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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Tuesday 11th November 2025. I’m sitting in the grounds of our lodge in the depths of the Kakamega Rainforest in western Kenya watching a female African Crowned Eagle tend its chick. The nest is placed high in an isolated tree that grows directly adjacent to what was the living quarters of the owners of the…
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…
Thursday 6th November 2025. Abdullah is a man of 80 that has a close affinity with his local wildlife. He knows no English, why should he? But every day he is up at dawn searching the cypress grove for a special bird that he can show off to clients of tour operators, or indeed anyone…
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,…