On the night of the 7th, Laila and I took a night game drive around Portland Cement, a neighbouring property. It is a 15,000 acre mining area with livestock ranching and is adjacent to where I live on Swara Plains Conservancy. The amount of wildlife there is incredible. Thousands of plains game such as wildebeest, zebra, Thomson’s and Grant Gazelles occur here in greater abundance than they do in most of our national parks, and perhaps only bettered during the high season in the Mara Reserve.

It remains entirely neglected by all but a few people. It has no conservation status despite its national importance and has vast potential for large wildlife tourism on which it could survive in perpetuity.

Within the first few minutes, armed with a strong spotlight (and still no headlights on the car), we saw an aardvark, busy digging for ants. He (or she) then did a strange thing and walked straight towards the car seemingly happy that its path was being lit before it by the spotlight. It then came within three meters, caught our sent, and bolted off in a hurry! I have never seen an aardvark this close before in my life, nor its strange behaviour.

Bold aardvark

I few hundred yards down the road we came to the object of our night drive, namely a sad event in which two wildebeest had fallen down an exploratory mine shaft left uncovered. We had failed to pull them out earlier fearing that hyenas would fall into the same trap. While doing so, Tim the Lanner came and sat on a tree in the sunset to see what we were up to before flying back home for the night.

Tim at sunset

We hoped the smell of the dead wildebeest would bring in some of the night wildlife that would allow us to test our new camera equipment. We messed up our only opportunity as a young hyena sat low in the grass very close to the car.

The next morning, we went around the ranch to double check that no hyena had tumbled into the shaft. None had, but we noticed two Tawny Eagles across the plains and on arriving there saw butchered meat hanging in the trees. This was clearly wildlife meat poaching, a matter that required immediate resolution as gangs of poachers can work quickly and unnoticed with devastating effect.

Poached meat

We headed off to see the Manager to talk of poaching, commercial illegal wood cutting and worsening security issues. This surge in illegal activity may be due to rumours that land use policy is changing. This would allow rapid encroachment and habitat destruction.

Just a few hundred metres from where we stood talking, vultures descended to a carcass. When we approached the scene, it turned out to be a freshly slaughtered wildebeest, poached and butchered that night.

We went also to view an active Martial Eagle nest, with a sub-adult male and adult female in attendance. A large chick was in the nest, a rare successful breeding attempt so far, for these enormous eagles that fair poorly in modern Kenya.

During the space of one morning before breakfast, we saw thousands of animals, photographed some eagles and saw first hand some of the major concerns facing wildlife. What is clear is that great places with immeasurable value can be under-appreciated. Within this vast commercial cement company, there are those that sincerely wish the land be used to maximize income and still keep its stunning natural wildlife and habitat. It can be done. It needs support from both government, non-government, private owners and shareholders.