The Best Views in all of Kenya – Aberdare NP

A tale of old birds, new birds, car troubles, and surprise bonuses.
It wouldn’t be a new bird for the “life list” because we had heard it before and already included it onto an eBird list in the past. We count birds we are able to identify and sometimes that includes birds identified by sound. It doesn’t mean we don’t want to see them though. So we made a special stop at a known stakeout for Mackinder’s Eagle-owl (a subspecies of Cape Eagle Owl) to try our hand at finding it on its roost and actually get to see the bird. We found multiple roost sites, clearly once used evidenced by droppings on site, but no luck. We didn’t have long to dedicate to this process or maybe we could have eventually turned the owl up. Or maybe not; owls can really conceal themselves when they want to stay hidden. Instead we needed to move forward during the daylight hours in hopes we could get our next three targets quickly and return back for the owl at night. Wishful thinking. Originally we hoped to enter Aberdare National Park and search for our three main targets, Aberdare Cisticola, Scarlet-tufted Sunbird, and Elgon’s Francolin in the high elevation moorland that afternoon.
Instead we found out we couldn’t pay at the gate with VISA or cash like the website says and only could pay using MPESA, Kenya’s version of Venmo/Paypal. After 40 minutes of painful deliberation explaining that we did not have MPESA and wanted to pay with either cash or VISA, we eventually were let inside with the plan to meet a park official with a VISA card reader at the top to pay. Instead, nearly to the top of of the massive climb in elevation, our truck refused to climb any further with the dashboard reading “reduced power mode.” We hopped out, heard some weird sounds, opened the hood, and found our radiator coolant was boiling over. Steam, hissing, drips. We weren’t sure what to do but going forward up hill with a vehicle weighing close to 5,000lbs (2,267kg) seemed like a bad idea. With only 5km until we reached our destination, we were forced to turn around and drive 70km back to town. After letting the car sit for a few minutes to cool off, downhill gave us no issues. On the bright side, at least we could stop for the Mackinder’s Eagle-owl on our way back, and this time it was dark and we witnessed the owl fly across the farm field and perch on the adjacent rocky cliff.
That night we wound up meeting a random mechanic who assured us that changing the coolant would solve the problem, which he did on the side of the street because he didn’t seem to have an actual garage, and we spent the night camping in a parking lot amongst broken glass shards and a graveyard of run down, junk cars, left lying around only to be used as scrap parts some day. Talk about nice accommodations!

Aberdare National Park, located in central Kenya, is a high elevation, alpine moorland, surely offering some of the most stunning mountain views in all of Africa. Although it might best be known as the site where Princess Elizabeth found out she was Queen when she learned about the death of her father, King George VI, whilst staying at the Treetops Hotel. We woke up early to be at the park at dawn and were greeted by a clear sky sunrise over Mount Kenya and golden morning light bouncing off the massive rocky cliffs. Truly it was a beautiful sight to behold. The morning was made even better because the hardest bird, Elgon’s Francolin, one we likely would have dipped had it not been for Stratton Hatfield giving Ross amazing information, waltzed right in. We watched in amazement as the chicken-like birds ran up and down a grassy trail. But perhaps yesterday’s unexpected issues were a foreshadowing of how we would spend the rest of our time. What we thought would be the hardest bird of the morning proved to be the easiest and what we thought would be the easiest, Aberdare’s Cisticola, seemed to be eerily absent and we spent hours without ever even hearing one call. Instead of wasting more time in this area of the park, we succumbed to driving over to the southern section where most birding groups see the bird. Unfortunately the mountainous terrain makes it difficult to traverse the park from North to South so instead we had to leave the park, drive down the escarpment, drive back up on the other side, and enter through a different gate. At least our car seemed to handle the massive climb just fine and once we arrived we quickly found our last remaining target, Aberdare’s Cisticola. We then watched as rain, and then a hail storm, ruined whatever chances we had left of birding the afternoon. Thankfully we didn’t have any more important bird targets and I was even able to talk Ross into a brief waterfall visit before leaving.