The Kenya Bird Map has been running now for about two years and as many will know we have hit the 10% coverage of Kenya mark a couple of months ago and also 100,000 records. These have all been contributed by just 182 observers in all with just over 100 taking part in 2016 so far contributing over 1,000 full protocol cards this year alone.

This is an awesome effort and as a result we are now at the stage where current species maps are starting to come together and make sense. As a result we have now just had a 'Species summaries' option added to the main menu on the Kenya Bird Map website:

Click on that and it will open a list of all the species for Kenya grouped alphabetically to aid in searching for the one you want. If you click on a letter beside the "Search by letter" option, this will select all species whose common name and family name start with that letter. E.g. click on 'N' and you will get 'Northern Red Bishop' as well as 'Brown Noddy'.

Click on a species and it will open a new window showing the map of Kenya with all accepted records showing - with reporting rate colour coded for each pentad where the species has been reported on a Full Protocol card. If you zoom out on the map, you will then be able to see all the records for that species that have been submitted anywhere in Africa (currently basically southern Africa though Nigeria has done quite a lot but just not vetted records yet and so they are not visible).

To add records from 'Ad hoc' cards, click on the central icon under 'Tools':

The Right had icon will add the Incidental records - though vetting of these has not been done as much as the Full Protocol and ad hoc submissions and so fewer are shown.

There are still a lot of gaps, of course, and there is a big need for some catch up on the vetting as there are many outstanding records that have been submitted that need vetting - something which we will be focussing on doing over the next few months. There is also clearly a need for more observers and contributors - so if you've not yet taken part or have done one or two cards, please do join us in contributing to building up a picture of the status of Kenya's birds. Following the protocol is highly enjoyable (actually, it gets quite addictive) and is contributing to what will become the baseline for our understanding of the status and conservation of Kenya's birds.

The BirdLasser smart phone app has made atlassing incredibly easy and enjoyable and is now available for iPhone as well as Android phones (the iPhone version is still being finally tested before public release but a link to the beta version can be obtained if you write to the Kenya Bird Map office: kenyabirdmap@naturekenya.org). Furthermore a lot of new features have been added to the app including the ability to record a voice message (or a bird sound!) for any specific record (simply press and hold the 'log' button for a couple of seconds to activate it). Try it out.

There has been some discussion on the arrival dates of Palearctic migrants. While currently a summary option for this is not yet available directly on the website, of course the data are all there in the database and can readily be extracted. An overhaul of the inner workings of the website(s) (including SABAP2 and Nigeria Bird Atlas) is currently underway but plans are there to add summaries such as first and last dates and a number of others so as to make the data available for anyone interested in using them.

More updates in due course... - but please do either join the Kenya Bird Map team or recommend any visiting birders to sign up and contribute.

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Colin Jackson
A Rocha Kenya
Kenya Bird Map 

Cell: 
+254 (0)722 842366
      
www.arocha.org
www.assets-kenya.org
http://kenyabirdmap.adu.org.za/