The Dry Cycle Continues

Half way through December & the rain seems to have stopped. This is worrying, because it is the third rainy season in succession that we have had a deficit of rain. As a result, the Sanctuary is green, but the newly sprouting grass is already being guzzled by cattle.
Why? On the southern edge of Nairobi National Park, where we are, the Masai traditional owners of the land have sold it to outsiders, whilst still owning large herds of cattle which are sustained by grazing in the Park. This is the reason why the park will never be fenced.
The main ecological consequence is that the plains outside the park (including the Sanctuary) are heavily overgrazed. When the migratory herbivore species such as wildebeeste (we only have 300 individuals left!), zebra , eland & kongoni move out to the dispersal area of the NNP, they find no grazing & much human activity, not to mention roads, livestock, quarrying etc
What is the overall effect of these realities?
I have never seen zebra in the NNP at this time of year in 10 years of observation, (along with the gnus, kongoni & eland now currently resident in the park.)
This is because of the fact that the Park is gradually being encircled by the city but ALSO because of the progressive management of the Park in the last year by KWS, in which two-thirds of the grasslands were burnt in a controlled burn.
In other words, ecological systems are always dynamic, but few can be as interestingly dynamic as our NNP!

Cats of NNP

Amongst the 25+ lions in the Nairobi National Park are to be found several other species of cat such as this serval. African wild cats are recorded & leopards, as well as cheetah, though they are not doing well .

School Run

My children are lucky enough to go to school most days through the NNP. And what a school run it was today! First thing in the morning I could hear the yelps & whinnys of a herd of zebra near our house and as we got into the Park my son said "look at all those zebra" as a large mob galloped along the ridge. They seemed to be nervous as though sensing a predator & they were right, for sitting at Masai Gate checking into the Park, my daughter saw a leopard! We had heard the alarm calls of a troop of vervet monkeys, perched in a safe vantage point at the top of a fig tree along the Embakasi Eiver. I checked with Jeannie Rose, saying "what colour was the tip of it's tail?" "White" came back the unhesitating reply.......
Along the road a minute later trotted a pair of silver-backed jackals, searching for the action & then we found more zebra & a herd of buffalo,looking like black ticks on the tawny hillside opposite. On the burnt plains further on were kongoni, zebra & more buffalo & as we got to the road along the edge of the Langata forest, a group of giraffes were gazing intently at something. We drove around the corner & there was a zebra stallion chasing something out of curiosity: a serval bounding through the long grass..... 3 predators in 15 minutes!
That's early morning in NNP for you.....

Long Term Problems

Which won't go away unless they are addressed.
NNP faces some particular problems owing to it's unique position right on the edge of a major city. Two of the most significant (& urgent-because to do nothing about them will just compound their effects) are LITTER & INVASIVE PLANTS.
Litter comes in two forms- along the roads & tracks of the park & blown in from the city. It is quite incredible how visitors come into the Park & despite the signs (& the pristine look of the natural Park...) chuck their litter out of the window. This is usually the remains of what they are eating as they drive by, but can also include used condoms & other esoteric human detritus....
But the really BIG problem ,especially now when it is building for rain & swirling dry-season winds & dust devils can whip discarded litter from all over Nairobi high into the sky, is wind-borne litter settling in the Park. You can see it on trees: bright coloured plastic bags for the most part; and on distant plains, sullying the grand savannah vistas.
Plastic & rubbish matters for two reasons: it destroys the natural feel & look of the Park, which is of such intrinsic value & it is a danger to any of the grazers which might inadvertedly ingest it.
What to do about it? PICK IT UP.......but the powers that be do not & neither are there enough volunteers to do so in their abscence. Which leaves your solitary correspondent on his never-ending pick-up litter mission....
Invasive species of plants abound in & around the city, where people have introduced so many garden & ornamental species, which then compete with the natives.
Two of the most pernicious are the "death spurge" - a horrible Euphorbia sp. which exudes poison from it's roots to kill the competition whilst propagating itself in a myriad different ways , which is invading the rocky grassland adjacent to the park & Opuntia sp., the 'prickly pear', which is choking the gorges (which have a truly interesting botany themselves) on the southern boundary of the Park. This problem will only get worse if the authorities do not do something about it (ie remove the invaders by hand.........)

Giraffe Notes

Nairobi Park is undoubtedly one of the best places anywhere to observe giraffe (our local species is the Maasai giraffe) & the population is doing very well right now, with many young animals & pregnant females to be seen . But like all the other denizens of the park, the giraffe -already increasing in numbers- face a future of squeeze. The dispersal area outside the park is becoming increasingly humanised (& degraded, or does the term merely mean the other, automatically?) & the giraffe just do not have the range that they used to have, what with quarries, fenced compounds, walls etc. to contend with.
As a result they are pretty hungry right now in the ongoing dry conditions & are roaming far & wide in search of browse, especially at night. In the middle of the Sanctuary is my unfenced garden & here the giraffe have an acre or so of grewia & acacia (mainly brevispica) thicket to browse. We also have plenty of euphorbia & yesterday & this morning I noticed several branches of E. candleabra ripped off & blamed it on the local baboons (the euphorbia has been in flower) but further evidence shows that the giraffe are responsible & that they are increasingly hungry.
Soon the rhino will be back to munch the hedge euphorbia common around the compounds nearby, also eaten by giraffes & their domestic cousins, camels......
Yesterday on the plain below the Langata forest I came across an epic sight: 2 mature adult bull giraffe engaged in full-on & earnest combat for the favours of a pretty young female giraffe, who stood just 30 m from the combatants, apparently fascinated by the sight of giraffe machismo.
A massive pale red bull stood shoulder to shoulder with a magnificent dark blotched rival & swinging their huge boney, behorned heads across each other they battered each other's breasts & upper legs, which were braced for maximum bash & to absorb maximum impact.
These animals are some of the biggest creatures existing on land, bar elephants & rhinos & the power displayed by these usually enigmatic, graceful, usually gentle giants was quite awe-inspiring to watch. Unfortunately I had a meeting & couldn't stay to watch the outcome of this titanic battle for dominance.....

Suni & Baboon Predation

In the Langata Forest, in the west of the Park, live very difficult to see dwarf antelope, called suni, which most observers think are dikdik.Now I have never seen a dikdik in the Park, but only in the Silole Sanctuary, where there is no forest & no sunis.
A curious phenomenon is that the Park baboons seem to hunt (or find?) suni, which the males at any rate, seem to obviously enjoy eating. I have twice seen an adult baboon withe remains of a suni, most recently yesterday, where a large male could be seen consuming parts of the tiny antelope with evident relish. No surprise that baboons eat meat, being, like humans, quintessential omnivores. What is more surprising is to see the symbiotic association of bushbuck with troops of foraging baboons, surely a case of dangerous company in the light of their carnivorous proclivities?

Cheetah Conundrum

Nairobi National Park is in great shape at the moment:it has always been a "dry-season" habitat, where the migratory species of ungulates (zebra,eland,gnu & kongoni) came when there was no grazing or, in the past, water, out in the dispersal area of the Athi-Kapiti plains. Of course everything has changed. Water is much more available as dams etc. have been dug out in the Maasai rangelands & the dispersal area in an increasingly humanised landscape unsuitable for free-ranging ungulates. Thus the drop in wildebeeste numbers from thousands in the past to just 150 in & around the park today.....
Nevertheless there are plenty of pluses in the present: all the 'introduced' species which make the park so interesting even when the migrant are 'out' -black rhino & buffalo, as well as the rapidly increasing giraffe population (which have much less roaming space than they used to...) are flourishing.
The controlled (& uncontrolled) burns by KWS in the Park last Xmas was the best thing to have happened to the Park in ages & as it is so dry, most of the biomass in the ecosystem has been in the park for most of the year, including the Grants & Thompsons gazelles which used to be such a feature of the Park but which moved out to the overgrazed rangeland in the dispersal area as the park became increasingly dominated by rank grassland & thicket in the abscence of the annual gnu migration (or managed burning).
The end result of all this has meant no food for CHEETAHS & for all of this year we have had just one male cheetah resident in the Park. We saw him last sunday, but this last tuesday, taking the children to school in the city, we saw another single cheetah. It is most likely to be the single male again, but the children,with the keen observation of childhood & with the training of many years gamespotting in the Park, said that it was a different individual; paler....
Let us hope it IS a different cheetah: a female & that with the new & better conditions for cheetah in the Park, we may have a return of these stunning creatures to the Nairobi Park....

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WELCOME TO SILOLE SANCTUARY

September is traditionally a cold,dry month & today is no exception. This morning was crystal clear (& chilly!) & I could clearly see the jagged peak of Mount Kenya to the north-east & the Aberdare mountain Kinangop behind the dawn outline of the city due north of the Sanctuary.
The morning was spent with KWS taking tour operators on a tour of the park, which is full of game, with columns of zebra moving up from the dryness of the Athi Plains up to the top plains, where the dams are drying up in the ongoing dry season......
In the top plains, where the Sanctuary is situated, we had an inch (26mm) of rain on Tuesday, so there is a flush of green.
Welcome to this page, which will give you up to date information on what is happening in the Silole Sanctuary www.silolesanctuary.com