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Photo Gallery | Photographer, Takashi Iwamoto / Video / Photography | Africa

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Nairobi National Park, Part 2

Is Nairobi the only city where lions can be seen in the wild? In the national park next to the city. I will write about a national park with lions adjacent to such a city from a tourist's point of view.



Then, in the continuation of the last time, I will post pictures and write about what I think is appropriate.

Nice to meet you!



Nairobi National Park is only a few kilometers away from the city center of Nairobi, and yet, as I wrote in the previous article, it is about the size of Ota Ward and Setagaya Ward combined.

Is this the scale of Africa?

In terms of image, it is a small national park, most of them are small national parks, but compared to Serengeti in Tanzania, it is very small.


From Nairobi National Park, there are quite a few places where you can see the city buildings, and it feels like a big safari park.


Giraffes have pretty good eyesight, so they may be watching people working in skyscrapers.

He must have been watching the developing Nairobi for a long time.




How does a giraffe's tongue eat a spiky acacia leaf with great appetite?

Acacia branches are full of thorns so sharp that you can't even break them with your bare hands.



Well, next is Hartebeest


The background is the opposite side of the giraffe photo, and the developing town of Ongata Rongai is on the right side of the photo.


There is no fence on this side, and wild animals can come and go freely.

The combined size of Ota Ward and Setagaya Ward is too small for wildlife to stay healthy.

The population is increasing and there are problems between humans and wild animals, but well, they are still doing well.



Ongata Rongai, in the back right of the photo, has also grown significantly in the last 20 years, and its population has increased tremendously.

There is only one road from there to Nairobi, the traffic in Rushauer is exceptional, and the speed is roughly walking + alpha.


I have witnessed this hartebeest often being preyed on by lions and cheetahs many times.

They don't run that fast, so they're easy to catch, and they're probably worth eating.


Come to think of it, I just remembered that I wrote in my previous blog about Hartebeest coming to drink water.

It's okay to erase it, so the animals that appear will be duplicated, but I'm happy if you read on.


All good but not bad.


Secretarybird



As the name suggests, it eats snakes.

They roam the grasslands looking for small animals.In the grasslands of Africa, snakes are very cautious and rarely seen.


African snakes are always near burrows where they can easily hide, probably because of the abundance of predators.

In Inokashira Park in Tokyo, you can often see the unsuspecting red snapper, but in the grasslands of Africa, if you were to roam the grasslands so carefree, you would soon be attacked by a raptor with bright eyes searching for prey in the skies.


This secretarybird,

I often see them eating insects such as grasshoppers.

I remembered it with grasshoppers, but the current media is eating insects or eating crickets.

When I watch wild birds, I observe that they don't like to eat things like black crickets.

I have chickens at home, but when I eat a little bit, I immediately dislike them. I often eat cockroaches.

Ingredients like that.


All the media, eat! Eat! There must be a reason for pushing.

If there is a food shortage, I think I should recommend things that I have been eating for a long time, such as honeycombs and locusts, but I remembered that Euglena was featured in the media as a savior of future food shortages, but what is going on?



I digressed, so when I went back to the secretary bird,

Hideaki is a secretary bird, with a fountain pen in his head and walking upright? When people say that about how I walk, I get that feeling. how do you feel? I feel like a secretary.





Next is the Prairie Raptor King

King of prairie raptors, sesame-tailed eagle


It is the largest eagle in the grasslands of Africa. According to the picture book I have, it has a huge wingspan of 195-260 cm. It is almost the same size as the giant raptor Steller's sea eagle that migrates to Hokkaido in winter.

The largest seems to be even bigger than the Steller's sea eagle.



As a king, the prey he aims for is also large.


Martial Eagle is preying on Helmeted Guineafowl


It's a male and it looks like he caught prey for her. Another sesame-bellied eagle was dancing overhead, looking up at the sky and plucking its wings.

She must have been watching the condition of the female while appealing her own brave figure.



Bonding couples to start breeding, or picking up females if you haven't decided on a pair yet.

Before handing the prey to the female, the feathers are torn off cleanly to make it easier to eat.

The bigger the prey, the more likely the female will like it.


Five years have passed since the manager who has been observing goshawks in Japan for more than a year. These days, I keep thinking that time flies so fast. Well, there's no doubt that he's a curiosity-loving eccentric manager.


describes a male goshawk that behaves similarly. For a goshawk, he killed a very large teal, which he usually does not catch.



A guinea fowl that is relentlessly vigilant in the sky, probably its friends have been attacked



This guy is a guinea fowl, one of the three kinds of guinea fowl in Kenya.In English, it looks like a helmet on its head, so I call it Helmetted Guineafowl. Its Japanese name is simply guinea fowl, probably because it is most commonly found in grasslands.

Nearly 100% of the guinea fowl seen in the Masai Mara and Serengeti are Koyatsu.

By the way, the other two species are the Kenya crowned guinea fowl, a forest dweller, and the tufted guinea fowl, a dryland, shrub bush dweller.


This guinea fowl is also edible in Nairobi. The price is quite high at 5500 shillings compared to 800-1200 shillings for a chicken.

1,500 shillings for a chicken 300 shillings, even for a slightly larger chick. Both chicks and adults are five times more expensive than chickens. It's not that expensive to keep as a pet.

At this price, no one will eat it.


However, guinea fowls that are kept by people lack luster in their wings, and their necks and faces are pale in color, and they do not look lively. Compare that to a wild guinea fowl.


On the contrary, chickens raised by people feel alive.

Chickens are chickens only when they are raised by people, and they shine the most.

I mean, you can't live in the wild.


This guinea fowl is very cautious. I think it's because I'm constantly threatened by raptors.

In the photo above, it is always vigilant in the sky, scraping the soil with its feet to find food.

It's not that far away from the sesame-tailed eagle in the previous post.




Move further southeast from the gate




Crocodiles can be seen up close at the Athi Basin Dam, 19km southwest of the main gate. They often dive underwater, but if you are sunbathing, you can observe them quite close.


If the distance is 19 kilometers, it is around Kokubunji station after leaving Shinjuku station on the Chuo line.

The road is winding, so the travel distance is quite long.

Crocodile and alligator are two types. In Japan, they are unified by crocodile, but crocodile can be seen in Africa.

I feel like my beak is sharp.


When they are on the ground, they mostly sunbathe and hardly move.

So it's not that interesting to watch.



Well, next is introducing the birds seen at this dam



A kind of stork that can be seen on the waterside, the black openbill, a black stork with a gap in its beak. The English name also has exactly the same meaning as Open Billed Stork.

Very easy to understand.


As the name suggests, it has a gap in its beak, and for food, it prefers shellfish like snails found near the water, or rather, it specializes in eating shellfish.


The gap is for catching shellfish well.


Clams are placed between the gaps in the beak, split open, and the contents taken out and eaten.


I also posted two such plain birds.

For the time being, I'm reluctant to turn it off again, so I'll go to the next one.


White Pelican on the left, Red Pelican on the right



If there are pelicans, there are fish,

Originally an artificial dam, fish are also released and breeding and increasing.

As the number of fish increases, the number of birds that eat fish also increases. There were about 10 pelicans, so I guess there aren't that many.


The two birds on the left are a white pelican on the left and a red-bellied pelican on the right.

The above two species seem to get along very well, interspecies relationship?


Such interspecies mating seems to happen occasionally in nature, but it's common that breeding doesn't go well because the species are different.

Didn't the photo above just happen to pass by?

I don't know now.


This blog will be the last one as it will be continued next time.


 


Nairobi National Park is quite a condensed park, and it is very accessible from Nairobi, making it a perfect place for a one-day safari with the family.


If you have a chance to come to Nairobi, we recommend that you stop by.

If you like animals and wild birds, you will definitely have a fulfilling day.

If you enjoy safari, we recommend a car with an open ceiling like the one introduced in the previous blog. The feeling of openness is completely different.


With a sense of openness, you can fully enjoy the 360-degree view and immerse yourself in Africa.



This time around here, I will finish with the next article about Nairobi National Park.

next next?

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