We almost had a close encounter at camp last night. Paul woke up to a gunshot, shortly followed by another one. When we got up this morning we found out that an elephant walked right through the electrified fence around the camp and was walking around the buildings. The park rangers were called in to help get them out and made the 2 warning shots. Turns out the elephant was starting down the path to the tents at that point and we are the first tent. The elephant eventually left, breaking through the fence at another point. Many of the camps have fences like this, mainly in place to keep elephants out as they can cause a lot of damage. So much for the fence here! Oh, and I managed to sleep through all of this.

After learning about the overnight excitement, we headed out for a morning drive.

sunrise

Sunrise with Mount Kenya on the far right. This is the first day we have been able to see the mountain as it has had cloud cover. 

We came upon a large group of hyenas who were grazing on 2 buffalo carcases. They came up close to the trucks that were there watching them. 

We saw this black rhino way off in the distance. 

There are bones from prior kills all over when you go on safari. The hyenas eat some of the bones and others break down over time. This is a buffalo skull.

baby elephant

Greater blue-eared starling or glossy starling

waterbuck: These are large antelope that are usually found near water.

Lilac-breasted roller

Three banded plover

White-backed vulture

Striped kingfisher

In the afternoon we stopped by the Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary. Chimpanzees do not live in the wild here, but this is a sanctuary that is affiliated with the Jane Goodall Institute. It is a refuge for orphaned, trafficked, and abused chimpanzees. They currently have 35 chimpanzees. 

From there we went to the northern white rhino enclosure within Ol Pejeta. This is a heavily guarded 700 acre center built to house the last 2 living northern white rhinos, Najin and Fatu, who is Najin’s daughter. These 2 females were from a zoo in the Czech Republic and were transferred to this center in 2009. They didn’t know how to act like rhinos since they had lived their lives in a zoo, so a female southern white rhino lives with them to help them learn the ropes. 

Fatu is on the left and her mother, Najin is on the right. They have let Fatu keep her horn because Najin and the southern white rhino that lives with them tend to pick on her.

It was raining and they loved the rain and mud.

The last male northern white rhino died 2018. While Najin clearly has bred successfully to have Fatu, neither she nor Fatu have been able to have further successful pregnancies. There is stored sperm from the last couple of males. This center is attempting to do IVF, using eggs that have been harvested from Najin and Fatu and stored sperm to get embryos. There are a few female southern white rhinos in the center who will be the surrogates. They hope to have implanted embryos ASAP. 

Fatu coming up to say “hi” to all of us.

Najin

Najin wanted to sharpen her horn on the truck so her keeper was attempting to distract her.

At one point Fatu decided to charge us and the keeper had to jump out quickly to stop her.

The rest of the afternoon was an abbreviated drive, but the rain did stop. 

Black-backed jackal

Hadada ibis: these birds are iridescent.

Southern white rhino

Mom and baby

Zebras and Thompson’s gazelles

baby zebra

Impala

fish eagle

We came upon a black rhino who was acting odd. She let us drive right up to here and didn’t move. We were concerned that she may be sick, as black rhinos don’t usually let you get close and tend to be aggressive. 

She had some wounds on her side, but our guide said those are from parasites and do not make them sick.

Eventually she got up, but she still was ok with us being there. Our guide called the rangers who later came and checked on her and told us she was fine.

Towards the end of the day we stopped by the memorial they have to the local rhinos who have died or been killed.