Red-headed Weaver

Red headed Weaver building a nest on acacia nilotica in Samburu Game Reserve

Maasai Giraffe in Nairobi National Park

In intense bouts, male giraffes compete for dominance by steadying their legs and swinging their necks to deliver sledgehammer blows to each other with the stout ossicones atop their heads.

Vultures

                                     Lappet faced Vulture

   

Extremely efficient in locating dead animals by mastering the art of soaring to great heights from where they can spot carrion – unmatched  ability to fly and glide through the air for  long periods  of time without losing altitude comes from having large  wings  area in relation to body size, combined  with skilful understanding of their environment to detect rising air  currents this make them proficient at travelling long distances effortless in search of food .

                                 Ruppell's Griffon Vulture

Vultures needs to be heavy and larger to soar at great speeds, hence they have to feed  huge amount of carrion(upto 20% of their body weight) quickly to take back to their chicks. Added advantage of their size helps in defending themselves and their food against Hyenas and Jackals, also allows them to store fat and go longer periods between meals

                                  Vultures feeding on a carcasses

Bare skin on their heads and necks helps them keep clean, despite sticking their heads into rotting carcasses, their bills are sharp and powerful to tear through meat and sometimes through rawhide, feet are weak, they are designed for walking  rather than grasping ,More importantly this bare skin help them radiate heat in hot conditions thus avoiding heat stress, Vultures are not very good at spreading diseases, their stomachs are highly acidic Ph = 1.0

                                           Hooded Vulture

Also they don’t groom each other so it’s unlikely to transfer germs

Head and bill colour, flight pattern, underside of wing, ventral body and general body shape   are useful in identification,

They nest singly or in loose groups in trees or cliffs

Central Bank of Kenya at 50 Exhibition Nairobi National Museum

The exhibition showcases not only currencies but also various historical currencies over the 50 years of the Central Bank’s existence. The display includes notes and coins from the East African Currency Board era as well as Kenya’s first post-independence legal tender. A special section of the exhibition is dedicated to young learners. The exhibition will remain open to the public for the next six months for more details visit their
 website Central Bank of Kenya

Early form of trade

Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) was established in 1966,under the central bank kenya act cap 491

Its Vision & Mission

East Africa currency shillings

The Jurassic Shoebill

 The Shoebill is also knowns as the Whale-headed Stork, Whalebill, it acquired its name from the gargantuan shoe-shaped bill. The bill is specialized to allow the bird to catch and grab its prey. Reaching up to five feet tall, the shoebill has a grey plumage with a wingspan of 8 feet, their feet are long and thin which enables them to wade on the vegetation of freshwater wetlands in Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, and Zambia. The Shoebill can stay immobile for many hours waiting for the opportune time to catch their favorite Lungfish

Shoebill, Balaeniceps rex  

Very large marsh birds, endemic to Africa, found in locally tropical swamps, unique characteristics, huge swollen, bulbous bills tipped with the strong hooked nail, mandible with sharp edges, legs with very long toes supporting the bird when walking on submerged vegetation, in-flight head and neck retracted like heron, not outstretched like storks; walks on aquatic vegetation very slowly and deliberately, often sinking in up to the tibiotarsal joint, fishing birds normally stand motionless for long periods, intently regarding water

Ranges & Status: Swamps in, Southwest Sudan, Western Ethiopia, Uganda, Zaire, Tanzania, and Zambia. Food: fish, frogs, water snakes, fish including lungfish, catfish

Breeding: Nest singly in swamps, on floating vegetation, Eggs 1-3, Both sexes incubate. Shoebill reaches maturity at three years and the breeding pair are customarily monogamous, the nest is built on floating vegetation where the female lays one to two eggs, and both the female and male incubate and look after the eggs and chicks when they hatch. The incubation period is 30 days, and both adults  feed, brood, and tend the chicks 

Butterfly Pollination

Soldier Pansy

Butterflies are very active through the day and visit array of wildflowers. Butterflies are less competent than bees at moving pollen between plants. Highly perched on their long thin legs, they do not pick up much pollen on their bodies and lack specialized structures for collecting it.

                           Green banded Swallowtail

Butterflies search for nectar, their flight energy, and typically favours the flat, clustered flowers that provide a landing pad and abundant rewards. Butterflies have excellent vision but a weak sense of smell. Unlike bees, butterflies can see colour red well

                              Forest Mother of Pearl

                                     Soldier Commodore

Bird Ringing in Kenya

The Nairobi ringing group was initiated by Colin Jackson in 1994,in Ornithology department of National museums of Kenya, Bird ringing is a tool used by researchers to study birds,its involves  trapping birds using special nets
 called mist nets,

Extracting Birds from mist nets

 then carefully extracting and examining them,putting a light metal ring with a unique number on the tarsus,then ageing the bird(adult,juvenile,immature or sub adult),weight, among other biometrics,

Extracting Birds from mist nets

Ringing session

The Group has trained more than a 100 ornithologists in Kenya in bird ringing techniques,ageing, sexing and scoring moults

Ringing session

The Ringing is normally done every Tuesday at Nairobi National Museums grounds starting 8am until 11am,the grounds are rich and productive with many  bird species ringed every session

 Checking notes on Field Guide

an Indigo Bird

putting the metal Ring on a bird

 For more updates you may visit their website & Facebook page link below

Ringing Scheme of East Africa

Ringing Scheme of East Africa

All photos courtesy of Mwangi wa Gitau

Olive Ibis

Dark olive -green ibis with a long bushy crest,short slightly decurved red bill,and dull reddish legs:wing glossed bronze,green and rose
Singles,pairs and occasionally small flocks are uncommon,retiring and rarely seen
Most  charismatic and secretive Bird in East Africa,they spend the day feeding silently in remote forests from2000-3700m on Mt Kenya, the Aberdares ranges,Mt Kilimanjaro,East Usambara Mountains in Tanzania and Semliki forest in Western Uganda 

Ondiri Swamp - Only Quaking Bog in Kenya

The swamp is a kilometer from Kikuyu Town in Kiambu County, It was named Old Lake during colonial times but local Kikuyu people corrupted the phrase to Ondiri.  Ondiri swamp serves as an underground outlet to Lake Naivasha and that makes it a perennial bog. According to hydrologists, the swamp, which stands on a 30-hectare piece of land, is 10 kilometers deep. Birdlife is prolific on a good day you may record over 70 species from water birds such as Common Moorhen,

Common Moorhen

Black Crake, Little Bittern, Kingfishers, Herons, Water Rails, and other terrestrial species

White-eyed Slaty Flycatcher

Story of a woman, we met at the swamp who lives in Kikuyu town, she says she is terrified of the Ondiri Swamp. She says her mother told her and her many brothers and sisters a story when they were kids, that a cow stumbled into the swamp and got stuck in the mud. Some people tried to pull the cow out, but when it came free some enormous creature had bitten off half of it. The people decided to eat what was left but all of them got very sick and some of them died.

Hope the story is not actually true but that the legend of the terrible creature of the swamp (probably not a Hippo) lives on, it might be conservation's best hope!

Grey-capped Warbler

A bird-watching group

The swamp has its natural uniqueness. It is the only quaking bog (wet spongy and shaky ground that has no foundation) in the country and is the second deepest wetland on the continent after another in Doula, Cameroon. Ondiri Swamp is also a recreation joint as people, especially couples, walk along the breath-taking area enjoying the serenity of the place

Orioles

                                       Black headed Oriole
Facts about Orioles

World- 29 species

Africa -9 Kenya 6 Tanzania 4

Arboreal,starling-sized birds,the sexes are alike,plumage is largely yellow and olive,often with black on head or wings.Most species are shy and remain hidden in high foliage,their presence revealed by loud fluty whistles,they are typically solitary although numbers congregate in fruiting trees,and they are frequently join mixed-species flock ,diet consists mainly of insects,but some species eat fruits and flowers,foraging movements are rather slow and deliberate,but flight tends to be swift an undulating.The typical nest is a well woven cup or flimsy basket of grasses,moss and lichens,suspended from a slender horizontal tree fork,two eggs are pinkish or white with brown and lavender markings.

                               immature black headed Oriole
Species found in East Africa

• Black headed Oriole-Oriolus larvatus rolleti
• Montane Oriole- Oriolus percivali
• Western black headed Oriole- Oriolus brachyrhynchus laetior
• Green headed Oriole- Oriolus chlorocephalus amani
• African golden Oriole-Oriolus auratus
• Eurasian Golden Oriole- Oriolus. o.oriolus
  

                              immature black headed Oriole

                  15 Days Birding Tour

African Honey Bee

African Honey Bee active during the day especially morning in hot arid areas,they visit wide range of flowers and are important pollinators of crops,they carry pollen on their hind legs 

Olive Thrush

Eight races occur,differing mainly in tone with those at higher altitudes,generally darker than forms lower down.Typical adults are dark grey -brown above with an orange bill and small orange eye ring;whitish or grey brown throat is streaked faintly or strongly with black,Breast grey brown,belly and flanks rich rufous-orange extending right across the lower breast,Juvenile is generally darker than adult with small buffy spots on the wings,and the breast is heavily spotted dark brown,pairs are common and widespread,song consists of a typical thrush like phrases followed by a pause,each phrase ends with a short series of repeated subdued note likes an echo

Below a video of the Thrush feeding

Irangi Forest Birding

Irangi Forest is nestled on the eastern side of the Mount Kenya zone which is the largest forest remaining in Kenya. It’s an ecosystem as a whole that plays a critical role in the water catchment for two main rivers in the country, the Tana and Ewaso Nyiro. Irangi Forest is an Important Bird Area (IBA) with rich biological diversity, not only in terms of ecosystems but also in terms of species. The area also has a wide variety of fauna with major species of large mammals of international conservation interest, including elephant, leopard, giant forest hog, mountain bongo and black-fronted duiker, species of ungulates

Mt Kenya summit

Fact File Irangi Forest

Size: 18,500 Hectares

Location: Embu Country

Altitude: 2000m

Drive time: 3 hours from Nairobi

                                                     Gate to Irangi forest

Attractions

Scenery is Amazing

Rupingazi Waterfall

Mount Kenya Peaks can be seen clearly from Irangi campsite early morning

The forest has 29 permanent rivers

Have some of the known oldest trees (Camphor trees presumed to be over 300 years old)

Forest Birdlife prolific

Camphor Tree

 Birds Checklist

Mountain Buzzard, Green Ibis,

Hamerkop, Eurasian Hobby, African Goshawk, Little Sparrow Hawk, Great Sparrow, Augur Buzzard, Booted Eagle, Ayres’s Hawk Eagle, Crowned Eagle, Dusky Nightjar,

Fine banded Woodpecker

Olive Pigeon, Lemon Dove, Red-eyed Dove, Tambourine Dove, Hartlaub’s Turaco, African Emerald Cuckoo, African Wood Owl, Little & White-rumped Swifts, Bar-tailed Trogon, Cinnamon chested Bee-eater, Silvery cheeked Hornbill

Immature African Harrier Hawk

 Moustached& Yellow-rumped Tinkerbirds, White-eared Barbet, Fine banded Woodpecker, Black-fronted Bushshrike, Lesser Honeyguide, Grey cuckoo Shrike, Kenrick’s,

Grey Cuckoo Shrike

Sharpe & Abbott’s Starlings, Chestnut &Grey throated Apalises,  Yellow whiskered, Slender-billed,& Cabanis’s Greenbuls, Cinnamon Bracken Warbler, Brown Woodland Warbler, Abyssinian ground Thrush, Thick-billed Seed-eater.

Accommodation Options:

Camping near the Kenya Forest service quarters the grounds are fine, there are bathrooms but no hot showers 

Alternatively Embu town Izaak Walton inn is a suitable hotel 30km from the forest

3 Days Forest Birding

Cycads "Living fossil"

The Cycads are primitive woody plants which flourished over 200 million years ago,Among the oldest plants still living on the planet sometimes called the living fossils now widely scattered throughout the world.mostly in dry areas.Growing extremely slowly some are  hundred of years old,considered,There are five indigenous Encephalartos in Kenya but only Encephalartos hildebrandtii is common,widely distributed along the Kenya coastal forests.The rest are inland,restricted to drier areas

Leaves are compound to 2.5m long,in whorls from stem:about 80 pairs of leaflets stiff and tough,often with spiny teeth at the tip and 1 -9 along each margin and parallel veins

Cones ripen brown and are pollinated by insects probably  flying beetles,seeds have a soft outer layer,the inner nut to 3cm long

The hard seed is boiled and ground to flour by  the Boni people in Lamu ,during famine season,the starchy stem centre can be chopped,fermented then dried to make uji porridge or ugali,seeds and suckerd may be used for propagation

African Premier Adventures Ltd

  The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great

Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands,
Belgium, and France. It connects to the ocean through the English
Channel in the south and the Norwegian
Sea in the north. It is more than 970 kilometres
(600 mi) long and 580 kilometres (360 miles) wide, with an area of
around 570,000 square kilometres (220,000 sq miles)

Birding with Nature Kenya (EANHS)

Nature Kenya is the Africa's oldest environment society,established in 1909 to promote the study and conservation of Nature in Eastern Africa,Nature Kenya organizes Bird walks every Wednesday and third Sunday of every month,meeting point is at Nairobi National Museum near the Fisheries,transport is normally shared and different sites are visited within Nairobi and its outskirts,The walk are for  the Organization's members but temporary day membership is available for Non members,meeting time 8:30 am and leave by 9,the walks on Wednesday goes upto to noon,But for Sunday outing it's a whole day exercise
 you can visit their website for more details http://www.naturekenya.org/

Yesterday bird walk was around the Michuki garden which adjacent to the Nairobi National Museum,the group which mainly consisted of students doing  tourism related courses, was led by Fleur Ng'weno (who have done these for more than 40 years and still counting),they braved the morning cold which is being witnessed here in Nairobi for the last few days

African black Duck in Nairobi River

A total of 52 Bird species were recorded