Primate Safaris
Contact us
T : +256 392 159 498
T : +9 1 9544 666 665
E : info@primatesafaris.com
Primate Safaris
Contact us
T : +256 392 159 498
T : +9 1 9544 666 665
E : info@primatesafaris.com
National Park
Lake Nakuru National Park.
About the Park
Tucked into the floor of the Great Rift Valley in central Kenya, Lake Nakuru National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site compact, fenced, and extraordinarily productive for wildlife. At just 188 square kilometers, it is one of Kenya's smallest parks, but it offers one of the highest wildlife returns per day in the entire country. Everything here is concentrated, accessible, and reliably present, which means game drives in Nakuru deliver encounter after encounter with a consistency that larger, more dispersed parks cannot always match.
The rhinos are the park's conservation crown jewel. Kenya's first rhino sanctuary, Lake Nakuru, supports one of the country's largest populations of both black and white rhinos, a protected breeding ground that has supplied rhinos to other parks across Kenya through translocation programs. White rhinos are particularly easy to see, encountered in different groups throughout the day, especially around the causeway at the western end of the lake. To watch a white rhino grazing calmly in the morning light, the lake glittering pink behind it, is one of those quietly perfect safari moments that stays with you long after the drive is over.
The Rothschild's giraffe, one of the rarest giraffe subspecies in the world, was introduced to the park in the 1970s and has thrived, with over 80 individuals recorded today. Distinguished by their unmarked white lower legs, they move through the acacia and euphorbia forest with the regal unhurry of an endangered species that has found its footing. The park has become a core breeding and translocation site, sending Rothschild's giraffes to other protected areas across Kenya, a quiet, ongoing conservation success story unfolding in the tree line every day.
Leopards have been unusually visible here in recent years. Nakuru has attracted fame for its high number of leopard sightings, the acacia forest providing perfect cover and equally perfect vantage points for the cats to watch the lake and its surrounding grasslands. Lions hunt the open flood plains. Tree-climbing lions have been documented here, making Lake Nakuru one of the best places in Kenya to see this rare behaviour, shared with only Uganda's Ishasha plains and a handful of other locations in the world. Buffalo, waterbuck, zebra, impala, and warthog fill the grasslands. Hippos wallow at the lake's edge. Pythons move through the reeds.
And through it all above it, around it, reflected in it, over 450 bird species fill the park's sky, making Lake Nakuru one of East Africa's most rewarding birding destinations in a country already full of extraordinary birding destinations.
Small park. Enormous experience. Come for the flamingos. Stay for everything else.
Wildlife
- Lion
- Leopard
- Rhinoceros
- Cape Buffalo
- Cheetah
- Giraffe
- Zebra
- Hippopotamus
- Warthog
- Flamingo
- Vulture
- African Fish Eagle
- Pelican
- Crowned Crane
- Marabou Stork
- Impala
- Gazelle
- Waterbuck
- Baboon
- Vervet Monkey
- Colobus Monkey
- Python
- Lilac-breasted Roller
- Kingfisher
- Weaver Bird