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