Kenya 2013: The Sounds of Africa

Many months after the fact, I have finally gotten around to writing about this year's adventures in Kenya. Although we had many interesting adventures and sightings, they were, overwhelmingly, similar to the adventures and sightings I've written about from previous trips (Kenya 2012, Kenya 2011 a, b, c, d, e, f, and g). I also stole my own thunder by posting on the University of Exeter's Africa blog site throughout our journey, and by posting most of my 2013 photos on Flickr shortly after I returned. So, what on earth could I possibly have left to share?

We weren't the only foreigners at Lake Naivasha. Also staying at the campsite was this peacock, a native of Asia.

No wonder Paul Simon was inspired to write about the goings-on "under African skies."

Frolicking vervets.

Well, all right, so I did have a few extra photos that I didn't post on Flickr. But, even better, I have a bunch of sound recordings I made as we traveled around Kenya. I wanted to try something new this year, so I packed my audio recorder in addition to my camera. I collected recordings of the ambient noise at each new location, plus I targeted individual sounds that I thought were particularly interesting.

Part of the reason it took me this long to listen to the clips was that I was worried they wouldn't turn out very well. Last night, though, as I sat and waded through all 40 audio files, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of what I'd captured. I'm not saying this to pat myself on the back; all I did was press record. It's actually a compliment to my wonderful Marantz PMD620!

Sound is so intensely evocative; I find that it is even better than photos and videos at bringing back memories and returning you to a previous state of mind or feeling. Listening to the clips--particularly the ones of the nighttime noises--I could almost have closed my eyes and believed I was back in Africa.

So, without further ado, here is an acoustic summary of our Kenya trip. If you want a really immersing experience, you can listen to the recordings while browsing through my photo gallery!


Kenya at night Kenyan birds Kenyan mammals Masai voices