One morning we took a balloon flight over the Masai Mara following the Mara River for quite a while. I have done many balloon flights, but this was exceptional because we were flying so low, literally touching the tree tops. It needed a lot of skills to keep the balloon there, but never touching the trees or the bushes, nor coming too high up, where we would be distant from the wild life. We set off before sunrise and at our starting area there were four balloons (I think) and we saw balloons from other areas as well.
As soon as we had a little bit of light we had a chance to see some birdlife. At several occasions we saw the yellow-billed stork. They are usual all over Eastern Africa and like wetlands, mudflats and shallow lakes. They are wading in this area looking for fish. It was unusual to be able to see the birds from above and photographing them from above.
We spotted several kinds of antelopes and buffalo. We had our first sighting of the Cape Bushbuck, but Impalas we had seen many times before in Samburu. The Cape bushbuck is larger than an impala. Waterbuck is also a large antelope and is found widely in all of sub Saharan Africa. And the Buffalo is of course in a different league. as one of the large iconic African animals. This guy had just taken a mud bath to keep himself cool during the day ahead.
Governed by the wind we were gliding slowly south never venturing too far away from the Mara River. But after an early morning in the forest we came out over the plains, where only a few acacia trees and lots of grazing animals could be seen.
