Dear readers. Apologies for my long silence and thank you all for your well wishes while I waas sick. I am well and on my feet at last and in Ahero Rice Scheme. We have Furadan here!..and certainly confirmed Swine Flu in the backyard that is Kisumu Town!

Ahero is to the East and about 30 kilometres from Kenya’s largest Lake Victoria urban centre otherwise Kisumu City. I arrived in the small hours of the morning yesterday and rashly got a place that I will be coming to in the evening for the few days that I will be out here.

In the field, I got off the vehicle at the wrong stage. I thought it was fun because I always do bird surveys whenever and wherever. One local old man told me I was ‘20 shillings away’ from Ahero Rice Scheme. I chose to look at my birds and walk the ‘20 shillings ‘away and stretch my joints that just a few days back were stiffened by Malaria. Interesting diversity and soon I was at the expanse that is the Ahero rice growing fields.

A Rufous-bellied Heron not a common species unless you are in Kenya’s western flood plains

Ahero Rice Scheme

Checking around there were no signs of harvesting or planting which would correspond with large congregations of birds and poachers attracted to poison the birds. A samaritan noticed my frustration and informed me there was some planting in two of the so called blocks (a collection of plots assigned an alphabetic letter); he poijnted to one in the East and the other in the West.I decided to walk East.

Marveling at a large flock of grey-crowned cranes, some spoon bills and a Yellow-billed Stork, young boys herding cattle came to me and asked to use , rather be taught to use my binoculars. They asked me what I was doingand I told them Iwas looking at birds. One of them then asked me if I was looking for ‘birds to eat’ and I said I would not mind seeing those as well. He sighed that my timing was wrong and wish I had come at planting or harvesting time.

Close up of the large flock of gre-crowned Cranes

African Spoonbills

New friends in the field!The boys having a good time with my binoculars; part of the crowd that generously gave me information about Furadan in Ahero

I sought details from the boys and the small crowd of men that gathered about me in curiosity. I admired their honesty, looking at poisoning as if it is a normal traditional game hunting method. “We use Faradam” Faradam is the corrupted version of the name Furadan. I was infact corrected that it is not ‘Furadan’ but ‘Faradam’, so I adopted the term to get as much information as possible.

“It kills every bird and is very toxic. You must eviscerate the digetsive system, put it on dry heat and when all the tissue fluids have drained, proceed on to cook and you wont die”, one man gave details of preparation of poisoned birds. At about that time, a Peregrine Falcon casually soared overhead, hunting for doves I would bet which flew in scattered directions for their lives. One of the children called it by local name ‘Otenga’, actually the general name for raptor in traditional Luo dialect. The boy said that at home, they put ‘Faradam on Ogwal’ (Ogwal is frog in Luo) and the raptors that feed on their chicken drop dead as soon as they are done with the frog meal. I guessed this raptor may be the black kite which is a scavenger but who knows for sure? the kids insisted on a painting iin my book that was a Goshawk.

So much for the details on Furadan use for poisoning birds,I now sought to know where I can get the poison because I was curious to see the poison that could get meat on the table so easily. The boys and men for once got totally engaged in Luo language in a constructive debate of where I could easily get Furadan, sorry Faradam for now! I missed the broken Kiswahili that I can pick words and make out what the sentences are all about. However I got ‘Ahero’ and Board’. I asked if they were saying that I can get the poison at the irrrigation board and at Ahero shopping Center?

I was right. The older boy however explained that I would need to know somebody at the board to get it faster from me at the irrigation board and lately many people had opted to buy it from Ahero where the smallest pack costs Ksh. 150. The figure is not so outlying from my earlier surveys elsewhere in the country. Only a little higher which may be explains the scarcity of the commodity.

So Furadan is in Ahero and it is shocking that unlike the other sites I have been to where the name furadan sends chills to the people and rouses their curiosity against me, in Ahero it is just another commodity for poisoning birds and more shocking not at all known as a pesticidde!