Nairobi National Park

The Nairobi National Park is the only park within a city; it's about 7 km from downtown Nairobi and just a 10-minute drive from where we live.  Electric fencing separates it from the city on three sides; the fourth side has a river across which animals regularly migrate.

We were waiting till we had our alien cards to visit since it's so much cheaper as residents.  Our neighbors warned us that there weren't many animals in the park at this time of year and they were right.  But we had fun driving through it last Saturday and seeing our first close-up giraffe.  It's always nice for us when we get out of the city.  And not forgetting we are missionaries, we shared the gospel with people waiting in line with us for tickets.

This time we remembered to bring our binoculars and our big camera.  What a difference compared to our little camera.  And we highly recommend our wonderful binoculars:  Bushnell Excursion 10x42.  I've had them for years and they are great.  They're the only binoculars that go small enough to fit my narrow eyes and they bring things sharply into focus whether far or near.

Our first wild animal.  An impala.  Lovely creature.  I love those horns.

Gorgeous tree.

These giraffes were far away but came in clearly with our larger Canon Powershot.

Does anyone know what kind of a vulture this is?  Could it be a white-backed vulture?  Pretty impressive anyway.

And what kind of water bird this is?  I've gone through my bird book and can't decide.  It's got yellow around its eye and a very thick bill.  Hard to tell if the legs are yellow or not.  I thought this was a lovely photo with the reflection in the water.

This pond is obviously the watering hole for a herd of African buffalo.  They were nervous as they watched us sitting in our truck but they really wanted the water so into the mud they went.

This picture is very blurry because I had to zoom in so far to see the Oxpeckers that were feeding on ticks or other insects on this buffalo's hide.

Now it's our turn to be a little nervous as these big bulls started to paw at the ground as they faced us.  We backed slowly away!

More buffalo coming.  There were probably 100 of them but the picture doesn't show it and we decided not to stick around!!!

A lovely ostrich in the wild!

An interesting picture of zebras in the wild with the city in the background.

Our first close-up view of a giraffe.  What a regal creature it is!

This giraffe was standing so still it looked like a statue.

As you know, I love zebras.  I can't get enough of seeing them in the wild!  Well, that was the end of a 2-hour drive through the Nairobi National Park.