Recently, I had a chance to go to Kenya with RetiredCPO (Keith) & what a trip it turned out to be. I think we both came back thinking it was too short & want to go back. Prior to going to Kenya, I did some looking around on the Web & saw a quote describing Kenya which I liked ... it goes as follows ...

"Famous for its classic savanna safaris, Kenya is a country of dramatic extremes and classic contrasts. Deserts and alpine snows; forests and open plains; the metropolis of Nairobi and colorful tribal cultures; freshwater lakes and coral reefs."

And it did in deed provide all kinds of contrasts. Keith started his posts a couple of days ago with birds & I thought that was a good place to start. So I'm going to start by contrasting what I think is one of the most beautiful birds (Gray Crowned Crane) ... with what has to be just about the ugliest bird I ever laid eyes on (Marabou Stork). We saw the Crane out on a Safari ... but the Stork hung around the campsite ... apparently people had fed it in the past & that bird would come into the dining room if they allowed it to.

During another Safari or game drive, we came across another amazing bird ... one I'd never heard of previously (Kori Bustard) ... & no, that's not a typo. I wasn't sure if he was practicing some sort of mating dance (there were no other birds in the vicinity that I could see) or maybe he was practicing his moves for the dance the following Saturday ... but either way, he put on quite a show & I'm including 4 shots of him.

Next is a bird that as nearly as I can learn, passes through Africa (European Bee Eater). Unfortunately, I was a bit further away than I would have preferred, plus I was shooting very high shutter speed with Auto ISO, but the limits I thought I'd put on did not work & I also cropped it a lot, so it's soft, but you can see, it's an amazingly beautiful bird.

And finally, we took a boat safari out on Naivasha Lake, where we saw another amazing bird (African Fish Eagle) ... sadly, I was following 2 different eagles who came swooping in to grab fish, but was shooting slow continuous, so I got them both setting up for the grab as well as flying away with the fish ... but missed the actual grab both times!!!! Guess next time I'll go to high speed continuous.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip ... I'm very appreciative of Keith's enviable knowledge of birds ... it made the trip a lot more interesting. I'll try to post some more shots another day.

PS: All were shot with a Canon 5dIV ... the Marbou Stork was shot with an EF100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS II while the Gray Crowned Crane, Kori Bustard & European Bee Eater where shot with the same lens plus a 1.4x extender. The African Fish Eagle was shot with an EF70-200 f/2.8L IS II.

Frank, this entire series is breathtraking!