Storks on Safari

In 2016 I had a safari honeymoon in Kenya, which was the fulfilment of a lifelong wish. The experience was all I imagined it would be, and the desire to revisit has been strong ever since. Thanks to the current state of the world, opportunities to travel are non-existent, so I am left to visit the wilds of Africa in my dreams. Last night I was back on the Masai Mara, but it was a restricted sort of trip in that we were without a driver or tour guide and had to rely upon ourselves to get around. We had a rental jeep, however my wife forbade me from driving more than an hour away from base camp when I expressed a desire to seek out hippos. Since there were no large bodies of water for miles around, I had to content myself with what fauna lived in our immediate vicinity.

I drove the jeep around aimlessly, avoiding dense areas of scrub, yet contrary to my real life experience, the well worn roads were mostly barren of life. We decided to visit a small town some miles distant, hoping to stock up on supplies and see new animals on the way. A small herd of buffalo (Syncerus caffa) resembling brooding storm clouds watched us warily from the bush, swishing flies away from broad black flanks. Knowing the moody and unpredictable temperament of these formidable bovines, I made sure to give them a wide berth. Their more fragile cousins, the ungainly blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) famous for vast numbers during migration season, were also present, although most of them were corpses strewn about in various degrees of decomposition. Some were entire, recently deceased bodies, whilst others mere sun-bleached bones with scraps of leathery hide clinging to them. In spite of my best efforts, I ended up driving over many, crunching their bones to dust. I was worried lest one of their curved horns should burst a tyre, but they were no match for the robust four-wheel drive.

We passed a lone giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) browsing from a thorny acacia tree, its dappled hide reflecting the sun kaleidoscopically. Soon the road was closely hemmed in either side by bushes, and we were forced to abandon the jeep and continue on foot. It was only a short distance left to town, but being now completely defenceless, we were nervous about ambush by predators. At the end of the sunlit passage we espied a trio of large birds pecking around a yard on the edge of town. I pointed out the species to my wife. There was an excessively ugly marabou stork (Leptoptilos crumenifer), known also as the 'undertaker bird', and with it, two saddle-billed storks (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis). Where the marabou is a grotesque brute with a fleshy, wizened appearance and a swinging gular sack, the saddle-bill is one of the more attractive specimens of the stork family, sporting a handsome black and white plumage, and a striking orange bill topped by its namesake yellow saddle.

At this moment I was too intimidated about the approaching saddle-bills to admire them, for they reach almost 5 foot in height. I remarked to my wife that they were probably used to being fed by tourists, so we turned our backs on them and pretended to walk away. Unperturbed, the birds followed us closely, ogling us with liquorice allsort eyes. Even though we knew the birds were harmless, we were creeped out by their proximity, and tried to shoo them away by stamping our feet. This only caused to give them a brief spindly flutter, whereupon they immediately recommenced their stalking behaviour. I woke up before the scene resolved itself, realising I'd dreamed about these particular species of storks because they feature dominantly in a chapter written for my novel.