The Yala Swamp is a wetland region of over 200 square km in Western Kenya. The wetland covers the North-Eastern shore of Lake Victoria in Siaya, Bondo and Busia districts in Kenya. It acts as a filter for waters that flow into Lake Victoria from two major rivers. Sometimes considered the source of the Nile. The swamps harbour endangered fish species Oreochromis esculentus and Oreochromis variabilis that have disappeared from Lake Victoria itself. The critically endangered Sitatunga Antelope (Tragecephalus spekii) still lives in the swamps’ papyrus. BirdLife International classifies the Yala Swamp among Kenya’s 60 Important Bird Areas. Some of the birds that live there are the Blue Breasted Bee Eater, the Papyrus Gonolek, the Swamp Flycatcher, the Papyrus Canary, the White Winged Warbler, the Great Snapper and the Baillor’s Crane.
Famous quotes containing the word swamp:
“We read that the traveller asked the boy if the swamp before him had a hard bottom. The boy replied that it had. But presently the traveller’s horse sank in up to the girths, and he observed to the boy, “I thought you said that this bog had a hard bottom.” “So it has,” answered the latter, “but you have not got half way to it yet.” So it is with the bogs and quicksands of society; but he is an old boy that knows it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)