LAKE MANYARA NATIONAL PARK

Lake Manyara National Park covers an area of 330 square kilometres, of which some 230 square kilometres are lake. It lies at the foot of the western wall of the Rift Valley escarpment.

The name Manyara comes from the Masai word for the plant euphorbia tirucalli which they use to build their livestock stockades. The park is most famous for its elephant and tree climbing lions although you are also likely to see large herds of cape buffalo, pods of hippo,small herds of impala, waterbuck, giraffe and zebra along with warthog families and reedbuck.

Troops of baboons and vervet monkeys live in the forest and open areas whilst blue monkeys live only in the forest; monitor lizards can often be spotted sunning themselves on the riverbanks; familys of mongeese, who tend to live in old termite mounds, are often seen foraging for food.

Over 380 species of birds have been recorded in the park over the years, including many migrant species. Greater and lesser flamingo are often seen in large numbers on this soda lake, particularly thousands and thousands of lesser flamingo. On the lakeshore many types of heron-(grey-black headed), egret-(cattle-white), stork-(marabou-saddle billed- yellow billed), geese-(spur winged-Egyptian), plover-(spurwing-crowned-blacksmith), ibis-(sacred-glossy-hadada), as well as many types of duck can be seen.

Also, african spoonbill, white and pink backed pelican, avocets, kingfishers, hammmerkop, cormorants, fish eagle, and the jacana. inland the large ground hornbill and other types of hornbill can be seen.