Gray Crowned-Crane— Photo: Greg Lopez

With a well-deserved reputation for top birding and game-viewing, outstanding parks, good tourist facilities, and excellent field guides, Kenya offers the African trip of a lifetime. Nowhere else can such a broad slice of the best of Africa be found in a small, accessible area, including an avifauna of more than 1,100 species.

Birding in Kenya is a delight. From flamingos and weavers to ostriches and turacos, the birds are often surprisingly abundant, tame, and easy to see. In many areas it is not unusual to record more than 100 species in a day, even in the semiarid bush. Such striking birds as guineafowl, kingfishers, rollers, bee-eaters, hornbills, barbets, bushshrikes, starlings, sunbirds, and finches are common and often seen. More localized, but readily found in certain areas, are other typical African families such as the Hamerkop, Secretary-bird, bustards, sandgrouse, mousebirds, wood-hoopoes, honeyguides, larks, shrikes, and a horde of Old World warblers, flycatchers, and thrushes. Waterbirds and raptors are outstanding in their variety. Each region we visit has its specialties, and by the end of the trip we will have seen well over 500 species, and gained an understanding of the complex bird communities of Africa.

Game-watching will not be forgotten as we visit some of Kenya's top reserves, including Samburu/Buffalo Springs Reserves; Nairobi, Lake Nakuru, and Hell's Gate National Parks; and the Masai Mara and Kakamega Reserves. A night at a treetop lodge offers a unique opportunity to observe some of the shy forest dwellers as they come to drink. With the optional Masai Mara Extension, almost all of the large mammals of East Africa should be seen on this tour—big cats, elephant, rhino, and a great variety of antelope.

Good food and accommodations throughout; all lodges with good birding right on the grounds; easy to moderate walking and game drives; climate pleasantly warm by day and cool at night (hotter at two locales).