Bottle feeding a baby rhino

I got to bottle feed a baby rhino!! Something I imagine that not many people can say they have done. Six month old Nicky is a blind black rhino who was found at two months old with his mother. Although she was no doubt doing her best to care for him, his blindness was making it hard for him to cope in the wild and he had already been attacked by hyenas. One of his ears is rather torn as a result of that attack. As black rhinos are so endangered and his chances of survival were slim if left with his mother, Lewa Wildlife Conservancy decided to bring him in and hand rear him. He lives at the headquarters and has 24 hour care. One of his two keepers is always with him, even sleeping alongside him at night. If his blanket falls off, he jumps on his keeper to get him to tuck him back in again – how sweet!! After a shaky start, Nicky is doing really well and it is looking very hopeful that his eyes can be operated on and his sight restored. Ultimately, he will be able to be released back into the wild which would be wonderful. With rhino poaching escalating at an alarming rate, every single rhino is so vital to ensure these incredible animals don’t become extinct.

Would love to upload a photo of the gorgeous Nicky at this point but the internet is too slow. That said, he is something of an internet sensation. If you google "blind baby rhino", lots of pictures and news articles will come up on him! He has been successfully fundraising for his sight restoring operation by using the fact that Prince William spent his gap year at Lewa.

Sarara Camp, Samburu land

Animal update first. The cats have been spayed. I really should have got my cats spayed sooner but I’ve never seen any other cats around Lewa so I thought they were safe. So I was not too pleased to one morning see my little female tabby cat following a big black tom cat around!! Whisked them off to the vets to discover she wasn’t pregnant but her tortoiseshell sister was at least 3 weeks pregnant with four kittens so she must have met the tom cat some time ago. Suffice to say they are now both spayed (I feel like a kitten murderer) and back home after an overnight stay at the vets. Rather a traumatic experience for them both as they did not appreciate being bundled into a dog crate and a long car journey to Nanyuki. They are now wearing plastic bucket collars for two weeks so that they can’t pick at their stitches. They are very cross with me as this rather impedes their freedom and they can’t whizz around the stable rafters and hunt rats like they used to because the stupid collars get in their way.

On the subject of neutering animals, Santa has also been castrated. As the vet was coming up to the area, it seemed sensible to get him done as in another few months he will probably start getting interested in mares. I really enjoyed assisting the vet with the operation and it all went very smoothly until it was time for Santa to come round from his anaesthetic. Typical Santa can’t be like any normal horse and just get up, be a bit groggy and recover quietly in his stable. Santa gets up, then falls over, a process he repeats about 20 times, getting increasingly stressed and thrashing around. We eventually got him back into his stable and held him up whilst he spent 10 minutes head butting the stable wall for reasons best known to himself. Luckily there wasn’t any swelling or other post-operative problems so he is now a gelding and has entirely forgotten about the experience.

That’s the animal news. On to more exciting subjects. Jenny, my best friend, is here! She arrived last Friday and I took a couple of days off over the weekend so that we could go off on safari. We drove three hours north of Lewa, up to Samburu land to stay at Sarara Camp (check it out at www.sararacamp.com). Such a magical and beautiful place. It is the only camp in that area so you literally look out on to a million acres of complete wilderness. There are no other tourists or cars. The camp is built into the hillside and the six luxury tents are positioned to give a fantastic view of the flat scrubby Samburu land and the Matthews range of mountains. I can honestly say it is one of the most stunningly beautiful places that I have ever been to. We were very lucky in that (a) they gave us a much cheaper resident rate, and (b) we were the only guests so had the place to ourselves. The camp has a fantastic infinity pool built into the granite rocks fed with natural spring water. Beneath the pool is a watering hole so the animals come into drink, mainly elephants, but we were also treated to a leopard sauntering past one evening as we sat with gin and tonics in hand watching the sun go down. The game is far less plentiful than on Lewa and harder to spot because of the dense bush. However, considering that in the 70s and 80s, all the game was completely poached out, it is wonderful to see that there are now over 4000 elephants living in the area. Sadly, poaching for their ivory still remains a major problem and it is unlikely that rhino could ever be reintroduced to the area unless the land was fenced in and massive security introduced.

Sarara Camp also has a pet kudu (type of antelope) that was found abandoned at 5 days old. She was hand reared and is completely tame, so much so that she wanders about the dining area asking for food! I have to say that it was really fun to be a “guest” for a change rather than working at a lodge. Having wake up tea bought to my room in the morning and sitting on the verandah watching the sun come up rather than going to work – I could get used to that!

First blog of 2013

Happy New Year everyone!

I had an early Christmas present from one of the horses – a kick in the head. This is the thanks I get for trying to clean a leg wound, although I think she was really just kicking at flies and caught me by mistake. Much drama in the yard as she sent me flying sideways and seeing stars until one of the syces caught me before I hit the ground. Once the blood was cleared up, it turned out not to be so serious – just needed a couple of stitches at the local clinic. The kick was at the side of my head by the hairline so if it scars, it won’t really be visible. It could have been much worse!

And so it was my second Christmas in Kenya. Christmas Day started with a ride before breakfast, then we had a traditional roast turkey lunch, followed by dinner and a campfire in the bush in the evening. Except I ended up missing out on the evening festivities as I was looking after a sick horse, aptly named Santa as he was born last Christmas Day. Poor little Santa did not have a good Christmas, or indeed 1^st birthday, but he is much better now.

We got a new polo pony just before Christmas called Dancing Gem. She has come all the way from South Africa which is one very long journey by lorry – more than a week of travelling. She clearly didn’t have the best journey as the horses were fighting and her neck is one mass of bite marks, not to mention all the other cuts and bumps she managed to obtain along the way. Then she arrives on Lewa and all our polo ponies gang up and bully her. Anyway, I think they have largely sorted out their differences now and she is settling in nicely. I took her for her first ride today and she was very calm despite having to contend with seeing five rhinos and lots of other animals that she clearly isn’t used to. Her last owners informed us that she is good in traffic. Not particularly useful to us as we don’t ride our horses on the road. It would be more helpful if she was good with elephants, rhino and giraffe!

New Year passed by in a similar vein to last year. The same family have been coming to Wilderness for the past 10 years and they book out the entire lodge for 10 days. New Year’s Eve was a sit-down dinner for 20+ people out in the bush with a big campfire, roast lamb and Masai dancers. And a few elephants roaming past who thankfully didn’t come and join in, although they were obviously intrigued by events!

Hopefully, 2013 is bringing us all better weather. I actually had to buy a pair of wellington boots because the rain and the mud was so bad. But finally the days are getting hotter and the rain has stayed away for a few days…