Simon Thomsett

Category: Eagle | Date: Aug 28 2009 | By: sheryl bottner

by Sarah Higgins of The Little Owl Sanctuary

The Fish Eagle with the broken right wing that was brought in in July is recovering well. We have decided that she is probably a girl and have christened her ‘Batelle,’ because of her brave fight for survival. I have yet to hear her call - which would tell us for sure what gender she is (a male has a higher voice than the female) - but at least ‘Batelle’ or ‘Battle’ is a name that fits all! Of course, as so often happens, Batelle will no doubt shorten to Batty before too long!

Batelle is proving to be a gentle bird and is prepared to tolerate humans waiting on her hand and foot. Her wing stump, which had to be de-feathered for the operation to remove the damaged part of the wing, is beginning to sprout some nice new feathers, so her nights of a chilly wing stump are almost over. Her legs and feet, which were deeply lacerated when she arrived, have healed well and one of her two broken talons is beginning to grow back. Once she has gown back sufficient feathers to protect her wing stump we will think about introducing her to Bogoria (our other mono-winged Fish Eagle) and see if they would like to have the companionship of another bird, albeit of the same gender. I do hope that they’ll get on.

Batelle the Fish Eagle

Waddlesworth (the Pelican) spends quite a lot of his time beside Batelle’s cage and will often leave his last fish of the day by her cage door, so I oblige by popping it inside for her to enjoy - always a popular move.

Tags: batelle the fish eagle, little owl sanctuary

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Category: Raptor Expedition | Date: Aug 27 2009 | By: simonthomsett

Simon Thomsett (Photos by Laila)

After a few grey days spent in Thika trying to take pictures of a pair of Black Sparrowhawks and an African Hawk-eagle, we returned to Solio Ranch where we had spent a few days last year. We were sad to leave the Thika house, which is a grand old Kenya farm house sturdily built in a magnificent garden set in acres of coffee. Raine Samuels looks after this house, keeping a feel of those better days when wildlife and people’s livelihoods were not so much at odds. Not far from it, the urban sprawl and dusty mess of fast-growing development is threatening the area.

Odd that one should worry about threats facing large coffee and mixed-farming estates. Virgin bush ‘destroyed’ by settler farmers in the 1920s until the 1950s converted rhino thicket into coffee. Why bother ‘conserving’ this farmland? Because it has a surprising amount of eagles, hawks, birds and small mammals on it. This differs from the general ideas regarding African wildlife conservation. Perhaps we should accept that these old established farms (with their adapted wild animals) have a role to play in wildlife conservation? Maybe there will come a time when conservation of wildlife in these human environments is considered as important as the more usual approach of conservation focused only within protected areas. It is widely accepted in the developed world but this approach has yet to be seriously considered here. Farmers protecting wildlife … an old idea elsewhere but relatively unexplored in Kenya.

Solio Ranch, on the other hand, is a fenced, protected area geared toward Rhino conservation. As a direct result, the raptors found within its boundaries are more sensitive to human encroachment. It is less than 20,000 acres and alone it cannot support a very diverse population of raptors. Fortunately it still lies within a greater area of indigenous woodland that buffers the effect of man and so preserves these eagles. By ’sensitive’ raptors, I mean the Martial Eagle and Crowned Eagle. The African Hawk Eagle, previously a fairly common eagle outside protected areas has now taken membership to this aloof group of eagles. So too has the once very common Tawny Eagle joined the club. Solio supports these eagles but as settlement and rural development devour its edges, it is debatable just how long these eagles can remain. The rhinos will remain after the eagles have gone.

We stayed with Annie Olivecrona who kindly arranged with the owner Edward Parfet for us to photograph eagles within the sanctuary. The moment we entered the protected area, there were vultures dripping from the trees. We had not seen one on the entire trip up from the Mara. Interestingly, Ruppell’s Vultures were present in large numbers. One had to wonder where these birds came from as the nearest cliff colonies are a very long way away. There were White-backed and Lappet-faced Vultures also with them. We did note a young Lappet with feathers going all the way up the back of the neck to the back of his head. I had always assumed feathered heads to be a sign of youth, and that with age the feathers retreated. Just a week previously I had climbed a Lappet’s nest in the Mara to see the chick was completely bald. So what of these feathered heads and what does it mean?

Feather-headed Lappet faced Vulture

We found a Martial Eagle pair with a nest overhanging the swamp. The male is a sub-adult. The presence of immature birds in a pair implies a lack of adults in the ‘floater’ population. It infers a population in decline. This is not surprising, for Martial Eagles are certainly a species of concern in modern Africa.

Young male Martial Eagle of the Solio pair

Very close to this pair we rounded a corner and were so fixed on finding raptors that our eyes entirely missed a lioness spread across a broken tree before us. She looked a little amused at our surprise as we scrambled for the cameras. She viewed from this vantage some warthogs and zebras and jumped off to hunt them out of our view. We met her again on this same tree the next day. Not far from there, we had earlier seen a male lion on a zebra kill. We returned to find a pair of Augur Buzzards feeding on the kill alongside a Sacred Ibis. It is not that unusual for Augur Buzzards to feed on carrion but we were still grateful for the opportunity to record it.

Lioness lounging on tree

We did of course see both Black and White rhinos aplenty. Solio has played an enormous role in the conservation of rhinos in the region and has demonstrated that you do not need that much land, or much infrastructure, to secure a large population of endangered rhinos. There is much that they could teach our neighbouring countries (e.g. Ethiopia) as well as the rest of the world (e.g. India) in the management of rhinos . and raptors.

Tags: private land owners and conservation, rhino conservation

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Category: vultures | Date: Aug 24 2009 | By: Laila Bahaa-el-din

Text and photographs by Laila Bahaa-el-din

Vultures are in trouble worldwide. In East Africa, the deliberate poisoning of carnivores is leading to the demise of vultures, while in southern Africa, vulture parts are used in witchcraft and in West Africa, loss of habitat and their use as bush meat are proving catastrophic. In South Asia, vulture populations plummeted by 95 percent in just a decade as a result of consuming the carcasses of cows that had been treated with the anti-inflammatory drug Diclofenac. In Europe, strict health regulations mean that all carcasses are disposed of, leaving no food for the vultures.

Bearded Vulture at Ol Donyo Laro, Kenya

Hooded Vulture in the Mara, Kenya

What to do? The general public doesn’t get up in arms about vultures. We can’t make emotional appeals based around cute and cuddly animals. The world needs to sit up and take notice of this crisis, if not for the vultures’ sakes, then for their own. Vultures have the unfortunate reputation of being dirty. The truth is that they not only clean up everybody else’s mess by consuming carcasses that would otherwise encourage diseases and pests such as rats, but they also are meticulous in washing themselves, finding water to bathe in daily when they can.

Black Vulture head in the Osa, Costa Rica

Black Vultures in the Osa, Costa Rica

So it is that vultures need an image make-over and serious awareness-raising. September 5, 2009 is International Vulture Awareness Day so wherever you are in the world, do a little something that might help spread the message that vultures need our help and fast. Here in Kenya, the Raptor Working Group, made of biologists, photographers and other interested individuals, has been organising a fair at the National Museum for the weekend of September 5-6th. I will be dressing up as a vulture as part of the awareness-raising entertainment and hope to show children what fun animals vultures are. There is going to be a national art competition, puppet show, story-telling and other activities that will hopefully lead to people looking at vultures in a new light. If you’re in Nairobi, come and join us there.

Cape Vulture at Kransberg, South Africa

Cleanup Crew - King Vulture and Black Vultures in the Osa, Costa Rica

We owe a big Thank You to the African Bird Club which has been so generous in its sponsorship of the upcoming event.

To see how you can take part, visit the International Vulture Awareness Day Web site: www.ivad09.org

Egyptian Vulture at Ololokwe, Kenya

Young King Vultures in the Osa, Costa Rica
King Vulture in the Osa, Costa Rica

Lappet-faced Vulture in the Mara, Kenya

Long-billed Vulture at Bandhavgarh, India

Ruppell’s Vulture in the Mara, Kenya

Smooching Lappets in the Mara, Kenya

Turkey Vulture in the Osa, Costa Rica

Turkey Vulture over the Pacific on Costa Rican coast

White-headed Vulture female in Etosha, Namibia

Tags: help vultures, International Vulture Awareness Day, wildlife poisoning

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Category: Raptor Expedition | Date: Aug 19 2009 | By: simonthomsett

by Simon Thomsett

When I dropped off Laila at the airport in South Africa, I was immediately lost in the vast city of Pretoria. I knew I was in trouble when I passed the zoo twice. Without my navigator, I soon came to grief and this was not helped by having no road map and a GPS that drew a straight line across South Africa to my destination. After wasting hours in the city, and a nearby one called Johannesburg, I found a road heading west and took it. I then proceeded by compass bearing till I saw a few familiar place names. From there I headed north to Thabazimbi to meet up again with Dr. Pat Benson.

I had to wait two days longer because of visa problems before pushing on north through Botswana with very little money. I managed to drive most of Botswana in a day, seeing little of its natural beauty. The next day I crossed the Zambezi by ferry. All went smoothly until I got into the Zambian side. four and a half hours later I emerged from some five different immigration/importation procedures, to sit a few more hours in a traffic jam of buses and lorries before exiting the border post. Late, and with no hope of making it to Lusaka, I spent the night at Taita Falcon Lodge near Livingstone. From there to Lusaka where I met relatives of a friend in Nairobi keen to rush me some 180km further south to see raptors. I am ashamed to say I turned around leaving them to go on their own as I was exhausted. I use the word “exhausted” in a literal sense. The exhaust pipe was severed pouring gases into the front, making my head pound. The next two days I was able to join Stuart Simpson and his family and he helped enormously by fixing the exhaust in his workshop.

On the road, my mind perhaps lighter than usual from various noxious gases, I would think of the trip Laila and I experienced on the way down. Certain stretches of road were familiar, and specific songs played on Laila’s fractious and temperamental “iPod” would be recalled at precise places. On the way down south it was mystery ahead; on the way back this sense of adventure was much muted. It was too easy, and Africa too small.

It is saying much that throughout the return journey from South Africa to northern Tanzania, I saw not one raptor worth stopping to take a picture of. Only one section of less than 50km yielded anything in the way of raptors and that was through Mikumi. It is a national park in southern Tanzania through which, most unwisely, the main road runs through its heart. This section and from Nata to Kasane in Botswana as well as the winding roads near the Ndzungwa’s near Mikumi was the best in terms of a ’safari’ overland experience.

I started to use the GPS sparingly. Each time I needed to communicate, socialise or talk I turned it on. I cherished asking it questions. It was my pal in an empty car. My PDA meant to record all raptor sightings was also a good distraction. At night I pulled either into a campsite or off the road, ate and read “Great Expectations” before falling asleep.

The last part of the trip I was not looking forward to. I was going “home,” as a pigeon flies back to its loft. But I had no place to go to and this confused me. My small institute of rehab eagles and hawks in the bush no longer exists. I visited Rosy and Girl, my two eagle companions, but this was difficult for me to do. I will soon release Mutt the Bearded Vulture. I look forward to the rest of our trip, now that Laila has returned. We travel again searching for all of Africa’s raptors, at the moment in Kenya but soon in Ethiopia and the Congo. It is more important now, especially as we have had so much encouragement to complete this task. It will be much tougher than we had anticipated, and more costly, but it will be immensely rewarding.

Tags: great expectations, homeward bound, simon's trip from south africa

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