Hard at work in Nairobi

 

Anyone who's read more than a couple posts on my blog probably knows that most of my international birding happens by way of my job. My field of work has absolutely nothing to do with birds or nature (although if anyone wants to collaborate on a study of the economic impact of birding in the developing world, hit me up), but it does take me to many places that just so happen to have good birds nearby. My work is entirely focused on the East Asia and the Pacific region, which has been great for Asia birding but it does mean that my world birding is mainly done between the US and Southeast Asia, with occasional vacations to Central America. 

This spring was the first time that my job took my somewhere besides Asia: I was asked to help facilitate a conference on rural childcare that was being held in Nairobi, Kenya. Somewhat surprisingly, I even received some funding to visit and, well, if someone wants to send me to Kenya for work then I have no choice but to accept. It was only a brief trip and I would mostly be spending it inside a conference room, but it did happen to land just before a weekend, which meant I had a couple days at the end I could dedicate to some proper birding. 

I'm not a total newbie to Africa; aside from a month studying in Morocco back when I was just a street and landscape photographer, I spent a summer in Ethiopia in 2019 that was–you guessed–also work-related. That was enough to familiarize myself with African birds and bird families, even if I forgot most of it in the 7 years since then. However, even though Kenya shares a border with Ethiopia, the latter country is unique enough in terms of biogeography and culture that I knew that a very different experience was in store for me. 

I arrived in Nairobi on April 7 by way of Addis Ababa, since Ethiopian Airlines is the best and most efficient way of flying just about anywhere in Africa. The flight across the Atlantic was truly torturous; being in the middle seat in an 11-hour flight is no fun for anyone, but especially not 6'6" people. I had a few hours' layover in Addis in the morning, and I managed to find a window with a view over the city where I could catch up with some fun Ethiopian birds. I have to agree with Yoav that Bole Airport has some of the best terminal birding anywhere in the world; in 45 minutes of peering through a dirty window at a parking lot I managed to see 20 species, including some fun endemics like Wattled Ibis, White-collared Pigeon, Ethiopian Cisticola, and Swainson's Sparrow. I even got a lifer: a migratory Whinchat presumably on its way back to Europe. 

Addis Ababa from the airport

I landed in Nairobi at midday, but thanks to some confusion wrangling foreign dignitaries into the proper car it wasn't until 4 PM that I checked into my hotel. I did get my first Kenya lifer on the drive into the city: a Long-tailed Fiscal perched on a fence as shrikes like to do. There were only a couple of hours of daylight left, but I wasn't going to let that go to waste. I grabbed some caffeine at a nearby mall to fight off the jet lag and then took an Uber to the Karura Forest, an urban forest not too far from my hotel. 

Before I get into the birds, a bit about Karura Forest. My time in Southeast Asia, especially in Jakarta and Manila, has made me a little jaundiced about cities and natural areas; parks tend to be few and far between, of poor quality, and more likely than not to be razed to turn into more malls or parking garages. Karura Forest, on the other hand is enormous. It's over 1,000 hectares, with a mix of native forest, tree plantations, wetlands, and open areas, and is properly protected as well with a minimum of informal settlement, poaching, or logging. That's no accident; in the late 1990s the government's plans to log the forest resulted in enormous protests that led to more durable protections and to the Green Belt Movement. I'd heard of the movement and its leader Wangarĩ Maathai, who won a Nobel Peace Prize, but didn't connect it with this specific spot until after I visited. Even aside from the interesting history, it's a very cool spot: safe, well-protected, easy to get to, and full of people out for nature walks, jogging, hiking, and dog walking. It's more proof for my theory that the best way to protect green spaces is to make them more accessible rather than less so that more people have a stake in preserving them.

The trail through the Karura Forest

It was almost 5PM by the time my Uber dropped me off at the forest, and I had only an hour or so of daylight to explore. I set off down a random trail and spent some time wandering around to try and see as much as I could before the sun set. As always when visiting a new country, I was annoyed not to be able to recognize most of the bird calls I was hearing, and I'm sure my list could have been about twice as long if I'd bothered to study calls before I got there. I mostly saw the trash birds I was already familiar with from Ethiopia: African Dusky Flycatchers, Abyssinian Thrushes, Common Bulbuls,  and about a million noisy Grey-backed Camaropteras. I did get a few lifers: a little flock of White-bellied Tits, a pair of White-eyed Slaty Flycatchers, a beautiful Northern Double-collared Sunbird, a Black-backed Puffback busily dismembering a stick insect, and a single Black-and-white Mannikin in with a big group of more common finches. There was also a troupe of Mantled Guereza hanging out in the distant treetops, a cool species to have in an urban area. It was a fun way to spend my first evening in the city before getting to work even though I'd hoped to have a little more time.

Grey-backed Camaroptera, the tailorbirds of East Africa

Bronze Mannikin

Black-backed Puffback digesting its dinner

Reichenow's Seedeater

Northern Double-collared Sunbird

White-eyed Slaty Flycatcher

Abyssinian Thrush

Eastern Yellow-banded Evening Brown (Gnophodes diversa)

Driver ants (Dorylus nigricans)

Delta bonellii, a huge mud-dauber wasp

Mantled Guereza

Emperor Swallowtail (Papilio ophidicephalus)

The next few days were spent mostly in a conference room. The good news was that the conference was being held at the campus of the International Livestock Research Institute. That was where I worked when I was in Ethiopia, and like in Addis Ababa the Nairobi campus of ILRI was a mix of classrooms, offices, gardens, and experimental plots which meant that it was the perfect place for a quick lunchtime walk and some incidental birding. 

The first day there I foolishly didn't bring my camera, but the second day I made sure to get there before morning sessions began so I could get a little more birding in. There were a few common birds hanging around in the roadside trees, including Variable Sunbirds, Common Bulbuls, and Bronze Sunbirds, the latter of which was a lifer. I found a fallow field that was full of seed-eating birds, including a male Red-cowled Widowbird in spectacular breeding plumage. That was when I realized that I'd managed to visit Kenya at just the right time of year: the spring rains had just finished, which meant that all of the plants were leafing out and it was breeding season for the widowbirds and whydahs. I had seen most of those in Ethiopia but in the off-season when they don't have their bright colors and ridiculous tails. 

Amethyst Sunbird

Red-cowled Widowbird

If anyone wants to offer me a job on the ILRI campus, let me know

The gardens next to the conference room held some fun birds as well–the usual Pied Crows, but also some comically disheveled Speckled Mousebirds, Baglafecht Weavers showing off their nests, and best of all a spectacular male African Paradise Flycatcher with a tail even longer and more impractical than the whydah. 

Speckled Mousebird

Pied Crow

African Paradise Flycatcher

Variable Sunbird

The conference ended on Friday, which meant that I was free until Sunday afternoon to hang out in Nairobi, do some shopping, and catch up on sleep. Hahaha just kidding, of course I spent that whole time out birding. Since I wasn't about to try and figure out transportation and logistics in an unfamiliar country, I decided to hire a guide for those three days. I got in touch with Lankas Ole Noi, a Nairobi-based guide who had been recommended to me, and we arranged to spend Friday birding Nairobi National Park and then the weekend visiting other spots in the Great Rift Valley. 

My proper birding jaunt did... not get off to a good start. I woke up before sunrise and was packed and ready to go as expected, but the driver was nowhere to be found. It turned out that the driver Lankas had arranged was having car issues, and spent the whole morning trying to find a different vehicle without properly communicating anything while I was stuck at the hotel and Lankas was stuck at the park entrance. That was, unfortunately, just a preview of the issues we would have with one of the most frustrating drivers I've ever had to deal with. 

After an hour of waiting I decided to go and bird on my own rather than waste the whole morning. I took a taxi to the Karura Forest, and spent a few hours walking around there exploring new trails. It was frustratingly quiet when I got there, and it wasn't until about half an hour in that I even saw a single bird, which didn't do much to improve my mood. I finally hit upon a spot of activity in a clearing, where I got my lifers Cinnamon-chested Bee-eater, Common Swift, Slender-billed Greenbul, Singing Cisticola, and Holub's Golden Weaver along with some more familiar but still fun birds like African Citril, Golden-breasted Bunting, Lesser Striped Swallow, and Augur Buzzard. 

Cinnamon-chested Bee-eater

Bronze Mannikin

Singing Cisticola

Lesser Striped Swallow

Slender-billed Greenbul

Yellow Pansy (Junonia hierta)

In a little wetland I had an unusually tame White-faced Whistling Duck and a noisy flock of Thick-billed Weavers, along with a flock of Bronze Mannikins and Black-and-white Mannikins. I heard a Klaas's Cuckoo that refused to show itself, but had better luck with an adorable Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird, one of several incredibly tiny African barbets. There were more common birds including Speckled Mousebirds, Kikuyu White-eyes (a lifer for me), a Cardinal Woodpecker, several Tawny-flanked Prinias, and another Black-backed Puffback. 

White-faced Whistling Duck

Bronze Mannikin

Black-and-white Mannikin

Cardinal Woodpecker

Female Bronze Sunbird

Tawny-flanked Prinia

Kikuyu White-eye

Speckled Mousebird being silly

Black-backed Puffback

Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird

Karura Forest scenery

Around 11AM, 4 hours after he was supposed to pick me up, the driver found his way to me and I got into the car to head to the National Park and meet Lankas. Things finally seemed to be underway until we reached the outskirts of Nairobi and the engine of the ancient touring van we were in started making some worrying noises. Soon there was smoke coming from under the hood and the driver hastily pulled over. His story was that the mechanic had put the wrong type of engine oil in it, although in retrospect I'm not sure he hadn't just decided to go ahead and use a car he already knew had problems. 

I spent another half hour sitting grumpily in the car as the driver kept promising help was on its way any time, until I finally decided to give up and walk the rest of the way to the national park, which was only a half kilometer away. Lankas came and met me along the way and we finally entered the park at around noon. Getting there was only half the problem however, as Nairobi National Park, like most of the great safari parks in Africa, needs to be toured from a vehicle. Since our vehicle was currently sitting in ruins somewhere in Nairobi, we had no choice but to wait while the driver solved the mess he'd gotten us into. 

Thankfully there was one part of the park that could be visited on foot, which was the "Safari Walk"; a little open-air zoo near the entrance that had some rescued animals of the charismatic megafauna type like rhinos, zebras, and leopards. More importantly, it had a network of trails we could walk to see some woodland birds. Around the entrance were lots of Hamadryas Baboons lounging around looking vaguely threatening, and as we started walking the trails we saw a few White-bellied Tits, a Black-throated Barbet, a Rüppell's Robin-Chat, Collared Sunbirds, Variable Sunbirds, and my lifers Amethyst Sunbird and Cape Robin-Chat. There were lots of swallows wheeling overhead, including Lesser Striped Swallows and a few Black Saw-wings, which I'd seen in Ethiopia but never managed a picture of. On a raised walkway over a little gorge there was an Augur Buzzard that flew very close overhead, and I saw my lifer Black Cuckooshrike. 

White-bellied Tit

Black Saw-wing

Lesser Striped Swallow

It seems like most parts of the Northern Hemisphere have some kind of dirt common open country buteo. In the US it's Red-tailed Hawk, in Japan it's Eastern Buzzard, and in Kenya and Ethiopia it's Augur Buzzard.

Black Cuckooshrike

Abyssinian Thrush

African Dusky Flycatcher

Little Pansy, a common playground insult, and also a common butterfly in Sub-Saharan Africa (Junonia sophia)

Pseudonaclia puella, I think

Creamstriped Owl (Cyligramma latona), an enormous erebid moth

Common Bush Brown (Bicyclus safitza)

The walkway of the Safari Walk

We had lunch at an overpriced restaurant near the park headquarters, and waited for another hour while the driver tried to sort things out. Eventually Lankas left to try and figure out the situation, and I waited around looking at birds. I even managed to get a few lifers from the restaurant: a migratory Willow Warbler in a nearby shrub and a Chinspot Batis and a brilliant green Klaas's Cuckoo high in the canopy of the acacia trees. 

Willow Warbler

African Pied Wagtail

Klaas's Cuckoo

Finally things were figured out: the driver managed to find another guy with his own (much nicer) safari van, and we headed into the park. By this time it was 3PM, 7 full hours after we had expected to start birding, and we had only a few hours to drive around before the gates closed at sunset. I was furious, but happy at least to be starting the proper birding. 

Nairobi is notable for being the only capital city in the world to host a national park within its borders. Nairobi National Park is a proper park too: it's over 100 square kilometers and is rigorously protected, hosting most of the sought-after safari mammals like giraffes, buffalo, rhinos, lions, leopards, elephants, and zebras, all within view of the skyscrapers of the city. I know the government of Kenya has its issues with corruption and democratic backsliding, and that fortress conservation has serious problems in many of the areas where it's implemented, but this is still a triumph of conservation policy and presumably an enormous revenue source for the Kenyan people as well. 

I was hoping to get a "giraffe in front of skyscrapers" like what's on the Wikipedia page, but I had to settle with an "impalas in front of office building" picture instead

We followed the usual "bird safari" strategy, with Lankas and I standing and scanning for wildlife and telling the driver to stop whenever we spotted something. We stopped for an enormous White-backed Vulture perched in the trees above the road, then when we got to the savanna for a perched Winding Cisticola (one of about a hundred we would see that day). The first proper stop was near one of the dams set up in the park as a watering hole for wildlife, which hosted a few Hippopotamus and lots of waterbirds like Long-toed Lapwings, Spur-winged Lapwings, Egyptian Geese, Hadada and Sacred Ibises, Black-headed Herons, a Three-banded Plover, and a migratory Wood Sandpiper. I was excited to see my lifer Spotted Flycatcher in an acacia shrub–so excited in fact that I didn't even notice the enormous Nile Crocodile sprawled across the road right in front of us. It's a good thing my ancestors gave up on the hunter-gatherer lifestyle because I wouldn't last a day in the wild.

White-backed Vulture

Winding Cisticola; there are several dozen species of cisticola in Kenya, and most of them look almost exactly like this.

Spotted Flycatcher, a migrant on its way back to Europe

Spur-winged Lapwings

Long-tailed Fiscal

Three-banded Plover

Long-toed Lapwing

Speke's Weaver

Superb Starling

Black-headed Heron and Sacred Ibises

Hadada Ibis

Hippopotamus pretending not to be one of the most dangerous animals in the world

Speaking of dangerous animals, Nile Crocodiles are responsible for more deaths each year than all other species of crocodilian (besides Saltwater Crocodile) combined

Yellow-necked Spurfowl with a Nile Crocodile

Nairobi National Park landscapes

We kept cruising the dirt roads through the park, stopping every time we saw a new or interesting bird. That included my lifers Kenya Sparrow, Northern Pied Babbler, Montagu's and Western Marsh Harrier, and Sentinel Lark, and other fun birds like Red-cowled Widowbird, Lesser Grey Shrike,  Black-winged Kite, and the many silly-looking Long-crested Eagles perched along the road surveilling for rodents. 

Kenya Sparrow

Red-cowled Widowbird

Northern Pied Babbler, one of a group of strange, noisy African and Eurasian birds in the laughingthrush family

Diederik Cuckoo

Western Marsh Harrier

Sentinel Lark

Black-winged Kite

Lesser Grey Shrike

Long-crested Eagle

Impala

As we passed another small pool we had several very, very good sightings in close succession. First Lankas spotted a huge raptor in a tree that turned out to be an immature Martial Eagle, one of the largest eagles in Africa, eating some kind of small mammal. Next we had a gorgeous Grey Crowned-Crane grazing by the pond, and a group of Maasai Giraffes in a little valley nearby–my first-ever giraffes! Lankas then heard the whistling call of a Sulphur-breasted Bushshrike in a distant bush, and we managed to get decent views of what had been a major target of mine. As we climbed out of the valley and turned a corner I yelled "STOP!!!" as I saw that there was a Secretarybird right in front of us! We had extended looks at it as it stalked across the road, ignoring us as soon as it became clear we weren't going to scare up any snakes or rats for it to eat. That had been possibly my most-wanted bird in Kenya, and I was thrilled to get such great looks. 

Martial Eagle

Grey Crowned-Crane

Giraffes are much derpier-looking than I expected

Sulphur-breasted Bushshrike

Secretarybird!

Since I was visiting right after the spring rains had come through, the park was unusually green and leafy. That was bad news for spotting mammals, especially ambush predators like lions or leopards, since they were obscured in the tall grass. On the other hand it was good for breeding birds, and we passed a grassland full to bursting with displaying male Red-cowled Widowbirds, Jackson's Widowbirds, White-winged Widowbirds, and Pin-tailed Whydahs. The cisticolas were out in force, mostly Winding Cisticolas but also a few Rattling Cisticolas and a single Stout Cisticola. Birding from a moving car is better for spotting big birds, and I had lots of those; a Grey Go-away-bird, a flock of Helmeted Guineafowl, a couple of Yellow-throated Spurfowl, a herd of my lifer Common Ostrich, and some gorgeous Hildebrandt's Starlings, another lifer.

Jackson's Widowbird, endemic to a small area of the plains in Kenya and Tanzania

Pin-tailed Whydah

Grey Go-away-bird

Helmeted Guineafowl

Yellow-necked Spurfowl

Hildebrandt's Starling

Common Ostrich

Northern Pied Babbler

White-browed Coucal

Kenya Sparrow with a photobombing Northern Pied Babbler

Black-winged Kite

Stout Cisticola

Grey Crowned-Crane. Just a stupidly good-looking bird

Dusky Turtle-Dove

Cape Robin-Chat

Hartebeest

After far too little time in the National Park we had to head for the exit, since it was almost sunset and we would be in trouble if we stayed there past dark. We sped back toward the gate, stopping only a couple of times: once for a herd of Plains Zebra crossing the road, and once for a little Black-backed Jackal I spotted in the bushes. 

Paso de cebra (Spanish-speakers will get the pun) 

Plains Zebra

Long-crested Eagle with Nairobi in the distance

Black-backed Jackal

We made it back to the gate just before it got dark, but ended up stuck there once again as our sleazeball driver spent a solid 30 minutes trying to haggle with the rescue driver to get him to charge less for the borrowed van. It was a frustrating end to a day full of frustrations, but I was happy nonetheless; we saw over 100 species in the national park, and I finished the day with 41 lifers; not bad for a day spent entirely within the 4th-largest city in Africa. 

It wasn't until late evening that I was back at my hotel, where I packed up and got a few hours of rest before an early start for a weekend trip to the Great Rift Valley. I ended up liking Nairobi much more than I expected; it's a vibrant, bustling city with lots of smart, interesting people people and I found it much easier to make connections and have deep conversations than I have in most other places I've visited. And the bird, it must be said, was top notch. I very much hope I get the chance to make it back to Kenya, and I'd be happy even just to spend some more time around Nairobi.