Facts About Lake Nakuru National Park

Facts About Lake Nakuru National Park : Lake Nakuru National park, is located in the west central Kenya, it is one of the saline lakes of the lake system lying in the Great Rift Valley of eastern Africa. Primarily the lake is well known for its many species of the aquatic birds more especially including the vast numbers of the pink flamingos, Lake Nakuru also has waterbucks, impalas and hippopotamuses. The town of Nakuru lies on its north shore. Lake Nakuru National park encloses the lake and adjacent lands.

Facts of Lake Nakuru National park will give you an insight to the amazing tour of the park in Kenya and all the most interesting bits of it, Lake Nakuru national park is one of the protected areas that attract almost everyone to Kenya. The facts about Lake Nakuru national park are the unique factors that make the park unique which makes it more popular in tourism destination, Lake Nakuru national park is protected by the Kenya Wildlife Services.

Flamingos

Lake Nakuru National park has got over millions of flamingos that are divided into  two flamingo species that is the lesser and the greater flamingos, where the greater flamingos are taller and darker in colour their shade of pink well as the lesser flamingos are shorter and lighter in colour their shade of pink.

Flamingos feed mainly on the blue-green algae that makes them to be pink, shrimp and a few water insects, Lake Nakuru in Lake Nakuru national park being rich in blue-green is a perfect place for the flamingos to live. The lake is also surrounded by the perfect bushy woodland vegetation where the flamingos can easily make their nests. These factors and more make Lake Nakuru the place for these flamingos to live.

Lake Nakuru

Lake Nakuru is the one of the soda lakes in the rift valley. Lake Nakuru is 1754 meters above the sea level and lies south of Nakuru County. Like the park, Lake Nakuru is 3 to 4 hours North West of Nairobi City.

The Big five

Lake Nakuru national park hosts 4 of the members of the Big five (lions, rhinos, buffaloes and leopards), the park is also a home to other animal species like  the giraffes, hippos, warthogs, vervet monkeys, olive baboon, colobus monkeys and many more.

Bird species

Lake Nakuru National park hosts over 500 bird species, the soda lake is a birding hotspot and supports a lot of birdlife rather than the flamingos in the park, other bird species includes the large flocks of pelicans, Abyssinian thrush, Arrow-marked babbler, Bateleur, Nakuru is also one of the best places in Kenya to see the long-tailed widowbird, there is a good variety of the raptors including the Verreaux’s and the long-crested eagle.

The Rhino sanctuary

The Rhino Sanctuary in Lake Nakuru National park was the first Rhino Sanctuary in Kenya and is currently home to the largest number of the black rhinos in the country. The rhino sanctuary was established in 1984 when the first two rhinos were introduced to the lake National Park grounds. The rhino sanctuary in Lake Nakuru National Park was established as an initiative by the Kenyan government to address the catastrophic decline in the endangered rhino species that was happening in the wild across Kenya.

Lake Nakuru National park is 183km2 and surrounded by a 3 meter tall parallel wire electric fence. Along some stretches, particularly areas abutting the fast-growing city of Nakuru, the fence has an additional woven wire mesh extending 1 meter into the ground to prevent wildlife from digging their way out.

Climate

Lake Nakuru’s climate is a mild and temperatures are consistent year-round. Daytime temperatures are pleasant in the mid to upper twenties, although it is much cooler at nights. Warm clothing for early morning game drives is a necessity. The wettest months are April and May. The rest of the year is relatively dry with some rain throughout.

Best time to visit Lake Nakuru National park

The months that are most popular for the tourist visits to lake Nakuru National Park are January, February, March, June, July, August, September and October and this is because these months are the driest months of the year, so your tour in the park is more lucrative and enjoyable.

Lake Nakuru National Park history

Lake Nakuru National Park started as a bird viewing and sport shooting area of the migratory birds in the 1950’s, but has since been expanded and fenced to protect populations of the endangered giraffes and the rhinoceros. In 1987, the park was declared as a rhino sanctuary.

The Lake Nakuru national park has a tarmac road connection with Nairobi, distance of 156kkm North West of Nairobi on the main A104 road. The most commonly used route into the park is through the main gate, 4km from Nakuru Town center. It is possible to enter the park from the main Nairobi Nakuru road at Lanet Gate.

The tribe of people living in Lake Nakuru national park are the Maasai people, though because of migration and integration other tribes have also settled their. The Maasai people are an indigenous group ethnic group of Africa of semi-nomadic people in Kenya and northern Tanzania, due to their distinct traditions, customs and dress and their residence near the many national parks of East Africa, the Maasai are among the foremost African ethnic groups and are known intentionally because of their links to the national parks and reserves.

Lake Nakuru National park is best known for its thousands, sometimes millions of the flamingos nesting along the shores, the surface of the shallow lake is often hardly recognizable due to the continually shifting mass of pink. This gives you the best safari experience during your visit in Kenya because of the flamingos as they are the unique features in the park.