12:34, Thursday, 25 October, 2012

Okay, so I should have said “more stories keshokutwa.”  Keshokutwa means “the day after tomorrow” in Swahili.  Clever to have it condensed into one word!

Let’s see, thanks to Benson and Wilson, I can now identify more than just the secretary bird, kori bustard, lilac-breasted roller, paradise flycatcher, sacred ibis, robin chat, superb starling, helmeted guinea fowl, ring-necked dove, Maribou stork, greater flamingo, lesser flamingo and crowned crane.  I have added poppel granadia (sp), cinnamon-chested bee eater, yellow-throated sand grouse, yellow-throated long-claw, common fiscal shrike, rosy-breasted long-claw, red-winged lark, black-chested snake eagle, tawny eagle, marshall eagle, scaly francolin, Rupell’s (sp) starling, slate-colored boubou, common bulbul, Hildebrant’s starling, grasslands pippet, Lappet-faced vulture, white-backed vulture, hooded vulture, black-headed heron, white stork, crowned plover, fire finch, garden blue, spectacled weaver, pygmy kingfisher, Montagus (sp) harrier, saddle-backed stork, and banded starling to the growing list of birds I can identify.  I haven’t opened a book once – all I do is point to a bird we see while out on obs or in camp and Benson or Wilson rattle off what it is (in addition to its scientific name, which I fail to commit to memory).  It’s loads of fun!

I think my new favorite of the birds is the poppel granadia.  These little birds (roughly the size of a goldfinch) are beautiful, the males with a red head, bright blue tail, purple belly, brilliantly orange beak, and orangey brown overcast on their back.  The females are also very colorful, a gentler version of the males.  Poppel granadias hop fearlessly about, their claws making a delightfully satisfying sound to the rhythm of “do-do-do (pause), do-do-do” as they investigate.  They are generally unconcerned with the presence of humans.  There is a pair that hangs around the kitchen and lab tents quite often, and by sitting on the ground I have persuaded the female (whom I call Abaline) to eat from my hand.  It takes much patience, but the reward is phenomenally worth it.

Besides Abaline, we have two other regular visitors.  One is a robin chat with a broken leg named Tiny Tim.  Tiny Tim is shy and doesn’t come very close to the table, but I am always happy to see him jumping on one leg in the brush surrounding the lab tent, the other leg sticking out crookedly to the side.  In stark contrast to Tiny Tim, Gerald is the boldest bird I have ever met.  He is a bright yellow spectacled weaver, and periodically comes to sit on the edge of our plates and snatch bits of breakfast!  He unflinchingly hops about the table or sits on the tall silver tea canister, cocking his head at us.  I’m always overjoyed to see him; he makes me laugh in his complete disregard for our sizeable presence.  Charlie, not much a fan of birds, pretends to dislike Gerald.  However, I once caught him putting pieces of food in the middle of the table for him, an act he adamantly denies.

Two other absolutely gorgeous birds are the little cinnamon-chested bee-eater and the pygmy kingfisher.  The cinnamon-chested bee-eaters are a striking almost lime green with yellow bellies and a straight, pointed beak.  They like to hang out and build their nests along the river, and there is one pair that has recently moved into a tree overlooking my favorite outcrop.  Pygmy kingfishers are wonderful; they are just that – pygmy kingfishers, all the excitement of a kingfisher jammed into a pint-sized pipsqueak possessing a myriad of colors, most memorably blues and orange.  On rare days I catch one perched on the clothesline, and one morning when Wilson and I were staked out at Dave’s den trying to figure parentage one alighted in the bush right in front of us, staring cutely out at the world.  This was the same morning that a scaly francolin walked across the den right before the sacked out Hydrogen and Helium, who immediately lifted their heads and took interest in this strange specimen walking like a chicken about their home.

Ring-necked doves, so much like mourning doves but with a black ring around their neck and several streaks of purple and small spots of sheeny green, spots so radiant and perfectly alone that they remind me of Rainbowfish’s remaining scale in the books I used to read as a child, bob by me when I work at the desk outside of Kay’s tent.  Once I was given a start because an individual digging about in the leaves sounded like a slithering snake, and I could only see the shiny green scale feathers through the twigs, appearing to be the eye of a very close rock python!  I was equal parts relieved and disappointed when the dove bobbed out from beneath the brush.

The eagles are majestic – we’ve sat and watched Marshall and tawny eagles for prolonged periods: impressive animals, much like bald eagles back home.  One morning an enormous eagle swooped down to try and catch a guinea fowl (no small bird!) directly in front of the car, to which Julia and I simultaneously exclaimed “Whoa!”  Unfortunately it didn’t look like an eagle I had learned, and Benson and Wilson weren’t with us.  But the guinea fowl started crowing (sounding exactly as they do on The Lion King) and shot its balloon-self into the bushes along with the rest of its mates just in time.  The eagle pulled its talons back in and returned upward to sit perched high in a tree across the lugga, presumably still hungry.

Being a true ethologist, the thing that interests me most about birds is their behavior.  You wouldn’t think the behavior of a Rupell’s starling, for example, could be likened to that of a mammal, much less an animal so complex as a hyena.  But while feeding a small collection of birds by the kitchen tent one morning I witnessed a starlings came up to where another was eating, and it performed what I can only describe as a t2 lunge at the other bird, who immediately went into a starling’s version of a submissive posture.  The aggressed upon bird turned around crouched over with its wings slightly out to the side, head down and eyes closed for a brief moment until the other left it to go eat.  This was repeated several times when the submissive bird tried to eat, the exact same aggressive-submissive interaction, and if the submissive bird got too cheeky the dominant bird’s t2 lunge would progress into a t2 chase, during which the submissive bird would run in the same appeasing posture before stopping and crouching.  The crouch would then be honored as acceptable by the chaser, who left to continue eating.

Wilson has told me much about the behavior of vultures, which he used to study.  Vultures apparently have dominance hierarchies!  They can differentiate between individuals, and  I’ve seen them approach one another at a kill with their wings stretched and chests out in the ridiculous, apparently intimidating pose that Lia and I had so much fun mimicking last summer.  There is one point during the migration when apparently every vulture in Kenya flocks to the Mara area; tagged ones have flown amazing distances across the country.  Yet my favorite vulture fact remains the reason why they fly in tornado spirals above a kill after eating: post-gorging, they are too heavy to do anything other than glide along nearby currents!  Now if only I had currents to ride post-Thanksgiving...