The good times continue…. ‘Help us to drink our milk’!… and more.. including the dreaded “Lokuchum” …..

In the last few months we’ve had JUST incredibly beautiful sunrises

Ngariti

AND sunsets!

A clever and hopeful raven waiting to get a morsel of food on her way home to her chicks

Both the sunrises and sunsets have been sooo yellow/orange

What incredible colours

The suns rays onto Lenkiyou (Matthews range)

What is absolutely wonderful is the Samburu just love to be generous in times like this.. such fun when you are walking past a manyatta and the people are calling out .. “PLEASE come in and help us drink the milk, as we have too much!!”

a typical Samburu manyatta

and their precious cows

WELL, Amazing hey.. the good times continue and the March rains started on time and it’s still raining!! In fact you’ve probably heard on the news of floods and destruction, in some parts of Kenya.. Mostly NOT with us in the North.. The odd flood, one being so massive the whole Milgis Lugga changed its route and forged a completely new path ! BUT generally its been rain, rain, rain gently getting all the grass to seed and reseed and grow.. AND Northern Kenya continues to look like a paradise!!

THE ‘MIGHTY’ MILGIS LUGGA is living up to what its meant for.. draining a massive amount of the water from the Kirisia’s, Lenkiyou and Ndotos.. It has widened hugely taking trees and whole banks down.. Nothing new, its been doing this for thousands of years you can see it in the layers..

A Milgis bank showing years of drought and rainy seasons.. over hundreds of years..

It changed course in a really strategic place.. ‘Motio’.. (a place in the rocks that holds water)

See the map above where the lugga, instead of going through Motio, it nows goes round the other side of the hill

The area called Motio ..(taken 2016)
Arrow pointing to where these photos below are taken.. All this between the black lines has gone, almost half a kilometre wide!

The new lugga!

how many years since this spot saw the light

Funny actually this very thick riverine forested area used to be call ‘Shauri yako’.. in other words if you dare to enter you might meet your end.. Possibly a lion, buffalo, snake OR you just get lost, and cant find your way out!!

now its all changed..

The new Milgis lugga at Motio..

OUR ELEPHANTS.. generally all is well..

Elephants going about their day as elephants do!.. just peaceful .. Eat, drink, play, talk to each other, exchange news with the other groups, just simple living!.. ……………. Just like people should!

Now what this in the tree!!! The night camera..

Cheeky young eley

Elephant crossing the Milgis lugga.. showing the beauty of this massive country..

BUT.. not all is 100 % …. The dreaded “Lokuchum”.. not for the faint hearted but the reality…

‘Murre’ sadly a short lived name..

Unfortunately we have lost 2 massive Elephants to what the Samburu call “Lokuchum”.. The best way to describe what is happening, is ‘Madura’ that people get, where literally there does not seem to be any cure…. except amputate.. not very easy on an elephant..

Murre

Sadness reigns over the Milgis fraternity as we watched this elephant at Murre, west Ndotos, succumb to probably septicaemia.. You see his swollen front leg.. Dr Sharon from KWS tried to help…. darted him, treated how ever she could and he got up well and actually improved for a bit but eventually he keeled over, nearly 3 weeks later.

the horrible sore

KWS team with ours treating the elephant

treated, injected and ready to go..

OFF he goes marked with an X so they can watch over him

BUT sadly he was NOT going to make it, and below is his tusks.. Huge…

Tusks delivered to KWS Latakwen.. They are big.. Such a waste of all those years growing them..

AND another elephant in the south end of the Ndotos that did not manage to get up again after treatment.. soul destroying for the whole team, but AT least we can say they are not suffering any more..

Another beautiful calm elephant in the Keno in trouble

A very painful foot..

darted elephant in the Keno

KWS vet trying his best

ready to go.. BUT poor thing, sadly after a long night trying his best to get up..and in the end they had to euthanise.. I think the Milgis scouts and KWS rangers could hardly bear it..

AND below we don’t know what happened to this one BUT again.. sad..

An elephant unfortunately killed someone in Ngurnit and we think he got the blame?? Who will ever know..

The dilemma of the Wild dogs… and Hyenas

Hyenas listening for any clues ..

A group of wild dogs on the hunt.. The Samburu call them ‘white tails’ because often that’s all you see ..

OHHHHH dear.. these fiesty painted wolves… hunting dogs, wild dogs, however you want to call them, endangered beauties causing trouble.. We have had never ending attacks on goats and sheep..

High speed hunting dog

These pictures are also not so nice but again the reality.. These nimble dogs come in to a herd of goats and sheep at high speed causing absolute chaos, knocking over all they can, eating what they can, in the process maiming many goats and sheep before they take off ..

The gory details of the reality.. Remember these are somebodies precious goats.. very hard..

Wild dogs are certainly brutal in their endeavour to survive..

The skins of all the goats that died from their wounds, from one attack.. ..

hyena with ‘his’ now donkey?

And Hyenas killing grown camels at ease..

Whats going on??..

After the drought when the Hyenas had so much food with all the animals dieing ..

Now they are hungry..

Moving on to more fun things and what else has been going on.. Life in the bush!

daily occurrences repairing punctures!!

Normal daily issue

The team goes off to support the little schools under the trees and bringing them ideas, and help to send these children off on the right ‘conservation’ track!

Ltiyeni visiting one of our little schools under the trees

We support schools under the tree’s in the remote places, dishing out simple learning materials for the teachers, chalk and black boards..

Happy teacher!

Monthly meetings with our scouts and Lkiramats..

meetings every month.. this one was our lkiramats.. (Care takers of the land) who work under the scouts.

The meeting..

Those that have not seen our 2023 annual report.. Lots of news of last years happenings, including our exciting Aloe project finally, and much much more !..

https://www.milgistrust.com/_files/ugd/ac5ea2_c0e7b61fbc7949ea85d6f57eb967acb6.pdf

Meanwhile, we’ve had some beautiful times out on safari with lots of wonderful new friends..

Camels joining us for a drink

early morning ‘take off’

safari

on our way home

Oh we look so small in the lugga

looking for a camp

a lovely camel carving

Rhino hill.. Last remaining ‘frozen’ free rhino in Northern Kenya

crossing a pass

On our way to Ngurnit

walking up the Milgis lugga

magical views

breakfast being prepared on a pass

a new camp

Off to an early start

Rivers all flowing

a well earned drink

AND finally let it rain.. Let people and animals be safe..

Get at vehicles high away from floods

Rain in the desert

We were mean’t to be having a scouts meeting this weekend BUT this Parsaloi lugga in full flood might have put a stop to that!

The Milgis Lugga.. 6/5/2024 .. theres been a lot of water down in the night, seems that things are hotting up as we speak.. the rains are catching with the north Kenya!

A rain bow capping Lkanto

Delonix alata…
THANKYOU EVERY ONE FOR READING OUR NEWS!!!