Simon Thomsett

Category: Raptors, Rehabilitation | Date: Sep 21 2008 | By: simonthomsett

On the morning of the 18th September I was on the computer for hours and was very relieved to get a phone call from Robin Stanley near Salaama. He had what he thought was a young African Hawk Eagle, caught in a water trough near-dead from drowning.
I put the phone down and was in the car gunning down the Mombasa Road in minutes. At times like these I am like a kid on Christmas morning. What can it be, is it going to be OK, will it fly again, can it be released, should it be flown first???

An hour later it dawned on me that whatever it was I could not afford the time to lavish on it as I once did. Just last week Martin Wheeler, who took my Verreaux’s Eagle, phoned to say he had an injured Martial Eagle. I had to control my urge to race off to go rescue it. The raptor rehab side of life has had to be put on hold. But there was no denying the feeling of euphoria at something new and something that might need help as I neared the Stanley’s farm.

David and Jane Stanley own a beautiful small ranch near the edge of the Kapiti Plains, as it slopes into the Tsavo nyika type woodland. Suddenly the habitat changes from (only a few years ago) open endless wildlife-filled black cotton grassland, to the broadleaf woodland on red ochre soils. The temperature and humidity goes up. It looks and feels like Tsavo to a highlander like me, but it is the epitome of formerly common landscapes of the Machakos hills.

This ranch is increasingly surrounded by dense shambas, and will soon be the sole remnant of the region’s ingenious fauna and flora. All the surrounding large co-op ranches that were intact examples of native wild plants and animals were recently sub-divided due to shareholder demands, tough livestock business and a land-saving wildlife industry left to flounder.

When I stopped the car, a large pack of grinning dogs came up to the car followed by Jane as she pushed them aside. I was warmly welcomed by them all and ushered quickly up behind the old family homestead to a small shed, in which was an eagle. I am hopeless in such situations and must appear rude to my hosts as I have to quench my curiosity immediately. On looking in I was suddenly perplexed. I am usually pretty confident at raptor identification, but this was a small eagle with a white head, neck and shoulders. The throat was streaked white and tan. Then the white bled out into a uniform brown. I looked at the nostril, was it round or oblong? Was the legs long and thin? Did the mouth go beyond the eye? It wasn’t an African Hawk Eagle (my heart took a downward plunge but recovered itself rapidly because this was even more interesting).

I took it out and held it gently in my hands, being careful not to stress it unnecessarily as Robin and David took pictures. In the picture you can see that I am still grinning stupidly, partly from relief that it was going to be ok!

After a good few minutes I concluded it was a first year just moulting male Tawny Eagle. No big deal. Still fairly common species (although rapidly declining in Kenya). But it has unique features that need to be recorded. I have seen totally white topped Tawnies before, but on close inspection saw that it was all due to UV bleaching. I have never seen a white topped chick in the nest. I concluded long ago that all Tawnies are born rufous tawny, and get paler according to UV sunlight exposure, soil type and even chemical bleaching (such as in soda lakes). The mixtures of plumages in Tawny Eagles is incredible, and one of the main reasons why there are so many erroneous records of much rarer species. In the picture with the three juvenile Tawnies you can see just how different looking they can be! No wonder we get some whacky records.

The head photo of this particular bird shows a patterning that is unusual. The white on the head has fine black central shafts. I find it difficult to believe that it was born the usual tawny brown, then paled over time to reach this colouration. He is tiny too, no bigger than a large female Wahlberg’s Eagle. There is a pale morph of the Lesser Spotted Eagle, but they have long stove pipe legs, puny feet and rounded nostrils in a kite-like face.
He is certainly a Tawny Eagle, but it does bring to light the poor extent of our knowledge on even common species of raptors in East Africa. Had one been force to open a guide book, one would not have seen the vast array of differing Tawny Eagle morphs. Every eagle to my knowledge, bar a few such as the very mono-morphic Verreaux’s Eagle and Martial Eagle have odd morphs. Even the African Hawk Eagle juvenile has a pale morph in this part of Africa as yet un-described in literature. In most cases it is therefore best to assume that if one thinks one has seen a rare eagle, such as either the Lesser or Greater Spotted Eagle, or Eastern Imperial Eagle, to conclude that it is more likely to be a “rare” morph of a common species.

I took the Tawny Eagle home after a great lunch served on their verandah surrounded by a huge flock of wild Guineafowl. The view remains beautiful with distant mountains striding down towards the coast far to the east. The talk was one so typical of those deeply and more importantly personally involved in day to day wildlife issues and their conservation. David is the long standing chairman of the Machakos and Makueni Rancher Owners Association and the Machakos Wildlife Forum. He and Jane spoke of the need to make wildlife pay, otherwise it will go. This had been the main theme of the forum and it demonstrably worked well. When all rights were removed and no reward was possible for landowners the sale of plots was inevitable. The bush meat trade that blossomed as a result is totally out of control today. Short sighted and yet well intentioned “Band aid” solutions to problems typifies wildlife conservation policy in Kenya.

Such people who have vast practical experience must be heard and respected irrespective of the fact that what they say may not sound at first as pleasant solutions. As I drove back home, I still saw a beautiful land with so much potential for wildlife conservation that would benefit the people who “own” it. This part of Kenya is too valuable to loose.

I took the Tawny out of his box and put him in a large shed. I then retired to look at him from a distance. All his bravado left him. His shoulders sank and his head drooped, till he closed his eyes. He needs a lot of good food and at least a few days to gather his strength. But he will be fine, and I will soon release him.

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Tags: Rehabilitation, Release, Tawny Eagle

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Category: Raptors, Rehabilitation | Date: Sep 03 2008 | By: simonthomsett

On Wednesday the 28th of August, Vero’s left us for a new life in northern Kenya. Toby Dunn landed on the dusty strip near my house and Mwanzia, Jonathan and I loaded Vero’s into the back in a huge box. When he took off, Jonathan and Mwanzia silently watched the plane go until it was out of sight as I drove fast beneath it. I was fighting back tears.

Vero’s is a Verreaux’s Eagle, one of Africa’s three largest eagles. She is a true eagle, belonging to the Aquila group. The Golden Eagle of USA, Eurasia and Japan, the Steppe Eagle of Russia and China, the Tawny Eagle of Africa and India, and the Wedged tail Eagle of Australia, belong to this group. They are patchily distributed from Israel and Arabia, through to Chad and down eastern Africa into South Africa. That part of Africa shattered by the Great Rift Valley produced the habitat most favoured by this specialized eagle.

They are slope soarers without comparison. Their wings look like paddles, starting at the base shallow and broadening as it reaches the last 1/3rd then it tapers off to a sharp tip. In howling winds that would force a Peregrine to perch, they hold stationary sentinel over their rocky territory.

They are Rock Hyrax specialists. But while this may be true in some of their range, it is not the case in Kenya. Cliff environs harbour an array of different animals adapted to the epiphyte growth and tough scree terrain. The hyrax is of course at home here, but so are Klipspringers, large voles, mongoose, genet cats, hares and specific game birds. Such habitats also have thicket-dwelling animals like Dik Dik, bushbuck and duiker. All these are within the prey range of a Verreaux’s Eagle.

Vero’s comes from Lukenya hill, only a few kilometers from my former house. Each weekend, the hill is visited by rock climbers who own it. Each weekend, the raptors that live there are inevitably disturbed. While the Mt Club of Kenya has many members who minimize their impact on the cliffs, there is always the potential for disturbance. There had been repeated nesting failures of Verreaux’s, Lanner Falcons and Peregrine Falcons. I am never very good with people and cannot understand the need to climb a cliff for no very good reason. There is an element of machismo in the sport that may lead to ignoring everything but the task in hand. I have seen climbers being repeatedly dive bombed by distraught Lanners defending their tiny chicks. None bothered to question why. When informed one climber said so what, they owned the hill.

A few years prior to 1995, I experimented with “Abel rescue”. I had done so with Crowned Eagle and Augur Buzzards many years previously and saw the need to include climbers and students. It would be a good way for all of us to do good and create awareness. Most eagles (and Lammergeyers) lay two eggs, 3-9 days apart. They hatch asynchronously with one being very much more robust than the other. The larger individual will almost invariably kill the younger sibling. The younger sibling has a miniscule chance and that is to kill its old sibling. Only one chick survives. Cain killed his younger brother Abel, and the act of this siblicide use to be called “Cainism”. If you take one chick away immediately at the hatch of the second chick, you can raise it in captivity, and produce twice as many as otherwise would be the case. But the hand-raised chick you kept would be a human imprint. A permanent muddle, who will first take you as its parent, and when mature will try to copulate with you. Not good. Imprints can also be very aggressive towards whoever and whatever they think is competition. This may be a person, a dog or even a particular car. They can never be released into the wild. They may be befriended by a member of their species, but they will do their best to kill and eat it. Many rehabers forget or overlook this problem, raising lions for example that are mentally unable to adapt and be released.

When it comes to Abel rescue, I developed a technique that made sense but was physically demanding. Raise the chick in captivity for 10 days, take it back to its parents, swap it with the “wild” sibling. Take the “wild” one back. Raise that for 10 days. Take that back. ETC. Do this until they are 8 weeks old when they are large and nearly ready to fledge. Put them together and although they fight, they are equal combatants.
On two occasions I had the pleasure of seeing two young Verreaux’s flying around after their parents, and this raised awareness and concern among the rock climbers. I was later able to use this technique with one of the world’s rarest raptors, the Madagascar Fish Eagle.

In 1995, I was helped by a Mt Club member and his girlfriend. But when I went to put the eaglet into the nest at 8 weeks, I found that the nest was partly collapsed, two brand new carabiners were clipped one meter above the nest platform and the chick was not there. I concluded that rock climbers had stood on the nest, and the chick fell to its death. This was not the first time.

Vero’s nest

Vero’s aged 25 days lying prone and frightened having been with her parents for ten days. Bold chick is her sibling at the moment it was taken to the nest from being in captivity for ten days. At this age they will still fight and kill each other, so Vero’s (the frightened one) was taken away.

I put the nest edge up, a tough job considering it weighed more than 200lbs, and put the large chick into it. I returned the next day to see the nest empty. Abseiling a further 75ft to the bottom, I found her, bleeding profusely from shattered wing tip. Her left pinky talon had been torn out too.

I took her home and raised her. The broken growing flight feathers are turgid with blood, and if they break, the bird can bleed to death. Although I gave her a set of new feathers (imping), it was a year before she was able to fly well.

I very seldom have eyasses (a falconry term for a chick taken from the nest), because I disapprove, and never take birds for my own enjoyment. Eyasses are bumbling babies and although very easy to manage and fly, take a long time to get hunting and are poor candidates for release. Vero’s was fortunately a borderline nutcase. She was not imprinted on humans, but only just. Over the years I flew her on hill sides where she was joined by others. She knows only too well that she is a Verreaux’s Eagle, showing an appalling flirtatious side once to an embarrassed male.

I do not live in Verreaux’s Eagle habitat now, but far out on a flat plain. Here she is limited in her repertoire of flight maneuvers. She can thermal however. This is terrifying to watch. If flown at 3.30pm, the thermals are still very active. She will sit on her perch looking upwind. A distant whirlwind or dust devil will excite her. I am sure she sees them in a different way. I understand that American red tailed hawks can see infra-red and thus see rising columns of hot air. I think she does too. Into these she flies and in one or two violent swings she is mounting the wind high up into the sky. Verreaux’s love being tossed around by violent air. Their wings snap in and out and they enjoy tumbling sideways with their legs dangling. So does Vero. On one occasion, she ended up out of sight and vanished. I drove about 90km that day and finally found her on a fence post near our then Vice Presidents’ private house on Kitengela! She is not particularly afraid of strangers and was in danger of being killed.

The years seem to have gone by very easily with Vero’s. She never was a problem. When I had volunteers here years ago it was possible to fly her at hares, using the car. She once took a young Thomson’s Gazelle, and was very nearly killed by its mother as she blind sided Vero’s at top speed with her head down. The holes were very deep and gurgled air. It had punctured her air sacs. Ever since then she has had an irrational fear of Thomson’s Gazelles, until 2006-07, when she killed two full grown females. As usual I let her fly off in the afternoon to a “T” perch some 300m from the house. She sat there as I walked out to meet her. But I noticed she was standing tall on tip toe staring at something. She took off flying low and fast. I thought it was the Ground Squirrel, a veteran escapologist. She flew on and at about 400 m I saw a female Tommie standing looking right at her. She took it head on and they went down. I ran to the spot and could see nothing. I stood still to listen. Surely there would be a commotion? Nothing. I saw her swelled with pride and stretched out before her a huge gazelle, with stiff and straight limbs. The limbs went limp, then they started to kick, and thrash wildly. It was dead, quicker than any cheetah kill. The other Tommie was taken on the run, but again it was remarkably easy. One flight she started from about 400ft high. She stooped straight into the ground about half a kilometer distant, and in a second came thundering across the grass tops diagonal to me. The speed was inconceivable. Her wings were tight to her body, and as she went past me she started to pump them quickly and close to her body. Then she swept up onto the sky vertically, looking hard between her legs, and fell back into the grass. 10 ft away a Thomson’s Gazelle jumped up and ran. When I got there she was taking her anger out on a huge rock. She had missed. But she had displayed a strategy. From high above she launched her attack, not straight at it, but hidden at low level. She had memorized the approach, flying at something unseen. She had messed up and she was furious.

She would fly to school kids and must have landed on the arm of at least a thousand. Sometimes in the crowd, there is a particular person who angered her. Usually they have that inner city rolling way of walking. Cap turned backwards,and a zip somewhere between their knees. Woe betides the one wearing an Ipod earpiece. They will be attacked. She hates tall people too. Sometimes I have to ask these people to stay behind.
I know that many people delighted in seeing her, and having her fly to them. But there is something sad about it all. She is always a faithful backup, for “the bird talk” but I grew to feel that I had let her down.

Vero’s flying to Laila

Last year, when I had to make up my mind to leave I had hoped to release her into the wild, near where I released Duchess the Crowned Eagle. But the social unrest we experienced at the end of last year and beginning of this year put an end to those plans. Vero’s by eagle standards is not old or even middle aged. She has many years ahead of her.

When the word got out that I was leaving, Martin Wheeler contacted me asking if I had any birds he could take on. His school teacher at Falcon College in Zimbabwe was an old colleague of mine. Ron Hartley tragically died a few years ago, and left a deep hole in African raptor research and conservation. Ron had said that Martin was a Kenyan falconer, and surely I knew him? I did not. Now Martin appeared at just the right moment. He works at Tassia Lodge in Il Ngwesi north of Lewa Downs on a community run sanctuary. The lodge is set in the side of a hill. Just the sort of place that would suit Vero’s.

On the 28th Aug, Martin received Vero’s. He has been kind enough to keep in touch to tell me of her progress. This morning as I made my cup of coffee by the kitchen window I subconsciously expected that Vero’s was staring back at me from her perch. Until that is, I looked up to check.

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Tags: Eagle, Vero's, Verreaux's

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Category: Raptors, Rehabilitation | Date: Aug 21 2008 | By: simonthomsett

On the 8th August, I returned with Rosy from his eye exam at Kikuyu. It was late afternoon and Rosy was still dopey from being anesthetised. I went, as usual, to release Tim and Lucy, the pair of Lanner Falcons, for their afternoon flight. They had a set routine, rushing off together and sometimes fighting, until they reach the windmill about 1km from the house. There, Lucy likes to jump into the muddy runoff and have a bathe and drink. Then, she and Tim perch (shamefully) in the only exotic tree in the entire region……an ugly Pepper Tree.

Lucy

They either wait here until I catch up, or go off causing havoc among the Crowned Plovers. The plovers go through the same routine each afternoon, and will even rise up in mock panic when I appear without the falcons. Nothing ever happens to them for they are much to clued-up.

On this evening, however, I had to sit with Rosy holding his head up so that he could breathe easily. I often leave the falcons to their own devises and as darkness approaches, stand outside and yell for them to return. There was one thing slightly different from usual. Tim took off after a Black Shouldered Kite and bullied him to drop a mouse he had just caught. I saw this happening down wind of the house. I had Rosy in my arms and was unable to walk around the back of the house quick enough to see what happened next. Tim had the mouse in his talons and was being pursued by Lucy, who had piracy on her mind. The next thing I knew, Tim was coming back empty handed. Lucy had gone, no doubt carrying the mouse off to eat it in peace.

A few years ago I had two passage female Lanners that would consistently chase Black Shouldered Kites and pirate prey from them. They got to be so complacent that they would fly off and sit in a bush waiting. From as far as a few kilometers they would start the chase. It is termed klepto–parasitism, in fancy English. Anyway it ruined every day outing, and ended up with the two of them zooming off on their own to a life of thievery.

Lucy never came back. I wrote to Laila to tell her that Tim was sad, and she responded by asking how I knew that, claiming I might be anthropomorphizing (again!). The way I can tell is that Tim now doesn’t sit on his night perch as before…….closer to Lucy’s side. During his flights out, he never goes up wind to the windmill, but goes straight like an arrow far downwind and out of sight, in the direction we last saw Lucy. Sometimes he is out for hours and I suspect a secret affair, or at least I hope so. He did this yesterday too, now a week later.

Lucy

I had hoped Tim and Lucy would be a pair, and managing them this way would, I am sure, oblige them at some point to become a territory holding breeding pair. It is still far too early for this to happen, although Tim and Lucy were beginning to moult into their adult plumage. I am happy that Lucy did the predictable. She is very fit. A few days before she and Tim snagged a full grown Yellow-neck. Tim overhauled and hit it hard, and Lucy came in behind and tackled it to the ground. I ran up to see the francolin already dead, and Lucy being rather badly behaved towards Tim who ran around trying to get his share.

Lucy has the best chance now. She would have died in her cage had she not been given this chance, which she was always (like Tim) free to take. I have no misgivings about loosing her and wish her well. She may return.

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Category: Black Sparrowhawk, Raptors, Rehabilitation | Date: Aug 20 2008 | By: simonthomsett

The small male Black Sparrowhawk with spinal injuries died recently. Quasimodo was very ill. On post mortem, I noted that the urates were hard and granular with bleeding extending from his kidneys to the vent. He had always a history of difficulty in defecating. For the first few months, he had to have a moist cotton bud inserted in the vent to excise the feces and urates.

When I was away in Costa Rica, he was put in a low and quiet shed to moult. He moulted nicely, and when I returned I was happy to see him sporting a new white chest and a good array of smart tail feathers. I went inside the shed with him and he jumped onto my fist for food as always. It seemed to me that the uncoordinated limbs were much improved, and for a moment I thought he may one day recover completely. Spinal injuries in animals can sometimes take years to resolve. I tickled his toes and noted he pulled away only on one side.

Quasimodo

When showing a couple around the birds, I noticed Quasimodo behaving in a frantic manner. He jumped to the floor and ran around in an excited manner. Later that evening, he looked composed as ever, one foot up as night fell.

The next day I had to bring a vet from KWS to see Rosy, but as I entered the ranch, my cell phone rang. It was Jonathan who said I must come quickly as Quasimodo was very sick. I arrived 5 minutes later to find him dead.

He had defecated pure blood, and his vent was damp and soiled. I held him in shock for this was totally unexpected. There had been no prior indication of ailing health. No time to check him over and start therapy. He was a very special hawk. Unlike his kind (which are usually aloof and hard headed), he was exceptionally kind natured. He would fly any distance to follow me around on long walks. Always clumsy, sometimes crashing into objects and my hand, he clearly became a pet of sorts. I knew he would be in captivity all his life, but I hoped it would be long and fruitful. He’d have made a dashing suitor for a young lady Sparrowhawk.

It appears that the back fracture was in the ilium, the fused area of the lower back where the kidneys are protected in a sheath of bone. This would explain his renal problem and the partial paralysis of his legs. It seems likely that the function of the kidneys was impaired and that a haemorrhage had led to his death.

I have dealt with many deaths. You have to in this business. Usually it is not shared. But with this blog, I, perhaps unwisely, chose to share his story with others. I think I might have written cautiously about his prospects from the start, so as not to upset anyone in case he died.

Sketch of Quasimodo (By S Thomsett)

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