Amboseli National Park

Amboseli National Park: Background Info

Located about a four-hour drive (240 km or 150 miles) southeast of Nairobi, Amboseli National Park is well known for its herds of big tusked elephants. A scenic park in its own right, Amboseli is synonymous with two particular things – majestic herds of elephant and glorious views of Mount Kilimanjaro in neighbouring Tanzania. Kenya’s second most popular national park after the Masai Mara National Reserve, Amboseli was declared a UNESCO-Mab Biosphere Reserve in 1991. During heavy rains, the basin at the centre of the park floods, attracting hordes of wildlife. The reserve is an excellent place to view the Big Five, as well as lesser known and rarer wildlife species.

Amboseli National Park: Destination Preview

The Experience: Amboseli National Park

Amboseli is comprised of five different wildlife habitats. These include open plains, yellow-barked acacia woodlands, Lava-strewn rocky thornbush, swamps, and marshes. The Oldoinyo Orok massif stretching toward the skies reaching a height of 8,300 feet (2,760 m). The collective groups of habitats create an abundance of scenic landscapes that are all capped-off with views of Mount Kilimanjaro. Amboseli National park is accompanied by an expanse of the skies stretching from horizon to horizon. The nights are filled with amazing opportunities for star-gazing. Amboseli National Park is a safari destination with an array and abundance of wildlife to experience.

The majority of people traveling to Amboseli and looking for safari and wildlife encounters. A pinnacle highlight is seeing wildlife with a clear view of Mount Kilimanjaro framing the background of the scene. The long dry season creates excellent opportunities to experience animals visiting the swamps and various watering holes. Along with the herds of elephants, wildlife enthusiasts can hope for sightings of lion, cheetah, hyena, jackal, mongoose, giraffe, cape buffalo, warthog, baboon, monkeys, zebra, impala, different species of gazelle and more. The primary wildlife viewing area occurs in the eastern half of the park.

Wildlife

Amboseli offers one of the most stunning and picturesque views of Mount Kilimanjaro. Although the mountain is located in Tanzania, the best views of Kilimanjaro occur in Kenya. When you search for images of the mountain, many of the images are created from the Kenya viewpoint and almost all of those are from within Amboseli National Park. There are over 1,000 roaming elephants that serve as one of the draws of the park. Apart from the elephants, many people have hopes of seeing some of the predator species which include lion, cheetah, and hyena. There are over 80 different mammal species that are complements to the elephants and predator species. One of the intriguing wildlife experiences is when the elephants are feeding in the swampish grasslands as they wade through above their legs. They are nature's little bulldozers.

Birdlife

Amboseli National Park is a good birding destination and more than 420 species have been recorded here. The swamps are great for water-associated birds such as egrets, herons, pelicans and crowned cranes. Large numbers of flamingos may be present in the two rainy seasons (March to May and November to December). The grassland areas offer some interesting ground birds such as Hartlaub’s bustard and the localized Pangani longclaw. The acacia woodland holds some dry-country specials such as steel-blue whydah, white-bellied go-away bird and Von der Decken’s hornbill.