When the drought breaks in Africa, it doesn't mess around: we've had 69mm (just under 3 inches) since the New Year.

The first image is looking south to Kili with Cynthia's tent to the right seen from my tent yesterday afternoon. The second image is the Elephant Research Camp from the air this morning. looking NNW. Note the all the pools surrounding the camp and the huge lake that's formed where there was a dust bowl three weeks ago.
Three inches may sound pitiful for those getting inundated with rain and snow in other parts of the world, but in Amboseli, that represents almost 20% of the average annual rainfall. In one week!
The terribly distributed rainfall is one of our ecosystem's curses: too much, too quick, so there is huge runoff with not always enough soaking into the soil.
But, on the bright side, the glut of water brings about transformations that are magical. Where we have been inhaling alkaline dust for months and months, we are now slithering in the mud from tent to tent (Cristina and I flew a tent-maker down to finish up some of the refurbishment work that started last year).
And, although the elephants and wildebeeste are still not back, other creatures are beginning to celebrate the return of the rains.
Some are beautiful, others, not so.
On the beautiful side, we have the Great Egret and the Crowned Cranes (first bird image) and the Saddle-billed Stork who have homed into the temporary pools to feast on the myriad of little frogs that have emerged from who knows where (aestivation?). Dragonflies are cruising for less agile insects right in front of our tent.
And dung beetles! None of us could recall ever having seen dung beetles in Amboseli. The green ones were in camp, shifting a ball of vervet monkey feces. The bronzy ones were struggling to cross the rocky road to Tortilis camp in the western part of the park.
On the less glorious end, we bumped into a rather handsome black slug that I've never seen before, and have watched uneasily as the ticks have started to scuttle up the walls of our tents, entranced, no doubt, by the wafts of our body odour.
There are, in fact, about 50-60 elephants in the park, and -- good news -- flying out we saw perhaps a hundred or so wildebeest and zebra some 20 miles to the north.
The ecosystem seems to be shrugging its shoulders and coming back to life. Let's hope we can now hold off the poachers!