Safari in Amboseli

So before you start.... have some great 80s music to get you in the mood to look at all my safari pictures! 

some goats in front of Mt. Kilimanjaro!! It was really clear the first day, then it hid behind clouds the rest of the week. 

an adorable baby giraffe in Amboseli

hup! two! three! four! Elephants on the march

giraffes coming to say hello because there are no trees for them to eat here... usually you don't see giraffes in the park for this reason. (elephants are overpopulating the park, and knock down trees, turning Amboseli into a grassland. aaaaand..... elephants are overpopulating the park because the government knows that tourists want to see elephants when they come to the park)

some elephants greeting each other!

hello ostriches!

some gray crowned cranes! these are some of my new favorite animals from Amboseli

a cape buffalo just chilling out with an egret

 RAWR! a hungry, hungry hippo!

 a hippo taking a stroll next to the swamp

 the view from our lunch lookout. see the contrast between the lush lake and the bare soil patches (and dry grass) around the perimeter!

 hey! it's Pumba! and Pumba junior!

so these are two lounging lions.... but it's really really hard to tell. Can you see the ears? We never got to see them standing up, they were just so sleepy :)

 Whoa! Some wild animals trapped in a safari jeep!

 mr. elephant eating anything and EVERYTHING.

we saw SO MANY ZEBRAS. here are two (and a baby, I think) out of the bazillion of them. (Zebras are overpopulated too in the park, leading to the dusty, bare patches of ground that you've seen in some of the pictures)

Animal list from Amboseli:  

Elephants

(Maasai) giraffes

oryx https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwsQIpTo6OqA-m2Vl1xVNWWVy81bJq5pD04CPnPo2S_8YX40i9M8UHfXo6RDmounaYZcFOh7bZ8S0GbbCyU5jQTBBovAcK54M5LPSVD0ukP4l5_fJOYlviTU34Yzr_a8wKyb8gbFlaYyY/s1600/20090211152759!Oryx_Gazella_Namibia(1).JPG

common zebra

Grant's Gazelle http://www.east-africa-safari.com/images/Grant%20gazelle.jpg

Wildebeest http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Blue_Wildebeest,_Ngorongoro.jpg/260px-Blue_Wildebeest,_Ngorongoro.jpg

warthog

cape buffalo http://www.hsd3.org/HighSchool/Teachers/MATTIXS/Mattix%20homepage/studentwork/Kyle%20Kohn%20web%20page/assets/africa-cape-buffalo.jpg

reed buck http://www.ccjonesphotos.com/ps/images/Male%20Reedbuck.jpg

ostriches

hart beast http://www.africaknows.com/content//user_6672/8041/thumb2.jpg

hippo

lions

vervet monkeys (the blue-balled monkeys that I saw at my urban homestay)

baboons

cat (haha)

cattle (in the park! whoa!) 

Gerenuk (so cool! we saw it along the road) http://www.jameswarwick.co.uk/resources/listimg/gallery/Samburu_2005/48-GERENUK-BROWSING@body.jpg

puff adder (roadkill, but still, we saw it!)  http://www.shahamaasi.com/resources/puff-adder.jpg

Birds: 

sacred ibis

horned hornbill

white-backed vulture

cattle egret

saddle billed stork

gray crowned crane

Egyptian goose

African jacana

Grey heron

Black headed heron

blacksmith plover

great egret

yellow-billed oxpecker

long toed plover

southern helmeted guinea fowl

Martial Eagle

white headed vulture

african spoonbill

goliath heron

secretary bird

Kori bustard

.... later we went birding near Amboseli, but not in the park and saw:

Van der decken's hornbill

hammercop stork

wattle starling

white winged bishop

african pied wagtail

Emerald spotted wood dove

hybrid lovebird

Jackson's golden back weaver

White browed sparrow weaver

some sort of sunbird

African mourning dove

Supurb starling (they are everywhere and look like iridescent robins)

splendid starling