Fish Eagles, Otter and Python

Elsamere is a beautiful place to stay while visiting Lake Naivasha in Kenya.

It was the holiday home of George and Joy Adamson, now a place where you can stay and is run by the Elsa Conservation Trust.

It's a little bit like staying at your granny’s, The house is still as it was in the Adamson's days. The furniture, and decor is covered with pictures and objects made and collected by the Adamson's.

There are now some small cottages in the gardens named after some of the pets, Elsa, Penny Pippa and Patti.

The gardens have recorded over 250 species of birds and are daily visited by Colobus Monkeys that come for an afternoon feed.

At night care must be taken as hippos roam through the gardens. Ive often been wakened by zebra or giraffe wandering past my bedroom in the early hours.

Lake Naivasha is where I go to photograph the African Fish Eagles. They perch and nest in the old acacia trees that surround the lake.

It is a vast lake in area, 139 sq km, but surprisingly shallow in depth only 6m. Between 1937 and 1950 it was a landing stage for the Imperial Airways flying boats that journeyed between Southampton and Cape Town now surrounded by Dutch rose growers poly tunnels that are a big part of the local economy and a major employer. The lake has a few problems caused by the rose growing and the water hyacinth that were introduced for farming that choke the lake. Some work is being done to harvest the water hyacinths and produce a plastics alternative.

On my last trip I didn't see the beautiful malachite kingfishers as they were being disturbed by fishermen  surrounding the lake due to being laid off by the rose growers.

I usually spend  a couple of days at the lake to photograph the fish eagles flying and feeding. The first day is a long event spending 5 or 6 hours in the canoe working our way around the edges of the lake. The second day is a couple of hours on the lake before heading off to Mara.

The morning starts early with a cup of tea and a few biscuits. We pick up a box with the food supplies for the day and walk down to the jetty, put on the life jackets, load the canoe with the camera equipment and food and head off along the edge of the lake. The lake has an abundance of birds and other wildlife, hippo, zebra, giraffe and waterbuck.

There is a simple art in attracting the fish eagles to come close to the canoe, have plenty of fish at hand. Sometimes we buy these from the fisherman that fish the edges of the lake to supplement  their income. The technique is to locate a pair of eagles perched in the old trees bounding the lake and attract their attention by whistling. Once we have their attention we decide where we need the eagle to approach and take the fish. The fish is thrown and the eagles take to the air, circling and diving towards the fish. We hope they come in the way we planned but they don't always get the message and do their own thing. What we want is a close pass on the way to picking up the fish in their powerful talons. This gives us the time to focus on the birds, get the flight in and pick up moment before turning away back to the trees. Occasionally two or more birds will fly in and challenge each other for the chance to swoop in and scoop up the fish.

Locking onto the eagle as it dives in is very difficult and keeping the focus all the way needs a lot of practice.

We spend a lot of time moving swiftly across the lake to different locations, the motor on the canoe is a real benefit. Care has to be taken as hippos can pop up without notice and there are numerous other objects that could damage the boat.

On the journey back the boatman pointed out what he called an otter, it turned out to be a coypu. They were introduced to deal with the water hyacinths.  Another mistaken identity, a python that turned out to be a large water bottle!

After the full day in the boat I’m ready to head back to the jetty and into my room for a shower before dinner.

The askari knocks on the door to tell me dinner is ready and he will escort me to the main house and protect me from the animals roaming about in the gardens.

Dinner is a communal event with all the guests, from many countries and walks of life, seated around large tables. The staff serve us our soup and we are encouraged to help ourselves to various mains courses, usually including my favourite local curry. Then finally dessert and a long chat over coffee before heading for a long deserved rest, askari in tow to see that my journey to my cottage is not interrupted by a grazing hippo.

Tomorrow I head for Mara.