Referred as the “Green City Under the Sun”, Nairobi is a beautiful, modern African city of 4.3 million people with an additional 6.5 million within the metropolitan area.
Home to a massive National Park, which is a refuge for significant populations of birds and animals, it also boasts parks and forests with diverse populations of birds. Like many modern cities in the developing world, it faces significant challenges with slums, traffic, and crime. But it is also a contemporary cosmopolitan, World City… full of life, culture, and friendly, enterprising people.
A little over twenty kilometers from downtown Nairobi's Kenyan Parliament, and only ten kilometers from the National Park main entrance lies our quaint villa home in the suburb of Karen. Within a kilometer of the highly threatened Dagoretti Forest, our villa shares a five-acre compound with five other small cottages. The four acres, between the road and the homes, consists of a large field and woodlands mostly with seventy-year-old eucalyptus trees standing 80 to 100 feet tall. They were planted to soak the water of what were then marsh-like fields and are now considered a noxious invasive species. However, the smell is enticing after a soaking rain! The field is often used in the evening by passing cattle, goats and sheep brought by Masai herders on their way to a nearby slaughterhouse. This keeps the grass and weeds down lending a perfect landscape to create a .2-kilometer track for exercise. In addition, the cows provide ever changing obstacles helping us stay diligent as we navigate our worn track.
Along the edge of this field is a rough dirt drive punctuated with rocks and lined with iconic Acacia trees providing a magical natural tunnel as we approach the inner compound occupying the last acre. It is here where we and our neighbors reside.
Our three-bedroom villa was first built in the 1950’s towards the end of British Colonial rule in Kenya and remodeled at least four separate times. The arbitrary construction exhibits a Mediterranean architectural style with an East African flair. The interior is dark but inviting with large arched walls defining each of the main rooms. A large stone fireplace in the main room remains a warm decoration by this Pacific Northwest soul who has never seen it cold enough for its use…. Not even close. The remodels are very easily seen, even by the untrained eye. A step up to another level, slanted tiles and quirky, undulating roof lines only add to the villa’s unique, rustic charm. Its undeniable quirkiness evokes fun in every corner which we furnished with beautifully designed hand-crafted pieces to match the whimsical charm of our Nairobi home.
However, the greatest charm is the private yard and patio surrounding our villa. The tiled patio with a veranda and rustic breakfast counter is our entryway from our carport and the community driveway. An impressive stone wall with old caps and décor reminds you of Italian renaissance ruins. Most mornings, Juliet or I will peruse the shamba for the latest vegetables and herbs awaiting our use for breakfast. The Kiswahili word shamba is any cultivated ground, whether a large farm or a simple garden. This is where families grow vegetables or fruit producing trees alongside their dwellings… sometimes for subsistence… sometimes for the market.
Within our shamba grow pawpaw (papaya) and bananas with quarterly rotations of spinach, kale, beets, dhania, carrots, pumpkin, pili pili (hot peppers), hoho (sweet peppers) and other traditional vegetables on the ground below… a perpetually wet drainage ditch flows alongside the shamba having replaced a marshy creek that existed long ago. On the patio are pots of various herbs and lavender used regularly in our culinary delights. The grounds surrounding our shamba have boxwood and rosemary topiaries representing chairs, tables, and benches. The yard is punctuated year-round with blooming flowers and shrubs including Juliet’s favorite “yesterday, today and tomorrow”. A large evergreen poinsettia blooms year-round without biased towards the Christmas season. Like our surrounding acreage, our smaller compound has an abundance of stately evergreen trees including cypress, mango, and loquat. But the greatest of these trees is the massive Crimson Bottlebrush…Endemic to Australia, this tree stands six meters (20+ feet) tall with trunks reaching out like a starfish, revealing massive weeping branches of spindly leaves and brilliant red flowers resembling… you guessed it… bottlebrushes.
We are told this tree was planted prior to the construction of our villa and in many ways the villa and the bottlebrush are visually one. Blooming three times a year, this tree is always home to sunbirds, weavers, sparrows, finches, and an occasional raptor disrupting the harmony of all other birds. A haven for dozens of bird species outside our Kenyan doorstep. We wake in the morning, watching birds come and go throughout the day until the sun sets... every day before 7:00 PM, providing beautiful memories and sometime dramatic moments of entertainment. Finding one of the hottest birding spots in Kenya isn’t difficult… All we do is look out our bedroom window.
One of our most common visitors is the large Holub's Golden Weaver (Ploceus xanthops). A naturally noisy bird who isn't afraid to grab a maize kernel or sunflower seeds from an unattended plate. With its distinctive scratchy "chirp", this beautiful bird is easy to attract to the yard and identify without much effort. Like many bird species, the Holub's Golden
Weaver does not actually blink. It has an almost transparent eyelid (nictating membrane) that crosses over the pupils from the back. The wonderful thing about this weaver is that it posed long enough to take a photo with of the "blink".
The Cape Robin-chat (Dessonomis caffra) is one of several Robin-chats found in the Nairobi area. Unlike the other species, the belly is grey and the songs not as melodic.
Gregarious and common, we usually find it hoping in and out of the shrubs or bottlebrush, bouncing from the ground to the top of our compound wall. This omnivore chooses both seeds and insects for its meals both on the ground and in the trees, sometimes pushing other birds out of the way.
There are more than twenty species of weavers in Kenya. One of the most common, and most confusing to identify is the Baglafecht Weaver (Ploceus baglafecht). The Reichenow's race (previously identified as a separate species) mature male is most distinctive with a bandit mask and yellow crest, however, the female and immature males with the black heads are like the Stuhlman's race of both genders, creating a challenge in those geographic areas where both races exist.
In our villa, these weavers are Reichenow's. Weavers build tightly woven nests in the bushier trees such as acacia or cypress. This female, above, looks ready to attack or she may be
simply curious about the camara! Meanwhile, a male Baglafecht Weaver surveys the ground and the trees for weaving material to construct the nest.
One afternoon brought high drama when a young Baglafecht weaver attacked a Parrot-billed Sparrow (Passer gongonesis). With Juliet snapping photos, they were evenly matched with each getting the better of the other throughout the two-minute skirmish ending as it started with both flying off into the trees above.
The Parrot-billed Sparrow is not a fan of highly populated areas; however, we have seen them here in our villa several times. They are like the Northern Grey-headed Sparrow (Passer griseus) but are larger and darker grey throughout the body without white on chin.
The Common Waxbill (Estrida astrild) is a little bird that frequents the villa compound. Its red-masked eyes and finely barred breast blend into the brilliant crimson flower of the bottlebrush. The related waxbills, firefinches, mannikins and cordon-bleus are plentiful throughout Kenya providing colorful accents to an already rich environment.
A less frequent visitor to the compound is the striking Yellow-bellied Waxbill (Coccopygia quartinia) with a chirp significantly high pitch which equates to distant ringing in the ears!
The common Red-billed Firefinch (Lagonosticta senegala) can fit inside a small teacup. But there is nothing delicate about this beautiful, diminutive bird. They will easily push out other birds when feeding or bathing in the shamba stream and have no problem with human co-existence. Sexual dimorphism, the distinct difference between the sexes of the same species, is clearly displayed with this species. To attract a mate, the adult male sports bright crimson plummage and vivid red eyes trimmed with yellow. Capable of hiding and nesting in the bush, the female exhibits coffee brown with hints of crimson throughout. Both show tiny white spots on the belly and breast.
We have found the social Bronze Mannikin (Spermestes cucullate scutate) most everywhere we have been in Kenya. This is specifically the adult scutate race with dark head, blue-gray beak, and barred flanks. If you look really close at the upper wing, you see the bronzy green that promotes its name. Females and males look similar with this species.
The Red-backed Black and White Mannikin (Spermestes bicolor nigriceps) has a chestnut-colored back with striking barred wings in addition to its flanks. Unlike the bronze mannikin, we have only seen it in Nairobi, although we are told the black and white race with less chestnut color exists around Lake Victoria. Here, four immature birds surround an adult.
When walking along the drive to to highway, tiny spots of blue can be seen in front of us moving about. As we approach, they scamper into nearby bush and brier... flashes of vivid colbalt pearls against the dusty road. Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu (Uraeginthus bengalus) are common in all habitats throughout Kenya except the desert and deep forests. And they are highly strung and hard to photograph... jumping constantly either to find food or to avoid the next predator. like other waxbill type birds, these birds are gregariously social, constantly chattering amongst themselves in high pitched rhythmic chirps. Despite their jumpiness, they are entertaining to watch whether on the grass, in the bush or on the side of the road.
Our villa home has been identified as a bird habitat "hot spot" by our Kenyan birding friends. This post represents only a small example of the diversity displayed through the year. Whether wet and cool or Hot and dry, birds will rest or live right here. We find it a blessing that we have been able to share this wonder with each other and with our family and friends. Whether here in Nairobi or on the other side of the world. And we have only just started....