📷 The Waterbuck — Lake Naivasha, Kenya · 14 Jun 2026
A photograph and a story, every morning
The Waterbuck
Lake Naivasha, Kenya · nature
A male waterbuck stands chest-deep at the edge of a reedy lake, long ringed horns curving up. Eye contact with an animal that does not generally yield it.
Waterbuck are one of the few African antelope that genuinely live in water. They feed on aquatic plants, escape predators by swimming, and have a particular oily secretion in their coat that smells musky enough to deter most lions. The males grow the long lyre-shaped horns that are the species' most distinctive feature.
This male was standing in a stretch of lake choked with water hyacinth, the lake reeds rising around him. He had clocked the vehicle and was holding his ground rather than retreating into the water. The horns were the obvious feature — long, deeply ringed, curving up and slightly outward — but the eye was the photograph. Waterbuck don't really yield eye contact. They watch you watch them, and they make their own decision about whether to move. He didn't move. We did.