The month of June has been cool here at Loldia – with crisp, clear days giving us fantastic views of Mount Longonot. It has been mostly dry, however there has been a couple showers throughout the month that have done well to settle the dust. We continue to feed the buffalo, hippo and other game in front of the house with molasses and hay – meaning the area is teaming with game. Although dry around the sanctuary, the gardens around Loldia at the moment are in full bloom – with a huge array of colours bursting through the vegetation.

It has been a busy month – with lots of projects happening around the property; one of which has been clearing and extending our pond at the front of Loldia House. The winds on lake Naivasha often blow in the water hyacinth, and so we had a big job clearing it all off, sealing it off, and then extending the land bank out into the lake. This has made for an even more beautiful sundowner spot to enjoy: and with the pond clear – the boat is always at hand should our guests wish to go out on the lake. Numerous guests have been on boat excursions – with fantastic sightings of birds and plains game including Giant Kingfishers, eland, buffalo and of course hippo. Next month we hope to stock the pond full of fish: improving on the fishing prospects for anyone who fancies dipping a line.

We have installed new lighting around the gardens – shining up into the foliage of the giant, ancient fig trees that are scattered around the property that in-turn glow down onto the lawns. Its looking great! Extra lighting down on the papyrus beds and lake have meant spotting the hippo coming up for night time grazing is a regular occurrence.

Down on the deck we have had a young female hippo (roughly a year old) – that has been separated from her mother. Luckily, she has found sanctuary around the deck, and far from shy – has created much entertainment for our guests and allowed for some fantastic viewing. At this stage, we believe her likelihood of survival to be high as she is old enough to feed herself and know to stay out of harm’s way.

Night game-drives have been exceeding expectations – delivering all sorts of extraordinary sightings including bat eared foxes, porcupines, aardvarks and hyenas.

Further afield, on the road up away from the lake, a big male hippo has died – leading to a lot of excitement around the area from all the scavengers. We managed to get a camera trap up there taking still pictures and video over-night of all the action, and got some great footage! Although this was after the camera trap had been found: it was stolen by an inquisitive hyena the very same night. Luckily, we managed to retrieve it a few hundred yards away; obviously the hyena realized the hippo would be slightly more edible than the piece of technology and so grew bored of it.

Our guests have had some excellent days out at Nakuru National Park: having seen numerous rhino, Lion, plains game; and more and more of the flamingos that are returning to the Lake. As always, the birding on the lake shores has been terrific. 

Photo courtesy of Chris Roche

Thor Karstad.