News from Porini Safari Camps

Greetings Porini Enthusiast!

It has been 1 year since the launch of "in the wilds" and we want to take this opportunity to thank all our readers for their support and contribution to what makes this newsletter fun and informative. If you have any interesting stories (whilst you were on safari with us) that you would like to share, please do let us know, and we would be more than happy to spread the word on your fantastic experience!

Porini Safari Camps are continuously devoting their time, knowledge and experience in the hospitality industry to ensure that all our guests experience a unique form of tourism with a more personal encounter with wildlife, to provide community members with genuine and meaningful benefits from their leased land and to emphasize on the necessity of preserving the Ecosystem by increasing biodiversity and allowing recovery of wildlife habitat. It is in this light, that we are proud to announce our nomination for "Africa’s Responsible Tourism Award" at the World Travel Awards, which is synonymous to the Oscars of the travel industry. To help us win this award, we are grateful to all of you who have voted for us, and if you still haven’t, please do so by clicking here.

With best wishes,

Aleema

Aleema Noormohamed
Marketing Executive

Porini Safari Camps

It is that time of the year again – when camps are closed to allow the earth to recuperate and when the staff go home to recover, rest and get ready for the exciting high season. We want to remind you what happens in the high season – EVERYBODY travels! Availability during this peak period gets challenging as we get closer and closer to the season, so if you have already booked, that’s great! if you haven’t and are starting to panic, or you have no clue what you want to do or where you want to go, don’t worry. Get in touch with us, and we will guide you.

Our Porini Camps are resting and gearing up to welcome you when we reopen again on June 1st, however, if you are going to be around sooner than that, then why don’t you stop by for some authentic Kenyan hospitality at the Nairobi Tented Camp!
Begin your safari by staying at our wonderful cozy little camp hidden in the forest inside the Nairobi National Park and truly leave the concrete jungle behind!

Our clients have reviewed us on Trip Advisor and this is what they have to say about the Nairobi Tented Camp:

"A million miles away from the city madness: We took our two children (3 and 5) to the camp for two nights during a 2 week break in Kenya. We wanted to do a safari without having to drag the kids out to the Masai Mara. It’s hidden in the Forest within the park and you feel a million miles from everything. It’s small, intimate and unbelievably relaxing. In two nights (and three days) we squeezed in two game drives and a trip to the elephant orphanage. We had rhino eating outside the tent at night, something I’ve not experienced before. The food is excellent, service is highly personal and our safari guide/driver Andrew was friendly and engaging with the children. The park was quiet for both of our drives (taken late afternoon) so we had none of the safari-bus madness we’ve experienced in the Mara. Highly recommend this as a break for Nairobi city folk, but also for tourists on holiday in Kenya. There’s something very special about this place and the people who work there. Hope to go back next time we’re in Kenya. (and if you need some quiet work time, they have Wi-Fi!) "

What are you waiting for? Call your agent right away! You want more details? Visit us at www.nairobitentedcamp.com or on our facebook page.

As part of our ongoing work to improve the relationship between wildlife and communities, Gamewatchers Safaris and Porini Camps recently invited 42 students from neighbouring schools to the Ol Kinyei Conservancy situated in the Maasai Mara to visit the Porini Mara Camp and to experience a game drive in the conservancy.

The company is the pioneer of community-owned conservancies in Kenya, with land being leased from Maasai communities and set aside as wildlife habitat. Following the establishment of Selenkay Conservancy (Amboseli) in 1997 and Ol Kinyei Conservancy in 2005, the company has striven to strengthen the relationship between Maasai communities and wildlife. With human-wildlife conflict on the rise due to growing human populations encroaching on wildlife territories, exposing children to wildlife and allowing them to understand the importance of wildlife and habitat conservation is of paramount importance to the security of flora and fauna in Kenya’s ecosystems. Many of the children visiting Ol Kinyei Conservancy and Porini Mara Camp during the month of April had never seen elephants, lions or cheetahs before, with many of the Big Cats being viewed in a negative light due to attacks on their treasured livestock. However, having now seen the wildlife from a game drive vehicle and being educated by our skilled local Maasai safari guides and spotters, the children began to appreciate and understand what makes the conservancies so important as a wildlife sanctuary and also for creating employment opportunities for the local population. Exposing youth to wildlife allows them to understand why Kenya is one of the world’s best tourism destinations.

Over the next year, the company is hoping to have many more students and community members visit the conservancy, with the expectation of continued improvements in viewing wildlife and the need to conserve them in a more positive light.

Teachers and pupils from Ol Kinyei Primary School with Porini Mara Camp staff and Managing Director, Jake Grieves-Cook

Seeing the kitchen at Porini Mara Camp

The school pupils learn from Silver Guide Jackson Liaram about managing a safari camp

School children try out a swing chair at Porini Mara Camp

The last few days of February saw some isolated storms to the north of the conservancies. Some days later, there were some brief showers, tasters of the upcoming rains. The beginning of March brought in one to two thousand wildebeest from the escarpment onto the plains of Olare Motorogi Conservancy – The Lloita Migration. This is much smaller compared to the "Great Migration", however it is no less important to the extended ecosystem, which relies on occasional nutrient boosts through the year. These boosts govern mating and birthing cycles, migratory and predatory cycles.

With the arrival of wildbeest, the lions went into overdrive killing more than one victim at a time; hyenas were doing the same. The jackals, vultures, tawny eagles, steppe eagles and bateleur eagles all had it easy, as did the dung beetles who were scurrying around behind the herds. Behind the beetles, bugs and flies that followed the herds where the storks, herons, swifts and saw-wings and all other insectivorous fauna making the most of the abundance of food. A week later came the topi, gazelles, eland and thousands of zebras!

What are the cats up to in Olare Motorogi?
THE LIONS

• The Enkoyeni pride occupies the west of the conservancy, and currently has thirteen members. In the last report, there were two cubs. Now there is only one. What happened to the second is anyone’s guess but we have noticed the youngsters in the pride seem to have a problem with the two big double-crossing male lions that have taken over their pride and mated with (at least one) of the females. It is possible that these big males killed the second young; or perhaps the four young ex-Enkoyeni males may have killed it.
• There used to be seven young males that grew up in the Enkoyeni pride over the past 2-3 years. These seven were kicked out of the pride after killing one of the new cubs over a year ago. They became nomads, moving further and further away until we had reports that they had been found at Olseki on Naboisho Conservancy. Then, mid-March they were back, trying their luck at getting back together with their old pride. But neither the females nor the overstretched double-crossing pride males were going to allow this.
• The Moniko pride, located on the southeastern section of the conservancy, has spent the last month seemingly split into two groups. At the beginning of the month the pride’s adult females were hanging around Naronyo and Observation hills, presiding over one of the conservancies grazing zones. The many sub-adults from this pride were spending their days on the hills. In the second half of the month the dynamic seemed to change again – many of the adult females suddenly disappeared, possibly heading north into the thickets of the Eseketa valley or the bushy slopes near the conservancy head quarters; two females stayed back, and one of them could be lactating. Considering her behavior towards the sub-adults that tried to greet her a couple of days ago, we think she may have cubs hidden away.
• The Eseketa pride, the OMC’s newest with seven or eight lions at last count, managed to keep very well hidden in the first part of March but by mid-month when the time of plenty began to make them feel like contented house cats on three-meals-a-day diets, they seemed to forget their shyness. Over the last week of March this pride has been easily found on the escarpment west of the mouth of the Eseketa valley. Here their options abound, either hunting the rocky, short grass and whistling-thorn-covered plains above them or the lush long grass plains below.

THE CHEETAHS

• This month Amani and her cub have been in the limelight as they have not left the plentiful plains of the lower conservancy. Watching these two play, oblivious to the snorting, stamping and head-tossing of the herbivores around them, would have to be one of the highlights of this March.
• Narasha, the female cheetah with the scar spot on her right cheek, gave birth sometime in the course of this month but we are sad to say no one ever saw the cubs. It seems she chose the wrong place to have them, and something found them before we did. However, on a positive note she was recently found mating with a young male on the plains above Porini camp. The chances are she may not become pregnant from this encounter as cheetah do not have a good fertility rate, but time will tell.

THE LEOPARDS

• Fig has been enjoying the attention as the conservancies most regular ‘madoadoayajuu’ (literally meaning "the spots of up"). Other than a few times when she vanished for a few days she has been around her usual hangouts along the Hammerkop stream, vainly attempting to look comfortable in what can only be the most uncomfortable branches and positions – typically cool cat!
• Acacia still is in hiding. Reports from the end of last month mentioned seeing her with teats, then one of the security team from Porini saw her one morning carrying a little bundle in her mouth. Since then we have been waiting, hoping and searching. Fingers crossed that she will have success with this litter, she is certainly doing a good job of hiding them. The whereabouts of her last daughter ‘Namnyak‘ is also unknown.
• We had a leopard honeymoon on the conservancy this month. Yellow, the lower OMC’s territorial male, was found one night with a young, shy and very pretty female. They were very much in the heat of passion with vicious mating every ten or so minutes. Where this leopardess came from is anyone’s guess but we wish her the best of luck.
• Found a couple of times this March has been Yellow’s northern competition. In the valleys up north, the gorge and the riparian river systems of Motorogi is another large male leopard. Though not as big as the OMC resident male this cat is still refreshingly shy, something one does not see too often in the lower section of the conservancy and into the Mara reserve.

Meshack is a man of hospitality and he is an excellent guide. He grew up in the Olare Orok area which is now better known as Olare Motorogi Conservancy (OMC). His knowledge of the bush and the area within the OMC is unbeatable. He went to school in Talek and Narok High School before pursuing a course in guiding and he is now a KPSGA Bronze Level and soon to be a Silver Level guide. Meshack has attended several workshops and seminars in guiding both in Narok and Nakuru where flamingo birds are a main attraction. He is now head guide at Porini Lion Camp.