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As part of the ongoing co-operation between 10,000 Birds and the teams working on the ground in Kenya to plot the distribution of the Sharpe’s Longclaw, a pipit-like species confined to the Kenyan Highlands close to Nairobi, Luca Borgesio has sent through a field report from the core of this Endangered bird’s world-range. We are [...]

As I wrote on my first post about my amazing day-trip to Nairobi last weekend (see Life Changing Moments in the Kenyan Highlands) one of the highlights was a visit to the Njabini wool-spinning workshop run by the Friends of the Kinangop Plateau* with Nature Kenya (the Birdlife International partner in Kenya).

The Njabini Wool-spinning [...]

I’m just back from Nairobi, Kenya after one of the most motivating and inspiring days I’ve had for many years. It’s going to take me a week or so to fully write-up everything that happened - which included speaking at a village school in the grasslands below the Aberdare Mountains, being made an honorary Kikuyu [...]

I’m off to Kenya at the weekend for a very short trip, and I’m really looking forward to it. Why? Because despite the fact that I’ll only be spending about thirty hours in Kenya in total, this is the weekend I’m scheduled to meet up with Luca Borgesio and Dominic Kamau Kimani (and hopefully [...]

I thought that 10,000 Birds readers may be interested to know that the first part of the donations raised for the Small African Fellowship for Conservation has been deposited in Kenya, and funds will start to be distributed on a monthly basis to Dominic Kimani from the start of October as planned.

I’m sure anyone who [...]

Our appeal to raise funds for the inspirational young Kenyan Dominic Kimani (photo left) is drawing to a close, and as the ‘Chip In’ widget in the sidebar shows thanks to a small number of our conservation-minded readers we’ve collected more than the 2000 USDollars we were aiming for (when I wrote this you’d [...]

More fun to support “The Small African Fellowship for Conservation” our serious campaign to help save the Sharpe’s Longclaw (the what now? click right here to find out). I asked last week for your ’snarky’ or otherwise captions to the photo below (me and a whale on the kind of diet plan that most [...]

Our campaign (in partnership with the National Musems of Kenya) to raise funds for the “Small African Fellowship for Conservation” - in essence to support the admirable Dominic Kamau Kamani in his struggle to promote awareness amongst his own community of the threats facing the Endangered Sharpe’s Longclaw - is going very well, thanks to [...]

I can’t imagine staying at a hotel in the US, Europe, or the Far East without being able to plug in and broadcast (via 10,000 Birds of course) a stream of words and photos to a waiting world - I’m exaggerating of course, but that’s what I like to pretend to myself sometimes - and [...]

 
A Conservation Project is born.

In June (2008) I was fortunate enough to be on a short birding trip in Nairobi with Shailesh Patel and George Kamau. Amongst the birds Shailesh and George were able to show me was one that I had never seen before and knew almost nothing about: the Endangered and highly range-restricted [...]

We’ve been saying some bold things lately about how we’d like 10,000 Birds to become involved in genuine conservation initiatives, and how we’d really like to support local “community-based” conservation projects. Time to put our blog where our mouths are, so to speak…

So, okay, if you add up the following, what do you get?

Sharpe’s Longclaw [...]

African Dusky Flycatcher Muscicapa adusta
Aberdare Mountains, Kenya. July 2008
 
The African Dusky Flycatcher (or just Dusky Flycatcher) is an African endemic found mainly in the east of the continent from the Ethiopian highlands south to the Cape, extending West to Angola: its distribution in Kenya marks the eastern most extent of its range.

A common highland species, [...]

Review: “A Guide to the Birds of East Africa - A Novel”
Nicholas Drayson
The summer holidays are coming (for some of us anyway) and perhaps you’re thinking about a book to read “on the beach” or in the hammock at home? If you are - and even if you’re not - I’d like to recommend [...]

Mountain Thrush Turdus abyssinicus or Olive Thrush Turdus olivaceus abyssinicus
Aberdare Mountains, Kenya
 
The thrushes found in the highlands of Kenya are either considered a separate species, Mountain Thrush (eg ‘Birds of Africa south of the Sahara’, Sinclair and Ryan, Struik), or as a northern race of Olive Thrush (’Thrushes’, Hathaway et al, Helm). Either way abyssinicus [...]

Variable Sunbird Cinnyris venustus
Nairobi, Kenya. April 2005 and June 2008

The Variable Sunbird is a small African species with a notably short, sharply curved bill and beautifully irridescent plumage that occurs in woodlands, forests, and gardens from the Gambia in the west of the continent to the Horn of Africa in the east and down to [...]

Sharpe’s Longclaw Macronyx sharpei
Magumu (north of Nairobi), Kenya. June 2008
 
Occasionally I get a ’sharp’ reminder that while I’m flying around the world having a great time and building up a reasonable year-list, some of the very birds that I’m fortunate enough to go looking for are declining rapidly and are seemingly heading unstoppably towards [...]

Kenya is not really a place to visit just for one day, but that’s all I had last week , and I’m glad to say I made the most of it. I managed to get some really interesting photos as well - including the ones below…

I was guided in Nairobi by Shailesh Patel and George [...]

Purple Grenadier Uraeginthus Ianthinogaster
Nairobi, Kenya

The Purple Grenadier Uraeginthus Ianthinogaster, found in subtropical and tropical dry shrubland in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, is a beautiful waxbill, closely related to the equally gorgeous Violet-eared Waxbill of southern Africa. Locally common in Kenya, it’s predominantly a bird of the highlands so is mostly absent from [...]

Mountain Wagtail Motacilla clara
Nairobi, April 2008

Locally common throughout a large range that takes in substantial areas of sub-Saharan Africa, the Mountain (or Long-tailed) Wagtail is usually described as a species of fast-flowing forest streams, though I’ve personally seen the species in a virtually dry stream-bed in Kenya, and on a fast-flowing stream with virtually no [...]

Superb Starling Lamprotornis superbus
Uhuru Park, Nairobi, Kenya, November 2006

Endemic to NE Africa, the aptly-named Superb Starlings are abundant across parts of their huge range and are commonly found in parks and gardens as well as in less urban settings. These were all photographed (except for the last bird) in Nairobi’s crowded, city-centre Uhuru Park and [...]