We’ve given several people back home the ability to track our location via google. Ross joked as we drove that anyone who checked last night and noticed that we were in Southern Kenya near the border with Tanzania and then checked this morning and saw we were in Central Kenya, would be confused. In case you were unaware, a lot of driving makes a trip like this possible. It was a casual 8-hour road trip to Mount Kenya with arguably two of the hardest birds next up on the agenda: Olive Ibis and Abbott’s Starling.
The best place to see these birds is Castle Lodge. Castle Forest Lodge happens to be located deep in the thick forest on the southern slopes of Mount Kenya. The natural surroundings of rainforest, fresh water rivers, and a fabulous view of the valley make this the perfect location to scan the tops of trees for perched starlings and the rivers perfect to find secretive ibis. In fact, it’s really the only reliable place to find these two very rare birds.
Olive Ibis at dawn 
taking a break 
Waller’s Starling 
Perched Olive Ibis 
Hunter’s Cisticola
Trees are so many things to so many creatures, humans included: a home, a source of food, a reusable resource. I’ve always been amazed by them. But certain trees, like the one I stood under to search for Abbott’s Starling leave me with an even bigger sense of awe. First of all the tree was massive in both girth and sheer height. Second of all, it looked old. So old that when it was just a young tree I know the world was a totally different place. It’s humbling. Unfortunately no rare starlings were calling this tree home this year. At least just before dawn we had stunning views of four Olive Ibis! Olive Ibis are secretive birds found along rivers and we managed to see them fly in to a tree not far from where we were standing. Not everyone gets perched views of this one! The rest of our day was filled with scanning the tops of trees hoping that something other than a Waller’s Starling or Cinnamon-chested Bee-eater would perch up to no avail. We spent the night in our roof top tent and then the following morning continued our search, but this time we didn’t see or hear any ibis and the starlings remained absent.
We opted to drive further north and return on a later date, hoping that a few days away might be enough time for Abbott’s Starling to relocate to the areas we could see from the main road up to the lodge. Unfortunately, when we came back a few days later (after a trip to the north), it was another repeat miss! A consolation prize was even better views of Olive Ibis. We got to enjoy them for over 45 minutes from a snag above the river! I didn’t think our views could get better, but these secretive birds just seemed content to hang out with us.
In the end we spent a total of an afternoon, two full days, and a morning at Castle Lodge but never managed to find Abbott’s Starling despite finding multiple fruiting trees chalk full of birds. A friend had told us to scan through the flocks of Sharpe’s Starlings to find Abbott’s but we never found a single Sharpe’s to begin with! Wherever the birds were they weren’t here. Sadly it was famine when it came to starlings and we effectively missed our second endemic bird in East Africa.