Group E. Amanda, Daniella & Kirstie

We started our day ever so slightly earlier than before to make our boat launch time of 9am, bound for Crescent Island game reserve. Everyone, concerned about our passing of the “hippos, danger, do not cross” sign, piled into the three 7 person boats captained by our trusty anti-eating by hippo guides Nixon, Peter, and Jeremy – all with life jackets.

We were off! The journey for the day began with a  close hippo encounter by the Dr. Wang’s speedy boat with a 25 horsepower engine. Dr. Lougheed’s and Cleatus’ 15 horsepower boats were no match for the speed of Dr. Wang’s boat, which simply did circles around the other two. An array of birds were seen along shore, and even out in the open water with the sighting of a pelican floating about and other birds flying just above the surface (gray-headeed gulls, cormorants, goliath heron).

As we approached the game reserve we spotted a giant kingfisher (almost 45 cms tip to stern) which our lovely guides brought us each close in to take photos. Once we arrived, we all remembered our student cards for the student discounts and met Faith at the front desk to pay for student entry. We began our walking-safari meeting our guide Mwema, who then explained the history of the reserve and its famous Hollywood era, where some notable movies such as “Welcome to Africa” and “Tomb Raider” were filmed. He also explained the island’s history — it was only formed in 1900!!

The Hollywood era did not only bring fame but also brought zebras and water bucks to the island in the 1970’s. We observed both these animals at the beginning of our walk. We continued along the park, learning about all the inhabitants and their interesting reproduction quirks, including the lovely blue-balled vervet monkeys and the looser bachelor clan of the impala.

After Dr. Wang had his very first photo shoot with a Masai giraffe, we headed towards the captains of our little ships who would safely return us to our home away from home — where Silas, the living brain bank for the Lake Naivasha Riparian Association and areas around Lake Naivasha, was patiently waiting for us.

After our boat captains had their Disney princess moments with the African fish eagles (one of the boat pilots tossed a fish into the water and whistled to alert a fish eagle – which then came close to the boat to retrieve the fish), we were greeted with a delicious lunch made by John the first, Kevin and Chenzen. We then began to absorb all the knowledge that Silas had to offer about the lake, being intellectual sponges until Carol simply couldn’t absorb anymore information and offered an end to the knowledge sharing. This did not stop lecture 2.0 as Silas attracted about half of the students for more information from his amazing knowledge bank.

We then braked to “let the knowledge trickle down” as Stephen has said. After a brain-break we reconvened to listen to some paper reviews and syntheses by Amanda and Lacey. The hippos seem to like the paper presentations as they seem most active during them! Some bigger sociological questions were asked about illegal hunted meat consumption along with the competition between livestock and wildlife for resources. Lessons learned: social science is challenging.