Day Trip to Lake Nakuru

Day Trip to Lake Nakuru

Lake Nakuru offers good wildlife viewing throughout the year, but the rains might interfere with your game drives in the wettest months, April and May. Although there is great birdlife at the lake, conditions in recent years have become unfavorable for flamingos, which used to be a real attraction here. As a result, the flamingos have moved to other lakes in the Rift Valley.

Made up of the lake itself and the rocky caves and bushy grassland that surrounds it, Lake Nakuru National Park especially draws visitors looking to see pink flamingos, as there may be as many as 2 million lesser and great flamingos seen around the edges of the lake at a given time. The birds are drawn here by their favorite food, cyanophyta spirulina plantensis, a type of blue-green algae that fills the lake.

In addition to the flamingos, more than 400 different bird species have been spotted in the park, which is on a migration route for many European birds. This is one national park where you definitely want a bird-watchers' guide in hand to identify all the feathered creatures and ensure the species you need for your life list are expected to be in residence when you visit. The park is also home to many water-loving animals such as hippos and waterbucks, and among other mammals found in the park, visitors who get lucky will also be able to spot lions, leopards, giraffes, hyenas, buffalo, baboons, monkeys and gazelles. In addition, once simply a bird sanctuary, the Lake Nakuru National Park has since become a national rhino sanctuary and is the best place in Kenya to see protected black and white rhinos.