Tumaren

Category: Issues | Date: Dec 19 2008 | By: tumaren

Not too long back we hosted a very nice Dr. and his son on a walking safari.  Tim, who works at a hospital in the UK brought a great bag of surgical instruments for us to distribute.

In the states and most first world countries these instruments are these days disposable - A sad commentary  when so much of the rest of world go without these critical tools for health care.   After boiling all the instruments for a good half hour we gave a large set to the Mpala Health Outreach Clinic pictured below.   The mobile clinic helps people in our area who have no access to proper health care as well as HIV/Aids education and Family planning.  You can read more about the clinic below:

http://www.mpala.org/mct/Welcome%20to%20MCT.html

No responses yet

Category: Mammals | Date: Dec 16 2008 | By: tumaren

We have Lesser Kudu on Tumaren but we have only seen Greater Kudu on some of the nearby hills (recorded less than .5kms away).  It is likely that Greater Kudu have crossed Tumaren as well but we have not yet seen them.  On a recent trip I took the following picture of a Greater downstream on the Ewaso Nyiro River and then The Lesser I took a few kilometers from Tumaren.  Seeing these images together is nice because you can more easily see the differences than you might in some guide books.  The first image is the Greater. Males have a pronounced dewlap, they are generally large and bulky, have an even and overall greyer coloration, and lack the more striking white markings that the greater has on his neck.

And here is the Lesser.  He is a smaller with more dramatic coloration.  Lesser often are said to have more stripes but this characteristic is not needed for ID.   Habitat is usually the best way to narrow it down quickly, Lesser preferring flatter dryer, hotter places while greater prefer more rugged hillside type habitat.

Tags: , Greater Kudu, Lesser Kudu

No responses yet

Category: Mammals | Date: Dec 12 2008 | By: tumaren

I found this fellow a few months back on a walking safari down the Ewaso Nyiro River and forgot to post his handsome mug. Have a look at his ears. He has clearly being fighting with another. Bush babies are prosimians (which is latin for split nose). They are primates and like lemurs shared a common ancestor with humans in the not so distant past.

Tags: , Bush Baby, Prosimian

No responses yet

Category: Mammals, camera-trap | Date: Dec 11 2008 | By: tumaren

Caught this adult Bat-eared Fox in the camera a while back. You can really see the size of his insect probing ears.  What you cant see is a set of exceptional jaw muscles capable of extremely rapid bug chomping (i think i remember that they set some kind of chomping speed record in the mammal world but know i cant remember).

One response so far

Category: Insects | Date: Dec 10 2008 | By: tumaren

Solifugids aren’t from hell folks, it just makes a catchy headline. The other day this guy (2.5″ across) roared into our tent. Solifugids or Sun Spiders as they are commonly called move at high speed. They are nocturnal predators of small insects (this post is in the insect category but i realize that solifugids are not insects but arachnids) and when this fellow came into our tent he was likely hunting under the plastic ground fly.  Read more about what these guys are all about on Wikipedia below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solifugae

4 responses so far