Birding in Lake Nakuru National Park; Lake Nakuru National Park is truly a home hoven of birds which was first gazette as a bird sanctuary to protect and conserve the birdlife that was blooming on Lake Nakuru in 1960.
Lake Nakuru is a famous Kenya safari destination for both locally and internationally harboring millions of flamingos on its shores all around the year. Though its climate keeps on changing and changes in the lake’s water levels, meaning it has caused the flamingo numbers to decrease from millions to thousands but still, they still cover the Lake’s shores pink any day.
Lake Nakuru is known as a soda lake with a great deal of blue-green algae which is food for the flamingos and that’s one of the main reason flamingos flock the lake. Other bird specie that feeds endemically on the lake ‘’great white pelican’’ come along other wading birds.
Birding in Lake Nakuru National Park is quite an exciting experience of sighting numerous beautiful birds live in this park. The park covers an area of about 118square kilometers and is home to over 450species of birds which are both endemic and migratory to the park. It’s interesting of seeing variety of the pink flamingo covering the Lake Nakuru’s shores pink all year around. The park is also home to endemic bird species like the pelican birds and four threatened bird species including; Madagascar pond-heron, the Pallid Harrier, the Greater spotted Eagle and the Grey -crested Helmet-shrike.
Birding is the park is best sighted either on the lake or various extended vegetation of bushy grasslands ,acacia woodlands and euphorbia forest include to some species ;African Spoonbill ,Black- winged stilt ,Red- capped lark ,Rufous-throated wryneck ,Yellow-billed stork ,Ruppel’s vulture, Ruppel’s robin -chat ,Black- necked Grebe ,Long-tailed widowbird ,Maccoa duck ,Montane white -eye ,Grey-headed Gull ,Northern puffback ,Pallid harrier ,Gull-billed Tern, Little Grebe ,Schawlow’s wheatear, Shining sunbird among others.
Travelers can combine Gorilla Trekking Tour in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park Uganda with birding in Lake Nakuru National Park Kenya.
Kenya to Uganda
From Kenya fly – Wilson Airport to Entebbe International Airport. Then use a domestic flight Aero link Uganda to fly you to Kihihi or Kisoro Airstrip a nearest airstrip to Bwindi or Mgahinga National Park.
Best time to visit Lake Nakuru National Park
Birdwatching in Lake Nakuru National Park can be done all year around, however the month just after the rain have the most birds in the park. During rain season food can be plenty and vegetation can be groomed that supports the bird life, this tends to happen in January and July.
Bird in Lake Nakuru can be carried on any time of the day, especially in the morning hours between 6am and 11am; this is the best time of birds leave their nests and flyout to look for food and this is the most rewarding time to see them hovering around the sky and the ground of the park. Even the evening when they return to the nest also good time to watch birds in the park.
One on visit to Lake Nakuru National Park can be able to watch variety of birds along the shores of Lake Nakuru as people sit in their cars or stand along the lake shores and watch the birds. Other visitors, can views variety of birds from the different park viewpoints that include lion hill and baboon cliff; the baboon cliff in the park provides best viewpoint for birding in the park.
Location; The park is located in central Kenya, northwest of the country’s capital Nairobi. Lake Nakuru National Park is found within the Great Rift Valley and it encompasses Lake Nakuru. It is one of the five soda lakes in the rift valley. The park is home to around 50 mammal species that can also be seen during a visit to the park.
Accessibility;
By road; You can drive through the park because the park’s roads are well developed.
By air; Tourists can fly to the park’s airstrip Niashi and by road visitors drive north west of Nairobi for 3 to 4 hours to get to the park.
