The three reserves are also the haunt for a rich avifauna, with more than 300 species recorded. This is the place for the Somali ostrich, with its bluish neck and thighs, and for the Kori bustard, standing a meter high. The scrublands are home for some game birds, like crested francolins, yellow-necked spurfowls and the Guineafowls, both vulturine and helmeted that actually belong to different genuses and that flock to drink down at the river banks. Red-billed hornbills, marabou storks and superb starlings are a permanent presence. Prey birds include eagles, owls, kites, goshawks and sparrowhawks.
Woodpeckers nest in the riverine trees.
The Ewaso Nyiro waters attract a great deal of water birds, like pelicans, herons, hamerkops and kingfishers. Finally, in some sandy soils hollow their tunnels the naked mole rats, rare and small mammals devoid of hair, with a social behaviour similar to colonial insects and whose presence is detected through the mounts which betray their burrows, expelling pulsatile sand puffs like miniature geysers. Samburu Lodge is the most classical facility in the reserve, property of Block Hotels. It offers 59 rooms and services like swimming-pool, bar, restaurant, petrol station and mechanic workshop. At dusk, employees lay a bait for the leopard up a tree at the opposite bank.