An African adventure part 2: The birds of lake Baringo

African fish eagle

After 3 wonderful days at Kicheche Laikipia bush Camp Simon drove us back to the airstrip to meet our new driver for the next 3 days, Isaac.  Our destination was lake Baringo, an area I was very keen to visit as it is famous for bird watching with over 470 species recorded there. Former Baringo ornithologist Terry Stevenson until recently held the world record “bird-watch” for 24 hours – 342 species. 

We either had not been told by our travel agent or missed the fact that this was a six-hour drive, a very unproductive use of one of our days in Kenya. Driving in Kenya can also be a truly hair raising experience. There is much slow traffic on what tend to be rather poor roads with almost as many potholes as the UK! The general rule of thumb for overtaking is just do it! It is not necessary to see what is coming the other way, you simply assume that they will get out of the way. There were many overtaking occasions during the drive when we were parallel with the vehicle we were overtaking when it became apparent that the opposing vehicle we were in a game of chicken with was not going to pull over and we had to break sharply and pull back in. Things got even more interesting when the car in front was overtaking another vehicle. There was apparently no need to wait for it to complete its maneuver, you simply pulled our three abreast and overtook both cars!

We arrived some 6 shell-shocked hours later at our lodge on the lake. The accommodation was very down-market compared to the rest of the trip having been booked late when, after paying our deposit to the travel agent, it turned out that our preferred lodge was fully booked. Although they were warned weeks in advance that Carolyn was a vegetarian, there was nothing for her to eat on the first night. Our room also had fairly interesting security arrangements as both front and back door locks were broken. After 3 visits to reception someone eventually came out and fixed the back door. We didn’t realize that the front door lock was also bust until we ended up locked in our room unable to leave. Luckily my mobile had a signal and I managed to call reception and ask them to let us out!

I had booked a local bird guide for our stay at the lake and I arranged to meet the very talented Titus in reception at 16:00. With an hour or so of good light left he asked me if I wanted to do some birding that evening. I suggested that we just do a local walk around the village. He said there was not much to see around the village but we would try. An hour later I had added some 20 new ticks on my world list, nothing around being a truly relative statement. Compared to oxfordshire I would liken it to walking around a well-stocked aviary!

Kenya boasts a number of stunning kingfishers and the pied kingfisher was quite common around the lake. Their modus operandi is very similar to our european kingfisher, find a prominent branch and wait for an unsuspecting fish to swim by.

Pied Kingfisher

Pied Kingfisher

Pied Kingfisher

Hamerkops were resting on the lakeshore close to one of their nests which are a truly colossal domed construction which they add to each year.

Hamerkop

Kenya lies on the equator and the day length is almost invariant all year, the sun rises at 06:00 and sets at 18:00. There are no seasons as we would understand them but two periods of rain. The so-called short rains in November and the long rains, when most tourists operations shut, in april and may. I asked Titus if there was a breeding season for birds. He said no, they pretty much breed the whole year around except in the long rains. This means that in a flock of birds you find some birds in breeding plumage and displaying while others are not.

There are a number of species of weavers that breed around the lake and we observed exactly this mix of plumage and behaviors in the flocks. The weaver nests are truly miraculous constructions. They pick a twig that is just strong enough to hold the nest and then weave their magical nests on the end of it. The nests come in various shapes and sizes from spherical to conical and pyramid shaped.

Northern Masked Weaver

Northern Masked Weaver

Jackson's Golden-backed Weaver

Northern Masked Weaver

Titus was particularly keen to show me the northern masked weaver which is a specialty of lake Baringo. It differs from the locally common village weaver in having brown rather than red colour eyes and being somewhat smaller.

Beautiful Sunbird

Rufous Chatterer

Spotted Ground Thrush

Red-billed Firefinch

Walking around the local village on a Friday evening was a real eye-opener. Titus  had warned me that a lot of beer would have been drunk and we encountered many rather drunken but incredible friendly locals keen to show us all sorts of interesting things including the local venomous scorpion which one chap had clasped in his hand. Poverty is extreme and commonplace in Kenya with 80% of the population being below the poverty line as defined by the government as an income of one dollar a day per person. Walking around the village with so many friendly faces made me feel quite uncomfortable and ashamed that I, by dint of luck at birth, had so much that I take for granted while these folk had so little. The sense of guilt was compounded by how friendly and happy the locals were. It made me reflect that we fortunate folk in England have so much to be grateful for yet seem so unhappy and unfriendly most of the time. Not once did I feel at all threatened by the wonderful Kenyan folk we met during our two weeks in their beautiful country. 

The following morning Carolyn and I met up with Titus and a local boatman for a guided tour around the lake. Titus showed us the giant kingfisher and the goliath heron, both being the largest examples of their type in Africa.

Goliath Heron

Giant Kingfisher

Goliath Heron

We watched African darters and cormorants fishing in the fertile waters. The African darters lived up to their name, plunging into the water and reappearing, usually with fish, some minutes and many meters from their entry point,

African Darter

African Darter

Great Cormorant

On the boat trip we had a number of encounters with the tiny but exquisitely coloured malachite kingfisher

Malachite Kingfisher

Malachite Kingfisher

We then headed towards an island on the lake to look for the impressive African fish eagle. Little know to me, a local fisherman had been dispatched earlier to catch tilapia fish as bait for the eagles. As we approached his very dilapated boat we could see that the fisherman was asleep. As we got closer he suddenly awoke and it became obvious he was naked! He had a pair of trousers in the boat which he then struggled to put on in his panic. This caused great amusement to Titus and our boatman who made no attempt to slow down for the unfortunate fisherman to recover his dignity!

Armed with our bait in exchange for a few Kenyan shillings we set off for the island where the eagles were nesting. They clearly knew the routine and treated us to some wonderful flyovers as they picked up the fish which our boatman threw into the lake.

African Fish Eagle

African Fish Eagle

After a very memorable 2 hours we returned to our lodge for lunch and refreshments.

To be continued …