Taita Hills – Kenya

It was impressively quiet when we entered the forest at Taita Hills. No bugs singing; No birds chirping. The forest was almost totally silent. The sounds of our footsteps in the leaves was all we had to pierce through the intense calm. And then a motorbike would go by to remind us that we weren’t very far off of the main road. The remnant patches of forest high on the mountain aren’t really remote at all. The forest has been cleared on all sides and human settlements have been erected in close proximity. There’s nowhere for these birds to go. And then we heard the sounds of an axe against a tree along with human voices, an acute reminder that the forest isn’t getting any bigger, and that humans rely on the forest for resources, even after chopping the majority of it down. If only we, as a species, would have learned how to utilize the forest in a sustainable way so that future generations would have access to it and how to share it with all living creatures. The largest fragments of forest that are left are located in the most inaccessible areas where cropping and grazing is difficult. At least the little that is left is now protected, all 6 km2 worth (2.3 sq mi).

The Taita Hills have been the subject of many years of research. As part of the Eastern Arc Mountains where there is a high level of endemism, three species of birds call this particular mountain home and are found nowhere else in the world. With great conservation effort, this forest has now become a reserve where it is managed and protected. In fact, it is not getting any smaller and there are efforts in place to actually plant native trees and expand, although there isn’t much room to actually expand to, but I suppose every little bit helps. The people we heard in the forest with an axe weren’t actually supposed to be doing what they were doing.
We met Jonam, a forestry service member, on the side of the road and agreed to spend the following morning walking the trails with him in hopes he could show us a good location to search for Taita Apalis. We already had found Taita White-eye and Taita Thrush on our own; Those two are the easy ones. Taita Apalis sure gave us a run around, but in the end, after 2 hours of searching, we found a responsive pair.
We only spent an afternoon and a morning in the Taita Hills, but six hours of birding was all we needed to see the specialties, and while birding the remainder of the afternoon could have been enjoyable, we opted to move forward and hopefully gain a day back on our itinerary.

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