each asked in turn to name our most memorable sighting for the trip. Without hesitation I named Vermillion Flycatcher as my choice, which given we had just recently been watching hump back whales, dolphins, monarch…
Mexico – Whales Ahoy!
We continue our Naturetrek holiday. After the cool mountain air where we saw the monarch butterflies overwintering, we flew west to Puerto Vallarta, a complete contrast, to enjoy a couple of days marine wildlife watching around the shallow bay. Join us as we head out into the blue waters under cloudless skies to see dolphins,…









