Little Governors' camp to Giraffe Manor; Kenya Day Eight and Nine

Day Eight: August 17: Little Governors' morning safari and flight to Nairobi. 
A pretty uneventful morning for the most part. There was a lot of overcast. We saw a couple bat eared foxes foraging. That was kind of neat. You don't see them often as they are a nocturnal animal. The only thing that we found of any interest to us was the cheetah mother and 2 month old cub that we saw while at our first camp at Kicheche. Unfortunately the sighting was in tall grass off road, so we could only stay a few minutes and take a couple pictures before we had to leave. We had a nice flight to Nairobi. The sky was clear and the terrain between the Masai Mara and Nairobi is very interesting.

There was a bit of a mix up with our driver at Nairobi. He misunderstood and was waiting at the wrong airline for us, so that was a good lesson for next time. You don't want to be stranded in Nairobi at dark! He finally found us though and we checked in to Giraffe Manor with a few minutes to spare before dinner time.

Day Nine: August 18: Giraffe Manor and David Sheldrick Elephant Sanctuary

Gaye feeding Kelly at our bedroom window

Today the overcast is pretty thick again, so we couldn’t really take many pictures of the giraffes at breakfast. It was just too dark. The new babies that were born here last year were killed by the lions from Nairobi national park and Jock Jr., The dominant male giraffe of the herd died two weeks ago. He got his neck caught in the ‘v’ of a tree and rather than lifting up, he panicked and stangled himself, so sadly the herd here is short a dominant male. Daisey and Arlene died suddenly and no one knows why. At the same time, 40 giraffes in one of the nearby Kenya National Parks  (I can’t remember which park)  also died. No one knows why, but there must have been some weird phenomenom of nature going on in 2011. Regardless, it was a difficult year for Giraffe Manor. Giraffe manor also got four new giraffes in July, but they are scared of people so they don’t come up to the manor or giraffe centre yet. Ed was born in April, 2010 and spent our entire breakfast at our window. Ed is very gentle and very friendly, but he ocassionaly dropped his pellets on my plate. As much as I like him, I wasn’t really interested in him sharing his treats with me.

Baby ellies at the David Sheldrick Elephant
Orphanage coming back at lunch time to be
fed their milk formula.

This afternoon we checked out the ellies at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. It was pretty neat to see Sities, the ellie that we fostered two years ago. Two years ago she was quietly sucking on her keepers hand and today, she was 800kgs of rambunctious elephant. Within the next two years she will be transfered to the Tsavo location where she will be introduced to the wild herds. From there within the next couple years she will be just another elephant living in the wild.

More images of giraffes from Giraffe Manor and ellies from the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust can be found on my wildlife photography website.