Lake Bogoria National Reserve is located in a semi-arid region in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya residing Lake Bogoria and the land immediately surrounding the lake.
The lake lies in a trough below the Ngendelel Escarpment (a sheer wall 600 meters (2,000 ft) high). Lake Bogoria covers 32 square kilometers (12 square miles) and it is geothermic-ally active on the western shore with geysers and hot springs.
The geologist J.W. Gregory declared the lake in 1892 as the most beautiful view in Africa. The only main river feeding the lake is called Waseges River which rises on the northern slopes of the Aberdare Range.
The Waseges runs through productive agricultural land higher up through bush and scrub used for grazing and then via a very dry bush before penetrating the lake at its northern end. The lake is surrounded by grasslands dotted with bushes and there is acacia-ficus woodland to the south, and the north merges into a papyrus swamp.
The reserve was opened in November 1970 and was made a candidate of World Heritage Site in 1999, and it is managed by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
The reserve comprises of a herd of the relatively uncommon Greater Kudu and many other large mammals such as; buffaloes, cheetahs, warthogs, spotted hyenas, zebras, caracals, baboons, dik-dik and many more.
Lake Bogoria is an alkaline lake containing much of blue-green algae which is the best food for flamingos thus attracting a large number of flamingos including those which occasionally visit the lake from the famous lake Nakuru when its waters vary and there are no enough algae to feed them.
Therefore, visitors to Lake Bogoria are most likely to view thousands of flamingos or can even opt for visiting lake Nakuru too which is so close to Lake Bogoria and it is globally known for being the best place in the world for viewing the flamingos.
Besides flamingos, the reserve boosts a total of more than 135 bird species which include; hornbills, little bee-eaters, yellow-billed stork, augur buzzards, cape widgeons, little grebes, swift, practincoles, water dikkops, starlings and many others.
Good accommodations for tourists include the park lodge, three public campsites and one privately operated campsite. Visitors may also bathe in the hot springs which form a natural spa.
