or even if it isn’t, the bird-watching potential for the area round the KFFC camps seems to have been too long ignored. Some of us may take binoculars in our fishing bags, but how many have actually thought about devoting most of the day just to looking at birds. The camps desperately need filling and if bird watching became more of a recognised activity around them, perhaps not only fisherfolks’ partners but even non-fishing bird enthusiasts could find not just added enjoyment up there, but even a primary reason for a visit. Currently there isn’t even a bird list for the camps that I know of, let alone some more detailed records, and for sure there are some very keen birdwatchers in the membership.
I was up at the Southern camp for three nights in mid May 2017 and with the river fairly full, decided to confine my daily fishing activity to the bottom of the Canal during the last half hour of daylight. The fish rise down there in an almost proverbial boil but are still appallingly difficult to tempt to take an artificial fly until it is almost dark and time to head home. The rest of the two full days I devoted to looking for birds and compiling a list of what I had seen (at the end).
Beat 4 and environs is blessed with some marvellously varied habitat. Along with the river and its riparian vegetation, there were two trees in full bloom (flowering gums I think) in the camp garden; just opposite the gate is a splendid boggy patch where reed stalks wave and wobble betraying the activities of all sorts of small birds below. Just up at the bridge (actually on beat 3 by a few meters) two huge fruiting figs were attracting numbers of larger birds throughout the day. Then further down towards and around the Canal are plots of gone-to-seed plants, which are a magnet for flocks of small seed-eaters.
Most of the 50+ species of birds I managed to see were in one or other of these habitats. All five sunbirds appeared in the flowering garden trees, and there could have been other species which I might have added if I had spent longer there. On the river or its bankside vegetation were the usual wagtails, Giant Kingfisher, and perhaps the most interesting of all pecking along just above water-level below the camp, an Abyssinian Crimsonwing. Grey-capped Warbler is waiting to be added to the list by someone else, as, astonishingly, is Grey-backed Cameroptera – both denizens of tangled thickets.
The fruiting fig trees were a huge draw, and seemed to lure forest birds down from their thicker stands of trees upstream. Mountain, Yellow-whiskered and Cabanis’s Greenbulls were all spotted there, as were many Hartlaub’s Turacos, Montane White-eyes and Yellow-rumped Tinkerbirds. In the shrubbery below were always Grey and Black-collared Apalis. Lower down beat 4 in the gone-to-seed fields, were all three species of Waxbill, African Citril and almost everywhere, pairs of Hunter’s Cisticolas. As I dropped down to the start of the Canal early one evening two Brown Woodland Warblers were close enough for easy identification, this assisted by the absence in mid-May of any look-alike migrants.
On my second full day, I headed up to the top of Beat 1 in the hopes of finding my way into the forest. The walk is stunningly beautiful and being off the main road means only the occasional boda-boda or daily tea-collecting lorry disturbs one’s meditations gazing up onto the distant Aberdare moorlands. I added one or two new birds en route, like the Fiscal perched on the newly installed power lines, and an Augur Buzzard circling high over the Nyayo Tea Zone. I had imagined some sort of gateway into the forest, through the Rhino Ark Electric Aberdare fence but this was not to be. I was shown how I could get through a sheep hole with the aid of a stick and rubber soles, or round the edge of supporting posts on either side of the river, but decided against it. A bit further up the fence from the river there was actually a small patch of forest outside the fence in which a young, distinctly coloured White-starred Robin hopped amongst the undergrowth, along with two or three African Hill Babblers.
One could come back down the river, and it would be good to check the paths and even have a cast or two (the water was full but crystal clear coming out of the forest) but I chose to retrace my steps, finding Golden-breasted Buntings on the track and Rufous Sparrows in Tutho village. By the time I reached the camp I didn’t have the time or the energy to head down to Black Snake to search the pools and marshes there (although a party of Black and White Mannikins rewarded our brief stop in the car on the way out and what looked like a Lesser Moorhen didn’t give me a good enough view to find its way onto the list).
Here is a list of the birds I saw, more or less in Stevenson & Fanshawe Bird Book order.
| Hamerkop Hadada Ibis African Black Duck Augur Buzzard Red-eyed Dove Hartlaub’s Turaco Speckled Mousebird Giant Kingfisher Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird Mountain Wagtail African Pied Wagtail Rock Martin Plain Martin Black Saw-wing Common Bulbul Eastern Mountain Greenbul Yellow-whiskered Greenbul Cabanis’s Greenbul Common Fiscal | Chin-spot Batis African Dusky Flycatcher White-eyed Slaty Flycatcher African Paradise Flycatcher African Hill Babbler Abyssinian Thrush Cape Robin-chat White-starred Robin Brown Woodland Warbler Hunter’s Cisticola Grey Apalis Black-collared Apalis Mountain Yellow Warbler Montane White-eye Tacazze Sunbird Collared Sunbird Green-headed Sunbird Eastern Double-collared Sunbird | Northern Double-collared Sunbird Kenya Rufous Sparrow Yellow Bishop Baglafecht Weaver Spectacled Weaver Common Waxbill Black-headed Waxbill Yellow-bellied Waxbill Black-and-white Mannikin Bronze Mannikin Abyssinian Crimsonwing African Citril Streaky Seedeater Golden-breasted Bunting Ruppell’s Robin-chat |
In November 2024 the Northern river was also full, but this time I had already decided I would spend a half and two full days with my binoculars, looking at the birds. I covered all the beats, walking down the very slippery path from the forest edge down to the end of beat 3 on one day and then exploring beats 4,5 & 6 on the other day, with several looks around the camp grounds in the mornings and evenings. It is very interesting to compare the two lists. That of the Southern has more species, despite my not walking down the upper beats of that river, and some of them are pretty special, but I expect with more diligent watching, the lists would even up, with just a few species specific to one or the other.
| Great Cormorant *African Black Duck Common Sandpiper Augur Buzzard *Hartlaub’s Turaco Speckled Mousebird *Giant Kingfisher *Cinnamon- chested Bee-eater *Yellow-rumped Tinkerbird *African Pied Wagtail *Rock Martin *Plain Martin *Black Saw-wing *Common Bulbul Eastern Mountain Greenbul *Cape Robin-Chat *Abyssinian Thrush African Stonechat Mountain Yellow Warbler *Hunter’s Cisticola Grey-capped Warbler Grey Apalis | *White-eyed Slaty Flycatcher *African Dusky Flycatcher *African Paradise Flycatcher *Kikuyu White-eye Golden-winged Sunbird Tacazze Sunbird Malachite Sunbird *Northern Double-collared Sunbird *Variable Sunbird *Collared Sunbird Village Weaver Baglafecht Weaver Holub’s Golden Weaver Green-winged Pytillia Yellow Bishop Red-billed Firefinch Common Waxbill Bronze Mannikin Black-and-White Mannikin African Citril Brimstone Canary Streaky Seedeater |
Birds seen in or from, the Northern campground are marked *
RUPERT WATSON (former Chairman) – December 2024
