Starlings and students

Jambo! Another beautiful day in Kenya!

This morning, we awoke early at 5:30 AM for a brief stroll around the Mpala Research Centre to spot birds. I’ll leave the specific bird species we identified to the group’s ornithologists, but suffice to say, there were scads of them! As the sun rose, it was amazing to see how quickly vegetation is returning after the rains that we’ve had here. Grass is growing quickly, the acacia’s are beginning to bloom, and both the people and wildlife are clearly glad to see the rains return.

After breakfast, Wilson took us around Mpala to visit the superb starling nesting sites that he is studying. Throughout the day, we talked about the ecological role that glades play in the area. Of course, we saw all sorts of wildlife as we visited the starling sites, including dung beetles, thousands of ants marching back to their colony, each carrying a termite for the food stores, and best of all, we saw our first elephants! You have to understand that the landscape is littered with evidence of elephants: broken acacia trees that they have decided to eat, footprints, and I’m sure that you can imagine what else! We all thought for certain we would see loads of them, but until today, they’ve been quite elusive.

We had lunch, and then went to the Mpala Primary School with Wilson to observe the Conservation Club that he runs for grades 4 and 5. The club began with a short lesson on the characteristics of birds, and then the children went out to search for birds, evidence of birds, and examples of bird behavior.

Going to the school was an eye opening experience. I don’t think our students have a real grasp of how fortunate they are in the U.S. From their clothing, to the class size, the facilities, and the school supplies: These are clearly two different worlds.

We rounded out the evening with Wilson as our guide on a night game drive. Although we did not see a large number of species, we found some new animals that we hadn’t yet seen, including bat-eared foxes and an aardwolf.

Tomorrow we are off to Ol Pejeta Nature Conservancy where we will be staying at the Sweetwater Tented Camps for the next several days.

Kwaheri