Temoignage de Edward Rickson :
Central and Western Kenya ñ 6 - 20 January 2006 by EBRParticipants: Edward Rickson (EBR), Gaukur Hjartarson (GH), Hlynur "skarsson(H"), "lafur Karl Nielsen ("KN), Sigmundur ¡sgeirsson (S¡) and Yann Kolbeinsson(YK)
In January six birders from Iceland visited central and western Kenya on a twoweek birding and general wildlife trip. For five of us it was the first time wehad visited Africa, H" had previously been to South Africa, and as such we weremainly interested in seeing a good range of African species and families andless concerned with investing a lot of time seeking scarce endemics (althoughwe enjoyed seeing those endemics we did come across). For several of us,visiting Africa was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream and Kenya was chosen asour destination due to its reputation for superb birding and mammal watchingand the fact that YK's mother knows the country well and has contacts there. Weorganised a two week birding safari with Rashid M. Zahran El Mazrui http://travel.kenya-safari-photo.com/ who YK and I already knew personally Rashid, a native of Mombasa, is a highly experienced and knowledgeable safariguide but is not a birding guide. We chose him because we know him and it'sgenerally more fun to try to find the birds ourselves (although we had dayguides in three places). We gave Rashid a list of places we wanted to visit andhad him arrange the logistics and everything went superbly well. We saw 470species of bird and 44 species of mammal in the two weeks, far more than we hadexpected.
Sites
In the two weeks we had we knew that we couldn't cover Kenya from the coast toKakamega so we decided early on to concentrate on the central and western partsof Kenya (even then you can you only scratch the surface in two weeks anyway)
Kenya , especially for first time visitors to Africa, is one big birdinglocation and there are birds everywhere and new species at virtually any stopyou make, but these are the main sites we visited:
Nairobi National Park - a great introduction to Africa right on the edge of thecapital. Mammals and birds abundant. Birding mostly restricted to the car, butyou can get out at certain places, such as Hippo Pools, where it's almostimpossible to keep up with the new birds.
Olorgaisailie and surrounding area - A superb area of dry thorn scrub south of Nairobi on the way to Magadi. One of my favourite locations. Unimaginably hot
Lake Magadi - Lake Magadi is a site for Chestnut-banded Plover and other waterbirds. This and Olorgaisailie make an excellent day trip from Nairobi. Takeplenty of water.
Blue Posts Hotel - attractive gardens and river. Worth stopping if you areheading north.
Serena Mountain Lodge - superb montane forest although you have to pay forguide and armed guard if you want to venture into the forest itself. Well worthdoing so in our experience. Birding and mammalwatching also excellent from thelodge balcony
Naro Moru River Lodge - very pleasant birding by the campsite and by the river(more like a stream)
Mt Kenya :road up to Met. Station - we had too little time here but walked upto around 3,400 metres. Probably the quietest place we had for birds but I'dcertainly go back and try and get above the tree-line and generally spend moretime on the mountain
Nyahururu (Thompson's Falls) - spectacular falls and spectacularly persistentsouvenir sellers. The pools upriver on the other side of the road are worth alook
Lake Nakuru - A lifetime's supply of flamingos and plenty of other things tokeep you amused, but birding is from the car due to the presence of largemammals
Lake Naivasha - the dawn boat trip on the lake was one of the highlights foreveryone. Fabulous site
Hell's Gate NP - spectacular gorge with plenty of mammals. Our trip wascurtailed by torrential rain but worth visiting if you are at Naivasha
Lake Baringo - Of all the places we wished we could have spent more time,Baringo was the one we most regretted having to leave. Superb dry countrybirding with a lot of birds at the southern end of their range here
Unmissable
Kakamega Forest - this remnant rainforest is another absolutely superb locationand brought us a whole range of birds that can't be seen anywhere else in Kenya. Another unmissable site
Dunga Point, Kisumu : we had very little time here but still managed some newbirds. Worth visiting for the masses of Hamerkops
Masai Mara NR - The quintessential East African reserve. I'd heard it wascommercialised and crowded but didn't find it to be either. Another essential
