a trip report by
Adrian Hoskins
Upon
arriving at Nairobi airport we were greeted by cool and extremely
foggy weather, which made the long drive to our
destination slow and hazardous. The rutted, pot-holed and unlit
roads were littered with broken tree branches that had been placed
on the ground to warn drivers of the many broken down trucks along
the route. Our ground agent had told us that the westward journey
across Kenya to Kakamega rainforest should take us about 5
hours, but the necessarily slow driving resulted in a journey time
of over 8 hours.
Each day we drove the 5
miles to the reserve, following dirt roads
where we found ourselves frequently stopping to photograph the
many species of Acraea
butterflies that mud-puddled along the way. The sight of a group
of butterfly photographers lying on their bellies, sprawled across
the road peering at butterflies through their viewfinders was a
matter of great fascination and amusement to the local people.
The reserve had several access roads,
and a network of internal tracks and paths, which we fully
explored, and which produced hordes of superb butterflies.
Amongst these were several distinctively patterned and very
attractive Pansies including Junonia
octavia and Junonia
westermanni,
many Acraea
species, the aptly named
Beautiful Tiger Tirumala formosa,
several large Swallowtails, and 5
Euphaedra Forester species.
At
one spot we found a large group of
Charaxes species jostling for position to feed at
mammal dung. The aggregation included no less than 6 specimens of
the fabulous Tiger Pasha Charaxes castor,
and 2 Green Charaxes C. eupale.
Amongst the
many skippers was the
fantastic Orange Sprite
Celaenorrhinus
galenus. It's extraordinarily rapid flight, and habit of settling beneath
leaves, made it extremely difficult to follow, but the effort was
repaid in full when the beautiful orange-marked wings were seen.
Other beautiful skippers included the exquisite
Metisella kakamega - marked
with large yellow spots on a chocolate ground colour,
the strange Snow-horn Chondrolepis
niveicornis which has white antennae, and
Ceratrichia flava,
a pretty species with a
citrus yellow underside.
After
8 days at Kakamega we returned to Nairobi, stopping en route to
look at various savannah butterflies near Naivasha. These
included several Colotis
Orange tips and Crimson tips, and the intricately marked
Silverline Spindasis ella.
We
spent the next day at Nairobi National
Park where we saw
and photographed buffalo, zebra, ostriches, wart hogs, giraffes,
various gazelles and antelopes, after which
some of our group departed for England, but others including
myself stayed an extra week, joining a safari to explore the
tribal areas and national parks of northern Kenya.
Our
trip took us across savannahs and boulder strewn deserts to Lake Turkana,
close to the Ethiopian border. It was a very rugged
journey, but
a fabulous adventure, and gave
us a fascinating glimpse of the
lives of the extremely photogenic Samburu,
Maasai and Turkana tribes.
We returned via
Samburu National Park where we had excellent views of an
elephant family crossing a river, and also saw lions, giraffes,
antelopes and a great selection of
birds.
The butterflies of
Kakamega weren't as diverse or thrilling as those of
Ghana, and the safari
to Turkana was often exceedingly
uncomfortable; but overall we agreed that this
was probably
the most varied and fascinating trip that any
of us had undertaken.
