2nd week on the Volunteering Project in Naibosho Conservancy

Monday morning was our first official visit to the Kyioki Guiding School. At the Guiding school up to 30 students are thought to be safari guides. The current class consists of 24 students amongst them around 25% girls, all Massai people from villages closeby.

We were invited to hold a presentation to give the students information about Switzerland which should help them interacting with tourists after passing their exam in June. It was a real pleasure to do this presentation because I’ve never seen people more eager to learn and get additional information like this class.

The beginning of the afternoon cat monitoring drive started out quite boring with coolish temperatures and not a lot of wildlife around. Suddenly one of the two girls of the guiding school who were joining the drive in order to get used to interact with tourists stated: “ there is a lion“.

We tried to follow her but she disappeared into thick bush. A bit later when it was already darkening we staggered over the 10 lions of Ilkisiusiu pride resting next of the males in the Conservancy.

Tuesday morning means game counts which is not really exciting but important and I still managed to get some nice pictures, especially dozends of giraffes showed up.

Dik Dik

Waterbuck

Baby Zebra

Photo Bomb…

Finally my lost camera was found and Markus went all the way to Nairobi, to get hold of it. During all this mess I was really glad I had the hand espresso maker with me, which a colleague from work gifted me.

During the afternoon cat monitoring drive on Tuesday afternoon we didn’t find any cats but rather two jackals feeding on an Impala. They managed to carry half their pray away when suddenly a hyena appeared and fed on the remainimg part. Francis‘ o- ton:“the limpy one saved the day“.

Wednesday is Conservation work day and we got the task to remove invasive plants. A dorny, dirty and sweaty work, but we managed to cover quite a stretch. Well against the sweat we had two possibilities, either shower or go out in the pouring rain…

Föteli regen einfügen

In the afternoon we had to cover the edges if the conservancy in Pardamat with cat monitoring. Excitingly two young male liones appeared which seeemed freshly kicked out of their pride and are most probabely new to the territory. It’s great to see that Pardamat which only came to be part of the Conservancy is already attracting animals.

During the busy task of plain counts on thursday morning we found another cheetah, our second one only so far.

In the afternoon Francis was trying really hard to find the Ilkisiusiu lions pride again. Unfortunately where he originally hoped to find them were some cattels grazing. This is done if the grass within the Conservancy is getting to high and starts to wear out the soil if it’s not cut or grazed.

Just at sunset we were lucky enough to find not Ilkisuisui but Moniko Pride. First we only saw three of the young males, later the whole pride of 17 appeared.

Friday is „grass day“, meaning we do some grass monitoring figuering out how healty the grass within the Conservancy is, if it’s already overgrazed or if it needs more grazing. On the way we first met a cheetah, then two amazing elephant bulls and finally got to do our work.

On the way back, hungry from the work we still stopped again hoping to find this cheetah once again. She was still there, laying in the shade on a termite hill. Whilst watching her, she suddenly stood up to start hunting, her pray a male impala. Well, it’s quite a big pray for a cheetah and she didn’t succeed. Also the next two attempt failed and she finally laid down in the shade to relax and get enough power for another try.

Well, we now only have one afternoon drive left, before heading to the Mara Reserve for the weekend.