Monday July 18th

Aunt Jen and the kids woke up to a giraffe in their window and leapt out of bed to feed him.  They then ran down the hallway to get the rest of the family.  Moral of the story:  if your kids are hard to wake up in the morning, all you need is to get some giraffes outside your window.

At 7:00 breakfast begins.  The waiters are trying to feed you and literally NO ONE has any interest in eating because the giraffes have all arrived for their own breakfast.

Greer shows off her skills by feeding a giraffe from her mouth.


We flew to Laikipia on a Cessna Caraven 12 passenger prop plane. 

We were once again greeted with hot towels, fresh juice, and smiling faces.  The "cottage" is spectacular and we're not sure if cottage is an accurate description.

We went for our first game drive and 5 minutes out we saw a herd of elephant playing and rolling around, then giraffes, zebra, elan and on the way to the leopard blind we saw a leopard in a tree before he quickly scurried off.  The potato chips and coca cola in the dark blind will never be forgotten.  We're not sure why they chose the loudest food ever when we were supposed to be silent.

If you told the Donnalley family that we were going to become birders no one would have believed it.  Tim got Greer hooked first and then rest soon followed.  That's how good he is!  The kids were SIGNIFICANTLY better at remembering the names of the birds but we all enjoyed finding them and reading about them in the East African Bird book.
The one bird which we were introduced to at Loisaba that we could all recognize was the superb starling.  What a stunning bird!