Most of my work trip to Kenya was spent in Nairobi, but before flying out on the afternoon of Sunday, April 12 I had a day and a half to go around outside of the capital. Lankas and I worked out an itinerary that took us to several spots around the Great Rift Valley, including the valley floor and the highlands on its eastern rim, giving me a chance to see a good diversity of Kenyan birds and possibly even an endemic or two. We were unfortunately still stuck with the same dodgy driver who'd almost ruined the previous day's outing to Nairobi National Park, but had no further incidents this time–which was good since as much as I loved Kenya I didn't really feel like missing my flight home or getting stuck in the middle of the countryside.
Lankas picked me up at my hotel before sunrise on Saturday morning, and we began the drive north. Nairobi is surprisingly high up–almost 1,800 meters above sea level, higher than Denver or Kathmandu–but we had to go still higher before we reached the rim of the Great Rift Valley. I'd been up and down the Valley several times in Ethiopia, but it's a breathtaking sight every time: a series of rifts thousands of meters deep stretching over 6,500 kilometers from Syria down to Mozambique where the African Plate is trying to split into pieces. We stopped at an overlook where I could look down the precipitous drop toward villages and farm fields with the dormant volcano of Mount Longonot in the distance.
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| The view into the Great Rift Valley; the mountain on the right is Mount Longonot |
We descended into the rift, driving through the town of Naivasha where we grabbed breakfast before heading to Lake Naivasha, one of the many Rift Valley lakes. The lake is only a couple hours away from Nairobi, making it a popular destination for both local and international tourists (though almost everyone there seemed to be Kenyan). We got out of the van at a little port full of tourists and local boatmen advertising adventures on the lake. It was also full of birds: Green Wood-Hoopoes and Superb Starlings flitting around the treetops and a huge mixed-species nesting colony of Marabou Storks, Great Cormorants, African Sacred Ibis, Yellow-billed Egrets, Hamerkops, Pink-backed Pelicans, and African Spoonbills. It's one of the things I love about East Africa and miss when I'm in Asia: the sheer density of birds, seemingly unafraid of human hunting or trapping.
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| Green Wood-Hoopoe |
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| Pink-backed Pelican |
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| Grey-headed Gull |
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| Marabou Stork |
We got into a small motorboat that was to take us to Crescent Island, the only island in the lake. Before heading to the island the boatman took us along the shore so we could look for more waterbirds. Right next to the docks was a resort that looked very expensive and very abandoned, probably because the waterside villas were now almost below the water. The level of many Rift Valley lakes has been rising fast over the past few decades, possibly as a result of climate change and increased rainfall, and Naivasha's volume has increased by about 50%. That's a bad thing for people living along the lakeshore whose villages and land are being swallowed up, but I have to admit that seeing the luxury hotel disappear underwater was a little bit funny.
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| The docks by Lake Naivasha |
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| Expensive villas being swallowed by the lake |
On-the-nose metaphors aside, the lake was full of wildlife: a few Hippopotamus floating around menacingly near the docks, dozens of Great Cormorants and Reed Cormorants sunning themselves, lots of Pink-backed Pelicans and Great White Pelicans sitting on the rocks, African Jacanas, Red-knobbed Coots and Common Moorhens hanging out in the aquatic vegetation, and Grey-hooded Gulls, Whiskered Terns, Gull-billed Terns, and White-winged Terns wheeling around near the docks looking for food. We spotted a Giant Kingfisher perched on a dead snag, and a Goliath Heron on the scaffolding of the unfortunate hotel. As we got further out in the lake there were several Pied Kingfishers hovering over the lake and diving for fish.
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| Common Hippopotamus |
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| Great White Pelican |
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| Giant Kingfisher |
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| Gull-billed Tern |
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| Great Cormorant |
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| Goliath Heron |
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| Grey-hooded Gull |
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| Pied Kingfisher |
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| White-winged Tern in nice breeding plumage |
It was about a 30-minute boat ride out to Crescent Island, our main destination of the morning. The island is the rim of a volcanic crater, and was once a peninsula when lake levels were lower. These days it's home to an incongruous yacht club (a hangover from the bad old days of British colonialism) and a game preserve where tourists can get close to rescued giraffes, zebras, and antelopes. More importantly it's also a good place to see lots of (wild) native birds.
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| The shore of Crescent Island from the boat |
About a dozen African Fish Eagles were flying around the shore of the island when we docked, and as we paid the fee an enormous flock of hundreds of swallows and swifts was wheeling overhead: Brown-throated Martins, Red-throated Rock Martins, Wire-tailed Swallows, Western House Martins, African Red-rumped Swallows, Nyanza Swifts, and Little Swifts, as well as an immature Lanner Falcon looking for lunch.
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| African Red-rumped Swallow |
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| Brown-throated Martin |
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| African Fish Eagle |
We spent the next few hours walking along the shore of Crescent Island. It didn't look like much, just a few acacia trees and a narrow wetland, but birds were everywhere: Kenya Sparrows, African Grey Flycatchers, Winding Cisticolas, Rattling Cisticolas, Chinspot Batis, and Western Yellow Wagtails on the ground and in the bushes; Red-throated Wrynecks, Eastern Grey Woodpeckers, Nubian Woodpeckers, Brimstone Canaries, Green Wood-hoopoes, Fork-tailed Drongos, Speke's Weavers, and my surprise lifer Brown-backed Honeybird in the treetops; Common Hoopoes, Lilac-breasted Rollers, and Red-billed Oxpeckers swooping over the grassland and feeding by the antelopes, and Squacco Herons, Black Crakes, African Jacanas, Spur-winged Lapwings, Long-toed Lapwings, and Blacksmith Lapwings stalking around the wetlands. An African Snipe that flushed out of the wetland was a nice rarity for that area, and there were lots of migratory waterbirds: Glossy Ibises, Ruffs, Green Sandpipers, Common Sandpipers, Wood Sandpipers, and a Common Greenshank.
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| Kenya Sparrow |
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| Black Crake |
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| Squacco Heron |
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| Red-throated Wryneck, one of the least woodpecker-y woodpeckers out there |
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| African Grey Flycatcher |
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| I was excited to see this lovebird, but it turns out that lovebirds in Lake Naivasha are a) feral; and b) hybrids between Fisher's Lovebirds and Yellow-collared Lovebirds, so they're not countable under basically any definition of a life list. |
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| Winding Cisticola |
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| Eastern Grey Woodpecker |
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| Brimstone Canary |
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| Spur-winged Lapwing |
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| Blacksmith Lapwing |
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| Brown-backed Honeybird |
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| African Jacana |
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| Chinspot Batis |
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| Red-billed Oxpecker |
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| African Snipe |
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| Speke's Weaver |
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| Glossy Ibis |
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| Rattling Cicsticola |
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| Long-toed Lapwing |
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| Common Hoopoe |
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| Common Greenshank |
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| Ruff |
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| Nubian Woodpecker |
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| Green Wood-Hoopoe |
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| Western Yellow Wagtail |
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| Lilac-breasted Roller dropping a beetle |
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| African Striped Skink (Trachylepis striata) |
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| Crescent Island scenery |
After an hour or so of walking we made it to the far end of the island, where there was a big group of roosting waterbirds. There were lots of shorebirds around, including resident
Three-banded Plovers and migratory
Common Ringed Plovers and
Little Stints, which were both long-overdue lifers for me. A
Black-headed Gull amidst the group of
Grey-hooded Gulls was a nice Kenya tick, but more importantly I saw two of my biggest targets for this area: a couple of immature
Lesser Flamingos and a single
African Skimmer hiding with the gulls. With those finally seen, we cut across the island to the boats, adding some grassland birds like
African Pipits, Plain-backed Pipits, and my lifer
Red-capped Lark along the way. The rainy season flowers made a nice backdrop for the various savanna mammals, though it was a shame they were rescue animals and thus not countable for my mammal list.
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| Common Ringed Plover–like a Semipalmated Plover except not |
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| African Skimmer–like an American Skimmer except not |
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| Lesser Flamingo in its awkward teenager phase |
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| African Pipit |
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| Red-capped Lark |
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| Thomson's Gazelle |
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| Wildebeests |
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| Plains Zebra and flowers |
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| Plains Zebra and volcano |
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| The Crescent Island grassland |
We boated back across the lake, thanked the boatman, and got back on the road, stopping at a fancy nearby mall for lunch. After lunch we headed uphill into the Kinangop Plateau, the high plain on the eastern rim of the Great Rift Valley. The plateau used to be home to some
distinctly unsavory British people during the colonial period but nowadays is heavily cultivated with lots of vegetable farms, flower farms, and tea plantations. That's been good for at least some Kenyans' livelihoods, but devastating for the natural habitats, particularly the montane wetlands that are home to several rare endemic birds.
Up on the plateau we pulled over next to a stream, where there was a small area of remnant wetlands tucked into the farmland. There were met John Gitiri, a local birder who was there to show us around his patch. There were lots of
Wire-tailed Swallows and
Brown-throated Martins wheeling around over the stream, and some of them turned out to be
Ethiopian Martins–a little-known species that was
first described scientifically in 2021 and hasn't even been properly added to bird lists as a species yet. I do of course have to wonder how many of them I saw in Ethiopia without realizing, but thankfully it turned out that they're also found in Kenya, where they can be distinguished from Brown-throated Martins by the all-white underparts.
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| Wire-tailed Swallow |
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| Brown-throated Martin |
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| Damn hard to get IDable pics but I *think* this is an Ethiopian Martin with a grey breast |
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| The stream and wetlands |
We went down into the little valley to look for the other specialties of the area. The first was a Levaillant's Cisticola, a wetland specialist that's fairly common in southern Africa but much more difficult in Kenya, with this representing the northernmost portion of its range. A male Golden-winged Sunbird flew by and perched briefly, but never gave us a good view which was annoying because it's an absolutely gorgeous species. After a bit of searching we finally found our main target: a single Sharpe's Longclaw, one of only a few Kenyan endemic birds and possibly the rarest. They're beautiful–basically the African version of meadowlarks–and this species is a specialist of wet montane grassland which makes it extremely vulnerable to the conversion of land for agriculture.
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| Levaillant's Cisticola–a nice bird for Kenya, but otherwise it looks exactly like a dozen other cisticolas |
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| Annoyingly enough, the best picture I managed of a Bronze-winged Sunbird |
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| Sharpe's Longclaw! |
Walking back toward the car we got nice views of a Cinnamon Bracken Warbler skulking in the bushes, and after some effort a quick look at a Hunter's Cisticola, another local specialty that's endemic to the highlands of Kenya and adjacent areas of Uganda and Tanzania. I had distant looks at my lifer Eastern Double-collared Sunbird and new Kenya birds in the form of Streaky Seedeaters and a Cape Wagtail. I crossed the road to another area of woodland to try for another look at Bronze-winged Sunbirds, but still never found a cooperative one. On the other hand I did see a tiny Helmeted Chameleon crawling through the grass–my first-ever chameleon and possibly even cooler than the sunbirds.
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| The Kinangop Plateau grassland |
There were some Yellow-billed Ducks, Red-knobbed Coots, and a Yellow-billed Stork in the pond, and as we walked toward the grassland I had another Hunter's Cisticola along with a nice-looking African Citril. In the grassland were Sentinel Larks and Yellow-throated Longclaws, and a Common Buzzard and an African Hobby flew overhead harassing the breeding birds.
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| African Citril |
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| Hunter's Cisticola |
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| African Hobby |
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| Yellow-billed Stork |
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| Yellow-billed Duck |
By far the highlight, however, was the Long-tailed Widowbirds: dozens of females and immature birds along with 3 or 4 males in spectacular breeding plumage, with absurdly long and flowing tail feathers. I got to watch as they flew across the grassland in display, looking like some kind of mythical cross between a Red-winged Blackbird and a Resplendent Quetzal. As far as cool bird breeding displays go, widowbirds have to be up there with cocks of the rock,* prairie chickens, and birds-of-paradise (not that I've seen any of those yet).
*I had to check Wikipedia to see what the correct plural was, and am pleased to report that it's the funnier option.
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| Long-tailed Widowbird! |
I could have stayed there for hours, but the ominous clouds that had been building on the horizon began to approach, and we had to race to the car before being inundated in a late afternoon downpour. Just before getting in the car I had nice looks at an African Stonechat, a few Yellow Bishops and a very cooperative Cape Robin-Chat.
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| African Stonechat |
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| Yellow Bishop |
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| Cape Robin-Chat |
We drove back through the cloudburst which was mercifully fairly quick, and got to our hotel for the night, a spot next to Lake Naivasha. In the last few minutes of daylight we walked around in the woodlands next to the hotel, where we had a few Helmeted Guineafowl, a Bronze Sunbird, a cooperative White-eyed Slaty Flycatcher, and my lifer Northern Yellow White-Eyes along with some Impalas.
We left our hotel before sunrise, climbing up the wall of the Great Rift Valley until we reached the highlands. The roads were much better than those on the previous day, mostly because the route took us through the many tea plantations in the plateau north of Nairobi. Kenya is one of the largest producers of tea, which can only grow in a narrow band of climates like those of the high plateau, and there has been a great deal of forest loss since the colonial era to make way for tea plantations. Thankfully the Gatamaiyu Forest has been set aside as a forest reserve thanks to Kijabe Environment Volunteers, a local environmental organization that's responsible for its upkeep and for guiding around visitors.
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| Tea plantations in the rift highlands |
After leaving the tree plantations we drove for a kilometer or so along a dirt road through ever-thicker forest before arriving at a small ranger station with some cabins. On the grounds of the station we met with our local guide, and I looked for birds around the clearing. I knocked out a few of my targets within the first few minutes: a gorgeous but frustratingly distant Hartlaub's Turaco, some tiny Mustached Tinkerbirds amidst the Yellow-rumped Tinkerbirds, a few Green-headed Sunbirds and Eastern Double-collared Sunbirds feeding on nectar along with Kikuyu White-eyes, and a calling African Emerald Cuckoo that I never managed to actually see. A small flock of African Olive Pigeons perched in the bare snags above the clearing only to be chased away by a Rufous-breasted Sparrowhawk, and a Tropical Boubou fed in the clearing and rehearsed its varied repertoire of calls along with some Holub's Golden Weavers and Spectacled Weavers.
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| Hartlaub's Turaco |
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| Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird |
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| Tropical Boubou |
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| Rufous-breasted Sparrowhawk |
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| African Olive Pigeon |
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| Eastern Double-collared Sunbird, not to be confused with Northern Double-collared Sunbird, Southern Double-collared Sunbird, Rwenzori Double-collared Sunbird, Greater Double-collared Sunbird, Usambara Double-collared Sunbird, Prigogine's Double-collared Sunbird, Ludwig's Double-collared Sunbird, or Forest Double-collared Sunbird. Thanks taxonomists. |
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| Green-headed Sunbird |
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| Kikuyu White-eye |
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| Spectacled Weaver |
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| The forest clearing near the ranger station |
We spent the next few hours walking along various trails in the forest. Things got off to an exciting start with a calling Bar-tailed Trogon, a bird I didn't even expect to have a chance at, but annoyingly enough it called from high in the canopy and we never managed to locate it in the thick greenery. I did see my lifers Yellow-whiskered Greenbul, Placid Greenbul, and Kikuyu Mountain Greenbul (yayyy), plus a little flock of African Hill Babblers. This was classic tropical forest birding: lots of birds heard, a handful seen, and only a few actually seen well. I got quick looks at my lifer Evergreen Forest Warbler but never managed a photo, and even more frustratingly failed to photograph a beautiful White-starred Robin that was extremely vocal and extremely skulking. I had better luck with a few White-tailed Crested Flycatchers and a territorial Black-throated Apalis and an odd-looking cuckooshrike none of us were familiar with that turned out to be a female Purple-throated Cuckooshrike, a species very rarely recorded at this location. My favorite lifer of the morning, however, was a beautiful Black-fronted Bushshrike, which showed unusually well but never long enough for a proper photo.
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| Yellow-whiskered Greenbul |
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| African Hill Babbler |
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| Placid Greenbul |
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| Chestnut-throated Apalis |
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| My poor attempts at photographing Black-fronted Bushshrike |
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| White-tailed Crested Flycatcher–not actually a true Old World flycatcher but a fairy flycatcher, the same family as Citrine Canary-Flycatcher in the Philippines. |
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| Purple-throated Cuckooshrike |
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| Mantled Guereza |
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| Red-legged Sun Squirrel |
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| Chirinda Bush Brown (Bicyclus campina) |
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| Hannington's Fritillary (Issoria hanningtoni) |
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| Some kind of cool assassin bug |
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| Dry-leaf Commodore (Precis tugela) |
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| Some kind of ichneumonid wasp (Netelia sp.) |
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| Giant Sprite (Pseudagrion bicoerulans) |
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| Dentate Bush Brown (Bicyclus dentata) |
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| Johnston's Acraea (Telchinia johnstoni) |
I could have easily spent a couple of days around Gatamaiyu Forest trying to get proper looks at all of my target birds and other cool wildlife, but by 12:30 we had to head out so I could make it to the airport in time for my flight. We stopped for a late lunch in Nairobi and then I bid goodbye to Lankas at the airport. In the end I managed to get 229 species in Kenya over just a few days of birding, 73 of which were lifers. Not bad for a quick work trip! I have no idea when I'll make it to Kenya (or anywhere else in Africa) again, but I'm already looking forward to my next trip and hoping it will involve more proper birding.
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