Photos from Safari 2023

I must be getting old, because I love taking photos of birds. 

I don’t know if that actually makes me “old” or not, but I can assure you that this is not something that interested me in my teens and twenties… but here we are… and I just love taking photos of birds.

This is the Lilac-breasted roller.

Apparently these birds are quite plentiful in Kenya, but this is the only one that I noticed. We were in the middle of our safari, and for whatever reason our driver stopped—I think to wait on another van to cross, though I can’t actually remember why. As we stopped, I turned to my right and saw this stunning bird. It was as if this beautiful bird just wanted its picture taken. So I took it!

The lilac-breasted roller is considered to be the national bird of Kenya because of the wide array of colors on its feather coat. Beyond lilac, there are several additional distinct colors present, including: black, dark blue, green, reddish-brown, turquoise, white, and yellow. 

The different colors are supposed to represent the many different tribes that make up the nation of Kenya. Like the vibrant, individual colors of the lilac-breasted roller, the people of Kenya are beautifully diverse but unite to form one nation.