Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 08 2009 | By: Martin Odino

Dear readers, we are in the coldest month in Kenya, July; of course not as cold as the temperate lands where it gets to single digits with a non digit negative symbol to the left but even with the maintenance of our tropical double temperature digits in a majority of places, it is in deed cold by our stands. However, even with the dipping temperatures, not all places are enjoying the beauty of change from scorching heat to coolness that for the tropical inhabitants prompts wearing of cold-meant, winter jackets, of course many are brought in the country from Four seasons experincing temperate lands and sold to Kenyans as second hand clad.

Well, I have made it a mandatory routine as a field worker to listen to weather forecasting as broadcasted by local radio stations in the mornings prior to getting out in the field. This suppliments my wonderful judgement but sometimes either gets me drenched in a downpour or dehydrated in the solar’s heat. My assistant Joseph is a blessing in this case since his predictions are almost always perfect. Nonetheless, it appears temperatures are only cool in Nairobi and in the highlands only which average 20 to 24 degrees centigrade, elsewhere it is the routine tropical heat: Mwea would as hot as 30 degrees centigrades by 0900hrs; Ahero and Kisumu has you wearing a T-shirt only by about the same time while in Bunyala you wake up feeling hot! may be land breeze overnight from the nearby Lake Victoria but even then the breeze does not seem to warm up the Bunyala landmass but virtually heats it up to uncomfortable post 30 degrees centigrades temperatures, and we say this is July!

The Bunyala early sunrise that elevates the temperatures further from early hours

So as I look at the birds and pity their struggle by luck to escape poisoning by the day. An even keener look and you realise you are looking at poor creatures wrestling beyond just poisoning: global warming? not making things any better!

In Ahero, I had difficulties looking at birds which I felt I knew their identity but for some reason something was odd about them that impeded my iddentifiication. Aha! I realized it was their colouration. A number of brightly coloured species feathers’ are so worn out, compounded furher by the freely burning su’s UV rays that have bleached their feathers to an unrecognizable colour unassociated with the species. Check out the bird below. I forwarded it to a number of people and even a veteran ornithologist friend was puzzled and ended up with a way off guess!

The puzzle bird! Bleached to cream where he should be red

Another bleached individual and will be like the one above in a matter of time

Well this is the normal colour of its colleague in comparably fresher plumage. A Southern Red Bishop.

Look at these individuals. They are gaping their beaks not in calling out but to hyperventilate and boost their heat loss from the smoother membranes in their mouths down their gullets to the hotter inside of their bodies.

Gaping Long-toed Plovers

Going to the species that I described as ‘new’ in Bunyala-the Long-tailed Nightjar- yet vulnerable to the expanding Bunyala Rice Scheme and possible increase in Furadan use in the post Furadan Availability and Expansion of Rice Growing Area; A Major Conservation Threat in Bunyala the bird may have just come this far from its area of known occurence in North Western Kenya. The birds southerly movements are known not to get beyond the southern end of Lake Turkana. North Western Kenya is predominantly arid but with this intense heat and dry conditions, may be its habitat conditions now rhyme (or have become more severe) with the conditions in Bunyala which is just about exactly the northern shore of Lake Victoria in Kenya. It just means Bunyala has become drier and hotter!Yes, it must be global warming!

The Long-tailed Nightjar. Check it out keenly because the bird is camouflaged perfectly in the underbush shade. The head is to the left of the photo, the beak partly obscured by the a blade of grass while the long tail extends into the photo towards the right.

Even I have to sit down sometimes as early as 0800hrs to regain control given the dizzying effect of the heat. It is not yet 0900 hours but my light changing spectacles are dark from the bright, heat radiating sun this early!

And so it is a tough struggle and with all this, a poacher armed to the teeth with Furadan lurks in some nook only to pop up and claim these poor creatures lives.

Keep reading please.

Tags: Ahero, Bunyala, Kenya, Mwea