Guest Post by Jennifer Leigh Warner

Another great adventure has been had, this time to the beautiful country of Kenya. Partnering with Holbrook Travel to make this wildlife conservation and photography tour possible we started our journey in Nairobi. For our first stop we headed over to Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Here, young orphaned elephants are nursed back to health and rehabilitated in preparation for their return to the wild. After meeting with the orphaned elephants we headed to lunch at Karen Blixen's house and gardens. Now a museum, the plantation house was once the home of Baroness Karen von Blixen Finecke, who ran a coffee plantation in Kenya. Her struggles are immortalized in her autobiography, "Out of Africa," which she authored under the pen name of Isak Dinesen. After lunch we capped off our day at the Giraffe Centre to learn about a successful breeding strategy that is helping to increase the numbers of endangered Rothschild's giraffes in Kenya.

Orphan elephant being cared for at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

Action for Cheetahs in Kenya

We were delighted to have Mary Wykstra, founder of Action for Cheetahs in Kenya meet with us while in Nairobi. We built in a donation to the non-profit who helps save cheetahs in the wild in Kenya and Mary gave us a wonderful update on the amazing work they are doing.

After leaving Nairobi we headed to the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, the private nature reserve is part of a not-for-profit group that ensures all of its profits from tourism and farming are spent back on conservation and community projects at the reserve.  While we were here we were lucky enough to photograph elephants, rhinos, and a pride of lions feeding on a kill. The lion pride was made up of a mother lioness and four cubs. We watched for hours as the cubs and mother took turns feeding on the cape buffalo. Several Black-backed Jackals waited nearby waiting for their chance to steal a piece. Ol Pejeta Conservancy is also home to the last two remaining Northern White Rhinos. These two remaining females were visible to us and were able to see the remaining of their entire species.

A visit to the Equator

A stop at the equator is a must on a trip to Kenya. Here you get a water demonstration, showing how the water drains in different directions depending on which side of the equator you stand on.

After a few days in Ol Pejeta Conservancy we headed to Lake Nakuru. Although Lake Nakuru National Park is probably best known for its flocks of Greater and Lesser Flamingos, the park is also a sanctuary for a large variety of plant and game species including Rothschild giraffes, black and southern white rhinos, lions, leopards, hippos, and more. Our favorite moments photographing here were a journey of Rothschild Giraffes walking towards us, we counted 18 different individuals and a small family of lions. The lions were two lionesses and two very small cubs. We watched as the lionesses cared for the cubs in the grass and then made their way to a tree, where the adults napped while the cubs played together.

After what seemed like a short visit to Lake Nakuru we flew to the Masai Mara for our final stop in our journey. Here we spent a full week driving around the Mara during the peak of the Great Migration. The open savanna grasslands of the Mara are a favorite habitat of big cats such as lions and cheetahs and we got to photograph them all. We saw our first leopard of the trip on our first night, with a kill up in a tree. We also photographed nine cheetahs and more lions than we could count.

A highlight of any trip to the Masai Mara is a hot air balloon ride. These aerial views allow you to get a whole new perspective of the landscape. Dipping down low to view an elephant herd or getting up high to see the whole landscape, there is truly nothing like it.

Kenya didn’t disappoint! We could not have asked for a better experience and we can’t wait to go back to Africa for our next photo adventure. Thank you to all our guests who made the trip and thank you to Sandy and everyone at Holbrook Travel who made it possible.

If you want to learn more about our upcoming photo tours and workshops please visit our website at www.experiencewildlife.com/workshops-tours