12th November 2007
Wednesday, November 21, 2007 at 04:03PM [PHOTOS FOR THIS ENTRY ARE COMING SOON...IN THE MEANTIME, WHY NOT CHECK OUT THE PHOTO STORIES I'VE ALREADY CREATED?]
How the character of our river changes. This morning, after yesterday’s high water, the sandbanks had turned to mudflats in its wake.
By the afternoon, the river was up high again, roaring and red, and this was how it stayed until we went to bed.
You could see where an elephant had come down on the beach this morning, at the junction of the still-dry Mtito River and the Athi, just below the house…no doubt the same one that was noisily shredding trees nearby last night. There were also very fresh buffalo tracks leading from the beach below the house, along the Mtito River, which - although still dry - now has a few swampy patches which would constitute paradise for a buffalo. The Athi was so high it had actually started flowing into the sandy Mtito riverbed. The fact that this little tributary is still dry means there cannot have been much rain up on the Chyulu Hills (source of all the water for Kenya’s second city, Mombasa, via Mzima Springs in Tsavo West National Park).
A small crocodile came out of the Tana River Poplars (which separate ‘The Peaceful Place’ from the river) and returned to the water. What on earth was it doing so high up on dry land? We thought at first perhaps it was laying eggs, but it was only a small crocodile, so it remains a mystery.
More strange animal behaviour was going on today. A brand new Egyptian Goose family turned up – we’d never seen them before – perhaps they’d been washed downstream on the floodwaters? There were seven goslings, about half the size of “our” six resident goslings, with both their parents. “Our” goose family started viciously attacking the newcomers – the punishment for straying into someone else’s territory. There was a huge fracas but eventually the fight broke up and each family went their separate ways – the newcomers no doubt somewhat more cautiously than before.
The stars tonight were truly magical – millions of them in an indigo sky…takes your breath away…
[PHOTOS FOR THIS ENTRY ARE COMING SOON...IN THE MEANTIME, WHY NOT CHECK OUT THE PHOTO STORIES I'VE ALREADY CREATED?]
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