Bushbuck- Aberdare Mountains, Kenya

Taken at one of my favourite secluded campsites at 10,000 ft altitude in the Aberdares National Park. That's Mt. Kenya in the distance, bushbuck in the foreground & a couple great trout streams down in the valley.

Common Scimitar-Bill, Nanyuki Kenya

The 'Common Scimitar Bill', which isn't so common in Nanyuki where this one was found. Not shown here is it's long tail with horizontal white banding underneath. The specialised bill allows for probing deep into holes and cracks in wood to extract insects and their larvae. Looks like a Borer-beetle hole in the branch it's sitting on....

Nairobi Park Lion Cub

2011 seems to be a good year for the Nairobi Park Lion population. After a few years of decline, they appear to be bouncing back & sticking (more or less) within the park's 117 square kilometer confines. This cub was one of a litter of four accompanied by two lionesses. The Photo was taken July 17th 2011.

A link to the Google Map view of the park is here: Nairobi Park

Mara River Hippo- Kenya

There are few reasons why a hippo would remain out of the water during the day- nursing wounds from fighting is one. I suspect wounds heal quicker out of the water for hippo, and fish nibbling constantly on sensitive exposed flesh can be intolerable. The possibility of life-threatening heat prostration is very real when a hippo remains out of the water though, and in time this fellow would be forced to leave his mud-hole for some shade or return to the river.

Serval Cat- Masai Mara Kenya

Taken a few years ago in the Mara. There seems to be a healthy and very territorial population of Serval Cats in the Mara Triangle.

African Bee- Nairobi Kenya

 

Pollination in action- this bee looks about ready to take it's load of pollen back to the hive.

Sykes Monkey- Mt. Kenya

Sykes Monkeys are true arboreal athletes and have a more varied omnivorous diet than their vegetarian Mt. Kenya neighbors, the Colobus monkey.