Our next halt was at Lake Naivasha. The resort was a beautiful place with the lake at its periphery. Tall and huge trees adorned the entire plot. Lots of trees meant lots of birds. They were everywhere shooting in and out from various directions, of varied sizes, colours and calls. It was mellifluous cacophony.

Parakeets, hoopoes, wagtails, flycatchers, mousebirds and numerous others made their presence felt with their activities and calls. The resort ground was alive with their orchestra. Towards the end of noon, somewhere around three, we decided to take a boat ride to the island across. It was an enjoyable one. Water birds thronged the lake. Watching an African fish eagle hunt fish in the waters was a superb sight. Keen Kingfishers, both giant and pied, were strategically positioned and on look out for food. Ibis, cormorants, storks, geese, ducks were abundant.

As were neared a section, two eyes protruded from the waters; with a jolt we realized that there were many such pairs. The waters here were dominated by the hippos. Their power and anger management issues are unknown to none. We cautiously retreated from their territories.

African Hippo

We got down and spent an hour or so walking on the island. Waterbucks were casually grazing and resting. They were unhindered by the humans walking alongside on their lands. But they did keep an eye and maintained a safe distance from the lot.

While depositing us back to the rooms, our guide issued a casual disclaimer – ‘Do not venture in the grounds after 7pm, make sure you have a hotel staff escorting you to the restaurant’. He hurried off before we could counter question. The escort arrived punctually. Without even having to ask, the cause slowly started transpiring around us and effect was tremendous. Hippos everywhere! The resort grounds were their resting and foraging place for the night. The resort was built too close to the lake and so, naturally, they presumed it was built for their repose. They parked themselves at various places around the resort. Disturbing them or worse surprising them could be a fatal attempt at one’s own life. The need for escorts armed with strong and long sticks was well understood. We were escorted back to our accommodations after dinner and quickly dozed off.
After a good night’s sleep, we were ready and packed to move on to our third destination. While the goodbyes were being exchanged, a noise caught my attention.

A wood hoopoe pair was searching for breakfast. One of them caught an unlucky worm that was trying hard to slither away from the pair and into the underside of the wooden roof. The wood hoopoe unaware of a pair of greedy yellow eyes on it, showcased the catch to its mate. Now a cute and big fur ball was continuously and keenly tracking the movements of the hoopoe for reasons best known to it 🙂 The ginger cat caught me looking at it. With a guilty sigh, it got up, stretched itself and just trudged on the roof with one last glance at me conveying, ‘Look, I was just readying for help in case the birds failed to catch the worm on their own. Don’t imagine things’. It then jumped down and trotted away! And I had a hearty laugh before leaving the Naivasha resort.

(to be continued…)