Furadan, birds, Kenya, lions

Linkhttp//:stopwildlifepoisoning.wildlifedirect.org/, http://wdin.blogspot.com/

The October 2008 issue of the magazine Kenya Birds contains a thoroughly diusturbing article by Martin Odino, Darcy Ogada and Simon Musila. Its tile is Furadan killing birds on a large scale in Bunyala Rice Fields, Western Kenya. The front cover shows an open-billed stork being held in someone’s hands, and I thought that it was probably a carcass. Not so. The article shows how live birds are used as decoys to attract numerous birds to sites where furadan soaked rice is used as bait. The technique involves the rescue of a poisoned birds and its treatment with copious quantities of water. The live birds are tethered close to the bait, and their primary feathers are removed. Birds that do not eat rice, such as opened-billed storks, are poisoned when snails have furadan inserted into their shells and the birds eat them.

This is another version of the grizzly story of bushmeat in Africa. The baited birds are either killed with sticks when still alive, but disoriented, or collected when dead. The bodies are taken to market and sold. According to the three authors the hunters claim that if the crop and stomach are removed prior to cooking no harm will come to the consumer.

I have written about the use, or misuse of furadan for the poising of predators, but this is something different and some will wonder what is behind it. The explanation is simple. Hunger and poverty. A year’s supply (200 gm) of furadan costs less than $1.50. In their report the three authors, who met hunters ranging from teenagers to men over 70, were told by one hunter that the daily harvest ranged from 25 to 200 individuals of mixed bird species.

Folks interested in birds and conservation can subscribe to Kenya Birds, which is published by the Bird Committee of the East Africa Natural History Society, and can contact Catherine Ngarachu at office@naturekenya.org.

Nanyuki Sports Club- again

There are other memories of the Nanyuki Sports Club. This is where we played rugby for many years.In case you do not recognize the image, that is me with the pale shirt, missing tooth and thinning hair on the right. Not very flattering!



This morning we watched the glossy starlings running about on the grass outside the dining room and were treated to the wonderful sight of a lilac-breasted roller perched on the stump by the 9th green.

Nanyuki Sports Club

Back at the Nanyuki Sports Club, with which we have a long history. My mother managed the place in the mid-forties when the men were away at war. Jo & I held our wedding reception here, and we have been members for a long time, although only absentee members for the last 34 years!

This picture shows some of the wedding crowd, but the interesting thing is the building in the background (1969). It is the banda in which we are staying, and it was also there in 1944 when an artist painted a club scene that included it. We have that painting on the wall of our home in Canada.

One of the wonderful things about the club is the early morning view of Mount Kenya – shown here. Of course there are other views of the mountain, this one taken from what is now the Sweetwaters Conservancy – a cattle ranch when I practiced here in the 1970s, now an important wildlife reserve, and particularly a rhino sanctuary, and this one of Nelion, taken at dawn from the Lewis Glacier.

Writing and bird photographs

Writing this from the cottage in Gilgil, Kenya where six years ago I started working in earnest on the first draft of the manuscript that would become The Trouble With Lions. I already knew, at that time, that this would be the title of the book, that the lion would simply be the symbol of what is happening to Africa’s wildlife, and that I would have stories about many of the areas of the continent where I had worked with wild animals.

What I had not known was that our hosts, Nigel & Muffet Trent had an active and effective bird feeding and watering station right outside the verandah of their house, and that I would only have to walk a bout 20 metres to sit there and be able to photograph the birds that came to feed or drink. These included cordon blues (this one is a male, identified by the red spot on his cheek), purple grenadiers, speckled pigeons and any number of bulbuls.


Yesterday we visited a new lodge that is sited right above Lake Elementaita, with a great view down over the water and across to the land that is now Soysambu Conservancy. The folks who own the lodge also offer balloon rides over the area. On the far side of the lake, and not visible trough the haze or at this distance, is the only known breeding colony of the Great White Pelican in East Africa.

There are two remarkable features of this colony. First, the young birds are pitch back in colour, and second the adults have move off to a neighbouring lake, either Naivasha or Nakuru, to find food. Being pelicans, they do this most efficiently when the heat of the day has started up a series of thermals, so one can see the birds circling in flocks as they gain height.

A Game Drive, a Boat trip and some foreplay

A game drive and a boat trip today. On the boat trip in Queen Elizabeth NP the usual relaxing ride amid schools of snorting hippo and hundreds of birds.


The main thing was watching a bout of foreplay that I just photographed between a bishop and one of his girlfriends. Of course you must understand that this bishop was a Southern Red Bishop, which is a sparrow-sized, brightly-coloured bird that has a spectacular way of erecting (correct term) the vibrant orange-red feathers on his crown when displaying.

Off to Kampala tomorrow and thence Nairobi. Internet will be scant for a few days.

Semliki and Shoebills

Linkwww.wildplacesafrica.com

From Murchison it was a brutal 10 hour drive to Semliki, only 150 km by water (achievable in 3 hours or so in a speed boat) but more like 280 km by road, only 50 km on tar, the rest on ruts, ridges, rocks and occasional smooth murram. Felt like we had been through a particularly bad massage, or maybe 10 rounds with a latter day Muhammad Ali.

We had booked in the Semliki Safari Lodge, and it is really beautiful. Each room is entirely independent, and none are visible from one another. Comfort, great food, beautiful setting overlooking the Wassa river valley, and both black & white colobus and casqued hornbills to greet us.

The only other guests were Peter & Elka Moeller, friends of Ludwig Siefert, with whom we have just been working. Peter had just retired after many years in Uganda and he too has a passion for things wild, having founded a German NGO called Foerderkreis fuer Ugandas Tierwelt (Foundation For Uganda’s Wildlife) after the disasters of the Amin and then the Obote years.. He has been a filmmaker (for German TV) a builder, and was involved in the translocation of eland from Lake Mburo and Rothschild giraffe from Lake Nakuru NP in Kenya to Kidepo Valley NP in north-eastern Uganda.

The highlight of this trip was undoubtedly the boat trip to the papyrus swamp on Lake Albert. On the way we passed a large fishing village and watched as two boatmen rowed their canoe-like craft out from a sheltered cove. A close look at the picture seems to show that they are rowing stern first, but all such boats were propelled in the same way. The oars are simply flat boards that have been shaped a bit at the handle end.

Our hosts, Mark and Kristin Vibbert had not told us that the chances of seeing a Shoebill stork were good. We saw three, close up and personal, and one of them moved to grab something in the water, but we never saw what is was.

One of the films that Peter Moeller made was about these extraordinary birds, which live only in papyrus swamps and stand waiting for movement of things under the floating vegetation. They then grab at the movement and if it is a fish they kill it with the sharp hook at the end of the upper bill.

There were many other water birds along the swamp edges. This purple heron, that had been lurking in a patch of floating weed surprised us as it left in a hurry and a pair of fish eagles regaled us with their evocative cries.

R & R in Murchison Falls NP

Students away safely on Friday evening and due for some R&R in Amsterdam. Hope we did not work them too hard. I don’t think so & I received a moving and kindly though-of book of paragraphs written by each one of them saying how the experience had affected them. Not for sharing here, but something for me & Jo to treasure.

As they were landing in Holland Jo, Geraldine (her sister) and I headed out on a week’s R&R of our own. Our vehicle was a Land Cruiser belonging to my colleague Dr. JB Nizeyi and driven by professional driver/guide Dauda, which took all the pressure off us, me especially, as I have no driving to do for a whole week.

Our first stop was Murchison Falls NP, and this where we spent 2 nights, saw many species that we had not seen on other parks, had a great ride on the Nile in the tour boat, and enjoyed the rest.

Highlights included close-encounters with pair of Abyssinian Ground Hornbills, shown here, with the male having both red & blue bare skin over cere and neck, the female only blue. These turkey-sized birds are almost never seen flying, but stalk purposefully through the grass looking for food over large home ranges.

We also saw lots of Uganda kob, Rothschild’s giraffe, buffalo, warthogs and hundred’s if not thousands of Abdim’s storks, which were scattered everywhere, also foraging when not circling on the thermals. I almost forgot to mention two other mammals, one common, one less so. Oribi, a dainty antelope with a distinctive black spot behind the eye, are the common ones. Leopard the others. Our most unusual sighting was of a very close association between these two when the cat crossed the track in front of us carrying a partly devoured example of the antelope.

As we circled on one of the many tracks we came across this old bull elephant having a good scratch against the trunk of a Bourassas palm. It must have felt good!