The Missing Flamingo Photo!

A visit to Lake Nakuru National Park promises you a picture worth a thousand words! This picture hangs in the home of many a holiday makers in Kenya and abroad or on their face book pages!

The picturesque view of the vast Lake Nakuru in its entire splendor covered with pink flamingos and 'you' at the centre of it smiling broadly.

It’s a guaranteed shot- any tourist company offering Safaris can risk their reputation on this- an impossible shot to miss- so the song goes- practiced over the years.

However, a recent visit to the Lake proved this adage not so true.....

We were already in the centre of things - a five star room at the Sarova Lion Hill hotel 'Chesternut no.17' right on the shores of Lake Nakuru National Park- from the hotel  ground we had a perfect view of the Lake in the evening sun set amid a light drizzle that promised us an interesting  morning for a game drive.

The buzz from the hotel that night was that some tourists had spotted a lion during an evening drive and as we slept we fancied catching up to it in the morn'.

Nine o'clock on the dot- the KWS ranger was at the hotel and our drive started. He was a friendly talkative fellow- an experienced ranger we could tell from his slightly wrinkled chocolate face and the tidbits of stories he supplied us during the drive.

A few metres from the hotel and we had our first encounter with the wild – two buffaloes going about their morning biz- whatever it is they do all day!  Then the eagle playing in muddled water, the crown bird- what is famously the 'Uganda crane', water bucks, a family of warthogs, a huge herd of buffaloes, some monkeys and baboons. Then a family of impalas, a herd of zebras, gazelles  and one in a lifetime view of watching them pee et al..... it don't get any better than that!

All this laced with beautiful conversations on how a gazelle has to fight for its right to lead the pack, each displaced in a coup d’état of sort- physical might often sealing a gazelles leadership. We witnessed some of these deposed leaders watching from a distance, eating to regain their strength. And when the time is right a duel will ensure they recapture their former position, explained the ranger. 

It’s the circle of life in the wild-jungle!

Click! Click! Our cameras snapped as the van moved along the rugged terrain to reveal exotic green vegetation of shrubs and acacia trees where a family of giraffe towered over.

It was the second time I was taking this drive in this particular park but still everything felt and looked magical. I had last visited in 2011/12 August and of course I promised my friend she would capture the same pictures I did.

The van grudgingly pulled to a halt near a sight that read ‘don’t go beyond this point’; put up following a heavy downpour that pulled the Lake’s shore line closer to the forest edge and raised the water levels.

Kenya has been experiencing heavy rainfall in the past few weeks and the phenomenon at the lake was nothing out of the ordinary, so we thought.

But as the Ranger placed us squarely in the middle of the Lake, and we huddled closely and smiled, with the tinted blue lake and a herd of buffaloes acted as our background.

He pointed out that in the last two years the water levels at the Lake are at their highest they have ever been, something that even the old men in Nakuru had never seen before.

In fact, he told us that the main entry to the park had to be relocated as well as the employees quarters following heavy rainfall and flooding that completely submerged everything in sight to this date the water levels are yet to rescind.

Sign post on  L.Nakuru National park

“Flamingoes like walking along the shorelines, explains the ranger; as we drive off to another area to see if we can catch up with a few still in search of the photo worth a thousand words!

However we could not get close enough to the shore and our limited lenses could hardly capture the far away flamingoes that dared still to remain in the Lake.

Disappointed, the Ranger’s earlier statement echoed in our minds.

“Most people think that Lake Nakuru National Park only has flamingoes.”

High water levels at L.Nakuru block off the main entrance to the park

And so now we hold on to our gazelle, buffaloes, zebra photos and hope to one day soon have that picturesque flamingo background and us at the centre of it smiling broadly!