Arabuko Sokoke Forest and other outings

My second week at A Rocha Kenya has now come to a close. I've done a lot more work with the database, entering data, checking feather codes, updating some of the tab orders on forms. Colin and I are going to work on changing all the age codes to the updated version this week, which can be a bit scary because if you do a "replace all" wrong, you can't change it back in Microsoft Access. So we will have to be very careful when we start to update everything.

Besides sitting in the office working on the database, I also had the chance to go into the field quite a bit. On Monday afternoon I and two others went into Arabuko Sokoke Forest, which is the largest remnant of the dry coastal forest in Kenya. We paid 15 USD to the Kenyan Forest Service to get into the forest, and then another 1800 shillings each (about 20 USD) for a guide to show us around the forest. Unfortunately, our timing was not the greatest, and we went at the point in the day when least likely to see wildlife. We saw a chestnut-fronted helmet shrike, a flock of hornbills, and hundreds of butterflies. There are elephant shrews in the forest, as well as buffalo and elephants, but we did not get to see these. Maybe another time.

Three boats with snorkelers who didn't learn anything.

On Monday morning I went out with Benjo onto one of the boats used to take tourists snorkeling, because his assistant has been out sick with malaria and a number of other bad infections (she is starting to get better now and is back in Watamu!). We went out and interviewed six people about the information they had received prior to snorkeling. The information they were supposed to have was that the place they were snorkeling is a National Marine Park and is protected by law in Kenya, and that there are ways to keep the coral safe (i.e., do not pluck pieces of coral to show your friends back home). The group on the boat that day was from the International School in Nairobi, where all of the children of Embassy workers go to school. In my opinion, these should be students and teachers that are in the know when it comes to conservation and the environment, or at least make an effort to learn about it when on a field trip.

I was shocked to discover that this group knew very little about coral reefs, they did not understand that the place they were going to was a National Marine Park, and they had not gotten any information from their guides about the park, safety, or how to snorkel without harming the coral. There seemed to be very little appreciation for the fragility of the reef. There may be a very good reason behind this lack of appreciation for the reef. Many Kenyans are afraid of the ocean and will not go swimming in it, and many Kenyans (even fishermen) do not know how to swim. I speculate that Kenyans themselves do not appreciate the value of the reefs they are responsible for because they have never seen them! Benjo has been giving swimming lessons to some of the Kenyans that work at A Rocha so they can see the reefs, but it has not been going smoothly. Just a couple of days ago, George went out to practice swimming, and he nearly drowned! It will be a long process, and a lot of improvements are needed (like regulating the snorkeling boats as they are in the US), but I can see that the changes needed are coming to light.

The third destination of the week was Mida Creek, and I was there three times. The first time was to practice shorebird identification using telescopes with Colin, Roger, and Juma. As I said in my last post, I'm not very good at identifying birds without any prior knowledge. The second time we went to Mida Creek was for 16 hours, from 4pm straight through about 8am the next morning. We stayed overnight because we were banding shorebirds, and you can only catch shorebirds in mist nests when it is dark out, otherwise they would see the nets and avoid them. We caught 77 birds, including 10 crab plovers, two of which I got to band (yahoo!!). I am a little rusty at banding birds, and crab plovers are much bigger than anything I have banded in the past. Banding them is really funny because you lay them upside down in your lap, and they just sit there calmly on their backs while you put bands on their legs and take measurements.

My favorite! The crab plover.

People started to get a little goofy around 3am from exhaustion, but I felt pretty good the whole night. Alex was laughing hysterically, and Colin was singing funny songs to keep himself awake. Right around 3am we went out to check the nets, and the tide had started to recede, leaving pools of salt water. As I walked through them, I noticed the water around my feet would sparkle blue and green, sort of like fairy dust in Disney movies, and because of the exhaustion I was surely experiencing, it felt like I might be hallucinating. The cause was a tiny organism that is bio-luminescent, it glows when disturbed. It was very cool, and came a close second to my banding of crab plovers.

Once we piled back into the truck and got home to Mwamba, we all went straight to bed. The rest of the day was a write-off for the most part. On Saturday most of the gang went back to Mida Creek to set out shorebird count transects, but I stayed behind and counted tourist boats because my feet had gotten cut up by my Chacos on the night of ringing.

It was a really good week. I am hoping to go on safari on the 14th with four other older volunteers, and at the end of that I'll be in Mombasa for a day at least. So I will have to gear up for sightseeing on my own a little bit. I'm also hoping to walk around Watamu and the area around Mwamba this week. I will report back again soon!