Diario de rwcannon57

At the end of our African vacation we were staying in a Nairobi hotel and had a sleep-in on the itinerary. I asked our guide if he would take my wife and I to Nairobi National Park ("NNP") while the others enjoyed their free morning. NNP is 45.26 square miles with electric fencing on three sides. The open southern boundary is the Mbagathi River which allows migrating wildlife to travel between NNP and the Kitengela Plains. We met our driver at 6:15 a.m. and it was only 6 miles (a 15 minute drive) to NNP. There were only two of us (instead of the usual six) and the guide in the vehicle, also less about six other vehicles that usually traveled with us, so we had more freedom in focusing on the wildlife we wanted to see, which meant I could spend more time looking at birds instead of just mammals. We saw our only East African eland of the trip, which was worth the excursion by itself. We watched mating lions, the only view we had of male and female lions interacting on the trip. We spent quite a bit of time watching an amorous male Masai giraffe trying to coax a much smaller female Masai giraffe to mate (unsuccessfully). We got our best views of Masai ostriches, some of them with very pink skin. We saw a white-browed coucal, a Diederick cuckoo, a long-tailed fiscal, birds we hadn't seen before, and marabou storks, common gallinules, and a kori bustard, birds we had seen before. We saw a colony of bush hyrax, including many young ones huddled with their parents; a herd of impala with two young males clashing horns; and got our best views of Coke's hartebeest of the trip. Even though we could occasionally see the tall buildings of Nairobi in the background, we felt very much out in the bush. We made it back for lunch and enjoyed dinner at Carnivore Restaurant that night.

Our first day in Africa, after flying into Nairobi the previous night, we drove 97 miles north to the Serena Mountain Lodge in Mount Kenya National Park. Along the drive we stopped at a souvenir store and found epauletted fruit bats in an evergreen tree right outside the store. Mount Kenya National Park is 276 square miles surrounded by a forest reserve that is another 272 square miles and together are a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site. The lodge overlooks a large waterhole that animals come in to use all day. The waterhole is lighted at night so that you can see the animals 24 hours a day. After checking into our room, with a nice view of the waterhole, we went on a guided nature walk with several guides with rifles. We saw a Kolb's monkey, a number of beautiful Mountain Kenya Guereza, also known as eastern black and white colobus monkeys, one of the highlights of the trip for me. From our balcony, overlooking the waterhole, we saw bushbuck, lots of Cape buffalo and African bush elephants, an eastern warthog, Egyptian geese with little goslings and a genet feeding on a platform that night where meat scraps had been laid out.

Ngorongoro Crater is the world's largest inactive, intact and unfilled volcanic caldera. It is 2,000 feet deep and its floor, at an elevation of 5,900 feet, covers 100 square miles. The inside is 10 to 12 miles in diameter. There is a seasonal salt lake in the middle called Magadi and the Lerai Forest at the south end. There is a spring near the eastern crater wall which feeds the Gorigor Swamp and a picnic site nearby for tourists which we ate at. We stayed at the Ngorongoro Serena Lodge near the rim, did a morning game drive on the floor of the crater, ate lunch at the picnic site near Gorigor Swamp, and then did a game drive on the way out of the crater. We saw some fabulous birds: a kori bustard; lots of Maasai ostriches; flamingos covering Lake Magadi, although we weren't able to get too close to them; a black kite flying over the picnic area which stole someone's lunch; a spur-winged goose; several beautiful gray crowned cranes, including one in flight; sacred ibis in and near Gorigor Swamp; blacksmith plovers; crowned plovers; a Hildebrandt's starling; and Speke's weavers and their nests next to Gorogor Swamp. Hippos were in Gorigor Swamp; lots of western white-beared wildebeest were about, some of them facing off and bashing heads, similar to bighorn sheep; several male lions were together which caused a traffic jam in the crater with everyone wanting to view them; lots of Cape buffalo; a massive African bush elephant that we only saw at a distance; eastern warthogs; a vervet monkey in the Lerai Forest; Thomson's gazelles; Coke's hartebeest; an east African wolf; lots of Grant's zebras; and quite a few spotted hyenas. At one time we spotted two adult hyenas and a number of the young sprawled out taking a nap at the side of a pool and another time we had several walking around our vehicles drooling and looking at us. There are no giraffes in the crater, but we saw a number of Masai giraffes on the outside of the crater as we drove in.

We had an almost six hour, 155 mile drive, from Masai Mara, Kenya, through the border crossing at Isebania into Tanzania to the Serengeti Serena Lodge in Serengeti National Park. It was mostly on dirt roads through small villages. Serengeti NP is 5,700 square miles. We had a short game drive to the lodge, had a morning and afternoon game drive the next day, with lunch at the lodge, then drove south through the grasslands on our way of the park the next day, on our way to Ngorongoro Crater. It was the least distinctive animal sanctuary of our Africa visit, perhaps partly because it is so large, and partly because animals are farther apart and more difficult to find there. On the grounds near our lodge we found Kirk's dik dik, rock hyrax living in and on the thatched roofs of the cabins, and a bare-faced go-away bird right outside the entrance to the lodge. It was the best place for vultures. We found Ruppell's Griffon vultures, white-backed vultures and lappet-faced vultures, as well as the marabou storks that are usually in the area with them as well. We saw other assorted birds, including rufous-tailed weavers, lilac-breasted rollers, black-headed herons, helmeted guineafowl, and a white-bellied bustard. We saw our only caracal not long after leaving the lodge, hiding in some long grass, and we saw my only leopard, napping in a large tree. While watching the leopard a mother spotted hyena came running by the base of the tree with a young cub in its mouth. Our guide told us it was protecting the cub from male hyenas that often kill the cubs to get the mother hyenas back into heat. We saw several prides of lions, but mostly at quite a distance, and just laying in the grass. We saw lots of Masai giraffes, including some fairly large groupings of 6 or more. I fell in love with hippos there, huge, disgusting, loud and raucous. We saw our only banded mongoose, a large group of them. Lots of olive baboons, some vervet monkeys, eastern warthogs, Grant's zebras, defassa waterbucks, Coke's hartebeest, topi, east African (back-backed) jackals, and perhaps my favorite sighting of all, a huge Nile monitor.

The afternoons of March 18 and 19, 2022, I visited the Milpe Bird Sanctuary outside of Mindo, Ecuador, at an elevation of about 3,772 feet. They have a covered area where they serve lunch with close observation of several different hummingbird feeders and a large branch to which halved bananas are impaled to attract birds. I did not see the number or variety of birds that I saw at the Mashpi Amagusa Reserve, but saw some spectacular birds there that I did not see in Mashpi.

I saw 20 species of birds, including 6 species of hummingbird (the green-crowned brilliant, velvet-purple coronet, white-necked Jacobin, rufous-tailed hummingbird, crowned woodnymph and green thorntail); 3 species of toucan (Choco toucan, collared aracari and chestnut-madibled toucan), blue-gray tanagers, palm tanagers, a green honeycreeper, bananaquit, and a crested guan.

I took a small boat tour of islands (Bird Island Boat Tours) about 2.5 miles off the northeastern end of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. Hertford Island, closest to shore, is .7 miles long and 131 yards wide. Northeast of Hertford is Ciboux Island, 1 mile long and 131 yards wide. Each have cliffs up to 65 feet high with holes and ledges for birds. They have the largest colony of nesting great cormorants in North America (averaging 565 nesting pairs), average 960 nesting paris of black-legged kittiwakes, 150 pairs of razorbill, 75 pairs of Atlantic puffin, 200 pairs of double-crested cormorants, 300 pairs of black guillemots and some Leachs storm petrels. I saw Atlantic puffins, gray seals, great cormorants, double-crested cormorants, great blue herons, great black-backed gulls, ruddy turnstones, and lots of mature and juvenile bald eagles.

We flew to Baltra in the Galapagos Islands, Monday morning, took a bus up through the Santa Cruz Island highlands, stopping at a tortoise ranch, then boarded a yacht at Puerto Ayora. We sailed through the night and arrived at Moreno Point, on Isabela Island, Tuesday morning, where we took a panga ride along the coast and did some snorkeling. In the afternoon we took a panga ride into Elizabeth Bay, also on Isabela. Wednesday morning we stopped at Urbina Bay on Isabela and hiked inland, seeing quite a few giant tortoises and land iguanas, then snorkeled. In the afternoon we stopped at Espinoza Point on Fernandina Island and snorkeled and took a hike. We saw hundreds of marine iguanas, including a few swimming in the ocean. Thursday morning we were at Tagus Bay on Isabela and took a hike up above Darwin Lake to the top of a cinder cone, where we got a great view of a Galapagos hawk, then snorkeled. Thursday afternoon we were at Vicente Roca Point at the top northwest corner of Isabela and did snorkeling and took a panga ride along the coast. Friday we spent the day at James Bay on Santiago Island, in the morning at Espumilla Beach on the north end, where we snorkeled and took a panga tour of the coast, and in the afternoon we were at Egas Port where we snorkeled and took a hike along the coast. Saturday morning we stopped at Bachas Beach on northern Santa Cruz Island where we took a short hike and saw a beautiful American flamingo. Later that morning we were transported to Baltra Island where we flew back to the Ecuador mainland.

We saw a wonderful range of wildlife. I saw a number of the Darwin finches: small ground finch, medium ground finch, small tree finch and vegetarian finch. We saw numerous marine iguanas, a few land iguanas, Galapagos lava lizards and many green sea turtles. We saw two Galapagos fur seals and numerous Galapagos sea lions. Other birds included the flightless cormorant, lava gull, brown noddy, blue-footed booby, Galapagos shearwater, Galapagos brown pelican, magnificent frigatebird, Galapagos penguin, white-cheeked pintail, Galapagos hawk, striated (lava) heron, Galapagos yellow warbler, Galapagos dove, swallow-tailed gull, Galapagos mockingbird, Elliot's storm-petrel, nazca booby, American flamingo, black-necked stilt, least sandpiper, semipalmated plover, Galapagos great blue heron and wandering tattler. In the water, besides green sea turtles, we saw orange rays, a sun fish, a white-tipped shark, Mexican hogfish, panamic fanged blenny, black striped salema, razor surgeonfish, bluebarred parrotfish and king angelfish and many more that I do not remember or was not able to identify.

Churute Mangroves Ecological Reserve is 25 miles southeast of Guayaquil, Ecuador and the only Pacific coast mangrove forest open to the public in South America. It covers 135 square miles which includes the mangroves as well as the Churute Mountain Range (up to 2,300 feet in height) and some lakes, including Lake El Canclon. We took a motorized canoe tour through the mangroves and visited a nearby cacao farm, located off a small river, where we actually saw more birdlife than in the mangroves.

In the mangroves we saw white ibis, roseate spoonbills, white egrets and cocoi herons along with Pacific mangrove ghost crabs. In the vicinity of the cacao farm we saw Pacific parrotlets, a white-tailed kite, tropical kingbirds, shiny cowbirds, a roadside hawk, pale-legged horneros, a boat-billed flycatcher and blue-gray tanagers.