As part of The Small African Fellowship for Conservation that 10,000 Birds readers generously helped provide him, Dominic Kimani provides reports every three months on the work he is doing on Kenya’s Kinangop Plateau to help conserve the Endangered Sharpe’s Longclaw. These reports got to the National Museums of Kenya which oversee his work and distribute the funds we supplied to him, as well as to us here at 10,000 Birds.

The Report posted below contains some extremely valuable data on the decline in the population of this increasingly threatened species, and details of the fantastic work that Dominic is doing amongst the local communities that he himself belongs to. We are - as always - proud and privileged to be a part of such a focussed and driven grass-roots conservation programme and will continue supporting this critical work for as long as we are asked to do so….

Three month report: January – March 2009.

Dominic Kimani (edited by Charlie Moores and re-formatted for 10,000 Birds)

Supported by: National Museums of Kenya, 10,000 Birds and Friends of Kinangop Plateau.

Environmental Education awareness in Kinangop Schools

There was not much activities in schools during the month of January due to a Teachers strike. I have since managed to visit 10 schools in Kinangop. Schools are usually visited during club days which are mainly Thursdays or in exceptional cases Tuesdays. The main message has been ‘Give the Sharpe’s Longclaw a chance to live’.

Amongst the schools visited are: Mugumoini, Kienjero, Ndunyu Njeru, Murungaru, Rutere, St. Paul, Kirarwa, Gituru, Ndunyu Secondary, Wheatland and Kimuri.

On 21st February members of Kimuri Secondary Schools visited the Kinangop Sharpe’s Longclaw Reserve, I spent about four hours doing different things. I demonstrated how we conduct grassland monitoring; I also took them through various methods of habitat management. Mr. Kinyanjui is the environmental Club Patron in Kimuri. He was a beneficiary of a workshop that was held last year at Elsamere Field Centre. During my visit to various schools I have also been showing Environmental films, mainly on water. As you all agree with me, water is a big problem in Kinangop: the introduction of Eucalyptus species has partly contributed to the shortage of water, while destruction of Aberdare Forest has lead to drying of rivers in the area.

As agreed with Luca (Borghesio), I have prepared a short PowerPoint presentation for the schools on Sharpe’s Longclaw Education.

The lesson covers the following areas:

• Who is Sharpe’s Longclaw?
• Where are they found?
• Where do the Sharpe’s Longclaw make their nests?
• What dangers are the Sharpe’s Longclaw facing?
• Why is Kinangop grasslands so important?
• How many Sharpe’s Longclaw have you seen in your farm?
• Where else in Kenya can we find Sharpe’s Longclaw?
• Why are the Sharpe’s Longclaw declining?
• What will happen if we destroy all the Grasslands?
• What can we do as individuals, Schools, Group, club to reverse Sharpe’s Longclaw declining trend?
• What is my commitment towards Sharpe’s Longclaw Conservation?
• Where can I access information about Sharpe’s Longclaw conservation work?

The above questions are answered in a form of a discussion with teachers and students as we know the answers lies somewhere in between.

I can say that the education work is a successful story; I have been accepted in all schools I go. I realised that even the teachers are not aware that we have an endangered bird species within Kenya (not to mention Kinangop), so one can now imagine what a big task we have if even our educators are not aware of the environmental dangers we are facing in the 21st century.

Dry season Grassland birds monitoring in Kinangop

Monitoring is conducted twice in Kinangop, i.e. Dry season Monitoring done between mid February to mid March and Wet season Monitoring which takes place every August.

Breeding-plumaged Sharpe’s Longclaw Macronyx sharpei. Kinangop, February 2009.

This year we were very fortunate to do some Dry season Monitoring with Charlie Moores who joined us on 20th February 2009 in Murungaru Area. During his visit to Kinangop we did the monitoring exercise at Joshua Kimani Farm. Charlie got very nice shots of Sharpe’s Longclaw in this farm and of the monitors and wrote about his visit on 10,000 Birds. This was the first time the monitoring team was featured on the world famous 10,000 Birds blog (at Monitoring team Feb 2009).

Preliminary results are shown below.

• NB: All the farms/monitored plots were originally demarcated when they had more than two pairs of Sharpe’s Longclaws. Most of the farms have since been cultivated and now have no Longclaws, and the continuing trend in declining numbers is clear [and perhaps suggests that the current population estimates on which the IUCN Red List status of this beautiful bird is based are far too high]

Total:    28 Sharpe’s Longclaws found

The development of Nature Reserves has brought good news though, as shown in the table. Sharpe’s Longclaw Reserve 1 has a resident pair, while Sharpe’s Longclaw Reserve 2 has three pairs. Initially there were no longclaws in either reserve, and critically Nature Reserve 1 was formerly cultivated land demonstrating that the longclaws can return to sites they’d been lost from. As mentioned in a previous report, the two nature reserves were bought with funding from IUCN Netherlands and Jansen and Jansen Foundation in Denmark.

From my own findings/opinions Nature Reserves clearly could be one of the best methods to conserve the Sharpe’s Longclaw. Through the various research and Education work in Kinangop I have realised that Sharpe’s Longclaws can utilise small plots, say, 0.4 hectares. It is therefore highly recommended that we have several small patches of habitats all over Kinangop. I believe that there are some critical areas within Kinangop that need to be conserved immediately or else the Sharpe’s Longclaw will be wiped from the world.

Sharpe’s Longclaw Distributions and breeding trends project.

The National Museum of Kenya’s Dr. Muchai will be leading a team of Research Scientists and local communities in a study to investigate the movement, distribution, breeding and habitat fragmentation of Sharpe’s Longclaw within Kinangop.
For more information please contact him at mmuchaim - AT - yahoo.com

Sunday birdwatch in Kinangop

Raising awareness of Sharpe’s Longclaw through education and monitoring is my main job in Kinangop. On 15th February I was very fortunate to successfully organise a Sunday Birdwatch in Kinangop Grasslands. This event was jointly organised by Nature Kenya the former East Africa Natural History Society (EANHS) through renowned conservationist and Ornithologist, Fleur Ng’weno.

Over fifty people who came for this birdwatch. I had a very good opportunity to explain to the people the current status of Sharpe’s Longclaw, as well as the awareness we are creating in Kinangop with support from 10,000 Birds. Fleur Ng’weno has been organising such birdwalks in Kenya for over 40 years, and a few years back she received a prestigious conservation Award. She can be reached at fleur - AT - africaonline.co.ke or office - AT -naturekenya.org (attention Fleur).

We were also fortunate to be featured in an article written by Rupi Mangat in the Daily Nation one of Kenya’s most popular newspapers (for more information see www.nation.co.ke/travel). Rupi writes about travel and conservation within Africa and related islands.

After her article was published James Wainaina and I received calls and emails from different parts of the world. We of course referred them to 10,000 Birds for information on Sharpe’s Longclaw conservation and all the efforts being made towards their conservation.

Following the birdwalk we are now sure that more awareness is needed to all levels. Many farmers also called me to ask whether the bird is found in their farms. While not in schools I am targeting local farmers who own patches of grasslands.

January waterfowl census in Kinangop Dams, Lake Ol’borossat and Rift Valley lakes.

Annual waterbird counts in Kinangop Dams, Lake Ol’borossat and the Rift Valley lakes iare one of the core activities that Ornithology Department of National Museums of Kenya is involved in. For close to 10 years I have been coordinating counts in Kinangop. This year we were very keen to observe Sharpe’s Longclaw in all the sites we were counting waterbirds. The riparian lands of either dams or lake were found to have good habitat for the Longclaws.

This is now a new method we have adopted: while we monitor our wetlands we will from now on be looking for the endangered Sharpe’s Longclaw. In January we found considerable numbers of Sharpe’s Longclaw in Kinangop Dams, and in Lake Ol’Borossat three pairs were recorded during February waterbird counts.

Concluded community guides in Nyahururu, Kenya

As mentioned in previous updates, I have been working closely with my colleague Mr. Wanyoike Wamiti in training local guides. This has been a successful story particularly around Lake Ol’ Borossat, the only Lake in Central Province.

Within this lake there are vast grasslands that Sharpe’s Longclaw has been confirmed in by Wamiti and us (as reported by Luca in previous reports). This is a very important site which has recently been designated as Kenya’s 61st Important Bird Area. Kenya Wildlife Service is now working with local community to implement a management plan that will see the lake gazetted as a National Reserve. If this site is protected it might be one of the long term solutions to the survival of Sharpe’s Longclaw. The main threats to the site at the moment site encroachments and illegal cultivation. I will post the report after discussion with the other authors.

Charlie’s Second visit to Kinangop Grasslands

On 20th February this year, Charlie was lucky [lucky indeed!] to have another chance to visit Kinangop once again. I picked him up at the Hotel Intercontinental in Nairobi and wewent directly to Kinangop. We passed by our village where we met my parents. Later we were joined by James Wainaina and headed to Kimani Joshua where we joined the monitoring team. We recorded (an estimated) seven individual Sharpe’s Longclaw.

Charlie also had an ample time to discuss various conservation issues within Kinangop with members of the Friends of Kinangop Plateau. One of the things doscussed was the creation of a page on 10,000 Birds where we could post our conservation work and related activities. We are now very grateful that this page is now on the 10,000 Birds blog and the Friends of Kinagop Plateau webpage is at:

• http://10000birds.com/10000-birds-sharpes-longclaw-and-the-kinangop-grasslands

After monitoring we went to Mugumoini Primary School, a school named after an indigenous tree (Ficus thonningii). A report of this joyful visit is posted at Mugumoini Primary School, Kinangop, Kenya

We also visited the Njabini Wool spinning Workshop to take photographs for the leaflet we are producing. The report on this visit is found at Back to the Njabini Woolshop

Following discussions with Charlie it was felt that it would be very useful to provide members of the local community with a simple bird guide book with, for now, information and an illustration of about twenty of the most common birds found in Kinangop. The design will be a very simple spiral-bound booklet to which pages can be added or replaced as necessary. Local guides and the people of Kinangop will be able to use it with ease.

Below is a list of birds thought to the most common in Kinangop after discussions with James Wainaina.

• Grey Heron
• Black-headed Heron
• Cattle Egret
• Hadada Ibis
• Sacred Ibis
• Speckled Pigeon
• African Ring-necked Dove
• Black-shouldered Kite
• Augur Buzzard
• Black-winged Plover
• Blacksmith Plover
• Common Quail
• Nyanza Swift
• Grassland Pipit
• Sharpe’s Longclaw
• Yellow-throated Longclaw
• Red-capped Lark
• Rufous-naped Lark
• Long-tailed Widowbird
• Jackson’s Widowbird
• Hunter’s Cisticola
• Common Fiscal
• Superb Starling
• Cape Rook
• Pied Crow
• Bronze Sunbird
• Golden-winged Sunbird
• Common Stonechat
• Cape Robin Chat
• Kenya Rufous Sparrow
• Baglafetcht Weaver
• Speke’s Weaver

[Can you provide us with high-quality images of any of these species, or would you like to help towards the costs of the publication of the booklet through sponsorship? Please contact Charlie at charlie10000birds - AT - gmail.com. Thankyou.]

UK Minister of Environment visit to Lake Naivasha.

On 16th February I was among five people who made a presentation of conservation films. I presented what we are doing about Sharpe’s Longclaw Awareness in Kinangop, linking it with film work. The minister highly recommended my work.

We were later invited to a reception at the British High commission in Nairobi. Our message is going far and wide!

Nomination to the District Environmental Committee (DEC) and District Development Committee (DDC).

The District Commissioner (DC) Nyandarua South Has nominated me to the District Environment Committee (DEC) and District Development Committee (DDC). This is following a vibrant event I helped organize last year November (See previous three month report).

I have already attended one meeting in each committee. In both committees I have reported the work we are doing together with 10,000 Birds, National Museums, and Friends of Kinangop. The DC has promised to support us fully in our work. He has instructed the area Divisional Officer 1 (DO 1) to work closely with Friends of Kinangop to identify tourism opportunity within Nyandarua District.

Global Ecology Certificate from Leicester University.

I am happy to report that I have finally completed a certificate in Global Ecology; this was a two years distance learning course. My dissertation was on Avifauna Diversity in Fringing Woodlands at Four Rift Valley Lakes in Kenya. Part of this dissertation will be made available in upcoming reports.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the people who support our work in Kinangop; I am sure all will agree with me that the money that was generously provided by 10,000 Birds readers in the form of The Small African Fellowship for Conservation is being utilised properly, and my reports are being produced three-monthly as promised.

My appreciation goes to the school I visit in our awareness programme. I would also like to thank Charlie Moores for his continued support in all ways. To you Dr. Muchai and Luca thank you for the support you always give me. Friends of Kinangop Plateau has contributed a lot to the success of our work, especially the monitoring teams; to all of you I say a big thank you.

Finally I would like to thank the District Commissioner for nominating me in the District Environment Committee, I hope this will be a good opportunity to influence decision making in the District environmental matters.

Dominic Kimani April 2009

      - Dr Muchai Muchane and the National Museums of Kenya

      - Nature Kenya (the BirdLife International partner in Kenya)

      - and the Friends of Kinangop Plateau

Would you like to support the work we’re doing by having this 200×252 pixel badge on your site (like Bubo Listing and The Birder’s Report)? Either download it straight from this page or mail us and we’ll send it you.

Please link the badge to our ‘gateway page’ at http://10000birds.com/10000-birds-sharpes-longclaw-and-the-kinangop-grasslands

Thankyou very much.