Dear All,

I have just come from a short bird watching safari
with Duncan Himes. On 14th we visited Aberdares
entering through Mutubio gate. The park is wonderful
at the moment with most of the flowers flowering after
the recent rains. 

The Kniphophia flowers are now blossoming with yellow
to flame red colours, attracting a lot of
Scarlet-tufted Malachite Sunbirds among other high
elevation common species. Surprisingly these sunbirds
were not present a week ago as I passed through the
park, though not seriously birding. Although Aberdares
is normally quiet at 10,000ft, we saw the Aberdares
Cisticola and other usual few species. Our last bird
in Aberdares was a Red-throated Wryneck by the
Treetops Lodge gate.

We had an overnight at wajee camp for the next day
search of the Hinde�s and interestingly recorded
another Red-throated Wryneck at the Wajee Nature Park.
Later over to Kieni Forest through Thika-Kinangop road
for a nice evening walk. Most of the trees in the
highland forest are fruiting now and hence a good
variety of birds. Here the bird of the day was the
Black-throated Apalis, that we saw a couple of times
by the river.

Next day on 16th, we went birding at Lake Magadi and
Magadi area with Shailesh and Duncan Himes too. It�s
drying up now along this area and only a few water
points with water at the moment. All the whydahs are
still in full plumage and the waxbills and weavers now
congregating by the water points in their usual
flocks.

On 17th we visited Gatamaiyu forest and had a great
birding, with again most of the trees fruiting and
thus good variety. The forest has now been
well-electrically fenced to keep the elephants away
from invading farmers and 3 gates have been put up.
However, the human pressure of this small path forest
has recently increased seriously and there are about
60 women, 40 women and 50 women who use the 3 gates
respectively to collect firewood on regular bases.
This forest is approximately two hundred and something
square Kilometers and only has two forest guards, who
man the three gates at the same time. Their main job
besides guarding the forest is to control the movement
in the forest and especially the women and other local
people who bring their cattle everyday and graze in
the forest. 

Tree poaching is now severe here and it seems like
there is both people who are cutting trees for
firewood, fencing posts and also specialist people who
are going for specific trees, maybe for wood calving.
We talked to the two Forest Guards and asked them who
are people cutting down trees there and they said that
its quite challenging for two people to be able to
guard a forest of about 250 square kilometers with
three open gates empty handed.

Urgent and adequate conservation measures needs to be
undertaken by the right authority to save this fast
disappearing patch of a wonderful forest. However, I
think all activities should be closed and serious
conservation management get established, the cows are
seriously destroying the small trees that are shooting
on the floor of the forest, while local people are
cutting firewood. It is approximately 48 Kms from
Nairobi to this forest and this area is readily
potential for tourism and especially for bird
watchers. Duncan Himes has always wanted to see the
Lemon Dove for the last 3 yrs and in less than 10
minutes in this forest we had seen 7 of them among
other highland species! 

Later we visited Nairobi National Park for the African
Finfoot at the Hippo pools. There is one male that we
have seen here about 5 times in the last two weeks. It
seems like afternoons are the best time to see it and
all you have to do is just to pose by Hippo pools and
you will see it swimming around!

Wishing you a nice Birding!

Regards,

Ben Mugambi.  



  

 

 



		
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