Bird Atlassing in Kora, Mwingi and Meru

The wild and dry east is currently the least-covered area on the Kenya Bird Map. It's remoteness and relative insecurity being key reasons for this. To try and increase the coverage of this area, we conducted a four-day bird mapping trip to Kora National Park and its environs at the end of May. It was …

Using Major Roads to Cover Unmapped Pentads on the Kenya Bird Map

During our 2018 series on The Current Status of Kenya's Bird Atlas, many of the major gaps in coverage that were highlighted appeared very difficult to reach due to their remoteness. Kenya is, however, a rapidly developing country and there is a fairly decent road network in most parts of the country today. These roads …

The Current Status of Kenya’s Bird Atlas: Part 7 of 7 – The East

We have come to the final part of our assessment of the current coverage of the Kenya Bird Map. We end our assessment with what is no doubt the wildest, remotest and most hostile part of Kenya - the east. This is also, by far, the least explored part of the country, mainly due to …

The Current Status of Kenya’s Bird Atlas: Part 6 of 7 – The North

As we continue analyzing the current coverage of the Kenya Bird Map, we now shift focus to northern Kenya. This is another major section of Kenya's dry county, dominated by dry savannahs, scrubland and deserts. Several of the dryland endemic and near-endemic birds of the Somali-Masai biome already mentioned in the previous post on southern …

The Current Status of Kenya’s Bird Atlas: Part 5 of 7 – The South

Our analysis of the coverage of the Kenya Bird Map continues with southern Kenya. The three areas we have looked at so far (the central highlands, the coast and the west) all lie within high rainfall zones. As we switch our focus to southern Kenya, we are now moving away from these green zones and …

The Current Status of Kenya’s Bird Atlas: Part 4 of 7 – The West

Western Kenya, like the coast, hosts a large number of species found nowhere else in Kenya. The rich bird faunas of this region are mainly associated with the Lake Victoria Basin and the Guinea-Congo Forests biomes, both of which only barely extend into Kenya. A few species of the Sudan-Guinea Savanna biome of northern Africa, …

The Current Status of Kenya’s Bird Atlas: Part 3 of 7 – The Coast

Our look at the current coverage of Kenya on the Kenya Bird Map continues with the coast. This area is special because it hosts many bird species that are not found anywhere else in Kenya. These are endemic and near-endemic species of the Zanzibar-Inhambane Coastal Forest Mosaic that extends across nearly the entire coast of …

The Current Status of Kenya’s Bird Atlas: Part 2 of 7 – The Central Highlands

As stated in our previous blog post, over the next few weeks we will be assessing the coverage so far achieved on the Kenya Bird Map - Kenya's current bird atlas project. The first area of the country that we will take a close look at is the central highlands. This region includes the capital city, …

Using the Bird Atlas to Monitor and Control the Invasive House Crow

It is a known fact that the House Crow (Corvus splendens), also called the Indian House Crow, is a serious threat to native birds in Kenya. Being an introduced invasive species from Asia, it is outcompeting several native Kenyan birds and displacing them from nesting and feeding areas. It is still largely confined to the …

The importance of submitting Full Protocol cards on a regular basis (even for already mapped pentads)

Have a look at the Kenya Bird Map coverage map and you will notice that most of the covered pentads have less than 3 full protocol cards submitted (yellow or orange color). 4 is the minimum number of cards needed for bird records from a pentad to be analyzed scientifically beyond just the presence/absence of …