Binoculars in the Backcountry: Kenya - Nairobi to Aberdare National Park

We're adventuring again, this time for 6 weeks to Kenya and Ethiopia. We're traveling with friends Mark and Jeff for our Kenya leg of the trip. Our guide is Joe Aengwo of Kenya Birding and Silent Flier Safaris. We'll be traveling a large area of the country, seeing the sights, and hoping to find as many of the roughly 1100 bird species as possible. And if some good mammals, flowers, insects, or anything else jumps in front of us, we'll look at those too.

There is very little time in left in the day for blogging, and all too infrequent internet, so my commentary here will have to be brief.

From our arrival city of Nairobi we headed north to Mt. Kenya. This glaciated stratovolcano sits just a few miles from the equator. We stayed and birded the lower slopes at an elevation of 7000 feet in the Mt Kenya Forest Reserve for a couple of days. We're entering the rainy season and we did have to battle the weather occasionally. But we were lucky enough to see the summit of Mt Kenya on our first morning.

eBird list [as usual, the eBird links included are only representative and not all inclusive]

The grounds of Castle Lodge

Our "Hobbit Huts" at Castle Lodge

Hadada Ibis

Hartlaub's Turaco

The summit of the 17,000 foot Mt. Kenya

Silvery-cheeked Hornbill

Cinnamon Bracken Warbler

Eastern Double-banded Sunbird

White-eyed Slaty Flycatcher

From Mt Kenya we continued north and crossed the equator.

Our next destination was the dry acacia scrub habitat of the Samburu National Reserve west of the Aberdare Mountains. We spent two days here taking in the sights and amazing bird diversity. We had some rain on the reserve, but apparently the mountains up slope received a lot more. The afternoon we arrived the Ewaso Ng'iro River was but a mere trickle. By the next morning, after an evening of rain, the river was a raging torrent of chocolate milk. Wow.

The birding was exceptional and we tallied many lifers all around. For such a dry upland habitat, the bird and mammal diversity was amazing.

eBird list for Samburu

Samburu National Reserve

Storm clouds over the plain, and the Aberdare Mountains to the east

Black-faced Sandgrouse

Buff-crested Bustard

Cheetah

Crested Francolin

d'Arnaud's Barbet

Eastern Yellow-billed Hornbill

Reticulated Giraffe

Hooded Vulture

Impalla

Lilac-breasted Roller

Nubian Woodpecker

Red and Yellow Barbet

Red-billed Hornbill

Red-billed Oxpecker pokes around in the ear of a giraffe

Rosy-patched Bush-shrike

Rufous-crowned Roller

Steppe Eagle

Von der Decken's Hornbill

Superb Starling

Vulturine Guineafowl

Yellow-necked Spurfowl

From Samburu we drove back around to the east side of the Aberdare Mountains for a traverse the next day. Along the way we picked up some additional birds including the recently split Mackinder's Eagle-Owl.

Black-winged Lapwing

Mackinder's Eagle-Owl

Our day in Aberdare National Park was a wet one. But we made the most of the mountain range traverse, getting to the moorlands at 10,000 feet elevation and seeing some special and spectacular birds.

Aberdare NP eBird list