Kenya & Northern Tanzania

Kenya has perhaps the richest mammal fauna on the whole continent. The extensive system of long-protected areas means that nature is both pretty much as it should be within the national parks but also well-habituated to viewers.

But what of Kenya’s rarer and more elusive mammals? Golden-rumped Giant Sengi or Giant Forest Hog, Aardvark or Maned Rat? To see such species you need to visit the right habitats and know where to look! This tour visits three contrasting areas selected to produce a fantastic range of mammals.

East of the Great Rift rise the Aberdares, a highland area that is still largely forested, and which is home to a number of rare and local mammals. Unlike the open plains of many of Kenya’s national parks the Aberdares makes the mammal watcher work much harder! But the regards are great. We’ll have one night at the famed Ark. Here are impressive Giant Forest Hogs. Other hard-to-see species in the area include Black-fronted Duiker, Lesser Cane Rat and Ochre Bush Squirrel. Elephants provide endless entertainment and Waterbuck and beautiful Bushbuck are common. Spotted Hyenas visit the waterhole in numbers each night and you’ll likely see White-tailed Mongoose and Genets too. Brown Greater Galago and Marsh Mongoose are more rarely seen. At the nearby Aberdare Country Club we’ll look for Mountain Suni, Harvey’s Duiker and the striking Maned Rat, all to the spooky soundtrack of Southern Tree Hyraxes. Other common animals likely to be seen during the day around the park include Eastern Warthog, Striped Ground Squirrel, Grant’s Zebra, Slender Mongoose, Common Impala, Reticulated Giraffe, East African Eland and troupes of the elegant Mount Kenya Guereza.

Famous Tsavo East National Park is all about prime game-watching in a majestic Baobab-dotted savannah-scape. You need do nothing more than sit above the waterhole and watch as herds of Elephant, Cape Buffalo, Zebra, Warthog, Giraffe and Eland come in to drink. Lions, Blackbacked Jackals, Rusty-spotted Genet and Bat-eared Fox can all be seen from the lodge. We’ve every chance of seeing other cat species during our visit including Leopard, Cheetah, and the elegant ear-tufted Caracal. Other mammals we’ll see include Coke’s Hartebeest, Hippos, Gerenuk, Oryx and the beautiful Lesser Kudu. And all that’s before we start the nocturnal activities. Game drives at night in Tsavo are superbly productive. We’ll see African Civet, North African Wild Cat and plenty of Spotted Hyenas and we have seen Serval, Aardwolf and Striped Hyena on night trips here too. Taterils and Grass Rats scurry across the track. Senegal Bushbabies peer at us from Acacia foliage.

The Arabuko-Sokoke Forest, along with some relict coastal forests in Tanzania, form a biome with many unique species. The endemic Golden-rumped Giant Sengi, a curious not-so-little insectivore, buzzes back and forth across the forest tracks and we’ll see Four-toed Sengi too. Daylight will see us admiring Sykes’ Monkeys and the pretty little Zanj Sun Squirrels. Harvey’s Red Duiker are tolerably common, Ader’s is less easy to find, and any of Side-striped Jackal, Ader’s Duiker and Sokoke Dog Mongoose would be a bonus. Once darkness falls Sokoke is alive with Kenya Coast Galagos and Northern Greater Galagos. Rusty-spotted Genets will be seen regularly and we’ll see the tiny Coastal Suni. We’ll have an optional visit to the Pangayambo and Ali Baba Caves where we can see an impressive range of Bats including African Trident, Sundeval’s Roundleaf Bat and Striped Leaf-nosed Bats.

The Serengeti National Park is home to one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on Earth, as more than one million Western White-bearded Wildebeest and nearly half a million Zebra annually follow the rains across the Serengeti’s great grasslands. In total more than two million ungulates graze the Serengeti at this season. Of course with all this food about the predators are numerous and obvious. Black-maned Lions sit about seeming to wait for their dinners and breakfasts to come to them. Leopards and Cheetahs are as easy to see here as anywhere. And Spotted Hyenas are very common. Black-backed Jackals and Bat-eared Foxes are numerous. Aside from the multitudes of Wildebeest and Zebra ungulates will also include Serengeti Topi, Hartebeest (Kongoni), Cavendish’s Dik-dik, Eland, Steinbok, and plentiful Robert’s and Thompson’s Gazelles. We’ll have the chance to study both Bohor Reedbuck and (Chanler’s) Mountain Reedbuck. Little groups of Banded Mongoose cavort across the grasslands and we’ll see both Dwarf and Slender Mongooses too. We’ll also do our best to find the elusive little Oribi, shy Side-striped Jackal, and the Serengeti is one of the very best places in Africa to watch Serval.

The Ngorongoro Crater is surely one of the natural wonders of the world. Nearly three million years old, the ancient caldera is the remnant of a huge volcano that is now one of the most beautiful wildlife havens in the world. We’ll stay in a superb lodge amongst lichen-bearded forests seven thousand feet above sea level on the crater rim. Towering Euphorbias cling to the crater walls and on the floor, fever-and-fig tree forests provide shade for the awe-inspiring array of wildlife. Here some of Africa’s last Black Rhinos are still well protected and we’ve a decent chance of connecting with a Caracal or two. Black-maned Lions stalk through the grasslands, flamingos crowd Magadi Lake and giant-tusked Elephants roam permanent swamps where we’ll look for more elusive mammals such as Bushpig and Egyptian Mongoose.

To the east of the great grasslands the landscape takes on a different character as huge baobab and acacia trees gradually increase in frequency. Here over two thousand square kilometres of beautiful habitat is protected by the Tarangire National Park. The river Tarangire threads its way through the length of the reserve. In the mammal watching world Tarangire shot to prominence when a group of mammal watchers did a ‘big mammal day’ there in February 2019 and recorded a remarkable 64 species of mammal in the 24 hours! We’ll not push ourselves quite so hard. However we’re sure to enjoy the huge concentration of Elephant, Impala, Grants Gazelle, Giraffe, Reedbuck, Wildebeest (here the Eastern White-bearded form) and Buffalo that make this place one of the best wildlife areas in East Africa. We’ll look for Klipspringer, Southern Tree Hyrax, Yellow-winged Bat and both Lesser and the beautiful Greater Kudu. At night we’ll see Spring Hares in abundance as well as Common Genet, Scrub Hare, White-tailed Mongoose and hopefully African Wild Cat. Lesser Galagos are frequent in the trees. In the ‘hoped for’ category are Zorilla, Aardvark and Crested Porcupine!