Last updated over 4 years ago
These are my favorite species from the Turkana Basin in Northern Kenya.
These majestic black birds walk for miles across the dry desert scrub looking for insects and small reptiles to eat. They used to be quite common in these parts but they are increasingly hard to see. Increasingly threatened by human population increase and livestock numbers these are surely threatened with extinction.
Also known as Eryx colubrinus. This is just a beautiful snake rarely seen. My daughters occasionally find them and they give them huge pleasure handling them and watching them burrow swiftly out of sight into the soft sand.Sadly they are so often mistaken by the people we work with for the more poisonous carpet viper - the subspecies named after my uncle Jonathan Leakey is Echis pyramidum leakeyi
I have a soft spot for the striped hyaenas of northern Kenya. I published a paper on the diet of striped hyenas and we had several individuals who were quite tame come in to the camp every evening looking for fish remains. Again they are very rare to see here.
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