Road through the rainforest

This is a road that goes through the middle of the beautiful Kakamega rainforest.  This road is actually rather highly trafficked, and I have seen several logging trucks carrying loads of trees out of the forest on this road. 

bat cave

This is the inside of what used to be a mine.  Two different types of bats live in here, I took this picture standing inside looking at the entrance to the mine

Orange sunset

      Equatorial sunsets are the best!   Unfortunately, it is impossible to truly catch them on film... er... digital receptor actually

Kisumu aerial shot

The city of Kisumu, supposedly, the 1999 census was 355,000 or so people, but more recent estimations put it at well over a million inhabitants.  Kisumu was intended to be a place of trade, located in the ideal place to be linked by boat, plane, and truck to the rest of East Africa.  Despite that being it's original intent, it has just recently started to see that come to pass. 

       

for the birds

    I was at the lake today, and this bird just kept flying around me.  So I decided I might as well take a shot of it.  I believe that it is just an ordinary egret.  

one more picture of the hills around Kisumu

     Kisumu has these great big rocky hills standing like sentinels toward one side of it.  I know this is the second picture I have put up of them, but I thought it looked really cool.

A house

    This is one of the houses on the block, just so nobody starts thinking everyone in Africa lives in a mud hut.

Picture

There are a lot of interesting things in this picture, the trees in the distance, the huge palm tree, and the architecture of the roof in the foreground.

ruffled

I think I got these guys on a "bad-feather" day

Monkeys

I realized that I have been in the last two pictures.  So in order to not appear selfish I decided to give some of the other African monkeys a turn.  I know that they are rather distant in this shot, but I wanted to portray their habitat as well as the black and white monkeys in the center

African Wedding

So on Valentine's day, I got the job of running sound at a wedding.   In Kenya, a bride arrives 2-3 hours late for her wedding, as is tradition, and/or the car breaks down, either way.  So, while waiting for the bride to show up, I decided to take a nap in the sound room, the other guys thought it would be fun to grab my camera and take blackmail shots of me...

Freedom

I am sorry for the poor quality of this photograph, but this bird was ready to fly.  we had to take the picture rather fast, and therefore there was a lot of blur and bad lighting.  Shortly after taking this picture this bird took to the skies!    It was great to see him fly off.  Only four days after he was in a near-vegitative state.

soccer

     Soccer, locally called football, is the national sport of Kenya.   The people love it, and are often quite good at it.  Every evening a group of young people come here to practice.  

houses

This is a picture over the rooftops of manyatta, which is a large estate within Kisumu.

The great mystery

     The great brown bird lay absolutely still on the table, it's legs and wings completely unable to move.   He slowly manages to muster enough strength to raise his head and slightly open his eyes.  I look into his eyes, expecting to see the same, "help me" expression that is expressed in every dying animal that I help, but that look isn't there at all, instead, his entire disposition is a majestic one.   The Eagle is the only animal I have come across which could be so near death, yet so proud.       And this eagle is near death.... he is so dehydrated that he has lost the ability to move.  His fall out of the sky bashed up his bill and chin, this great bird fell right out of the sky into a gravel parking lot.  At this point, he is barely conscious.  No one seriously expects him to survive, especially me and the vet, but that doesn't stop me from trying.  

This is the bird shortly after I brought him home, I laid him here as I desperately tried to hydrate him... rather hard to do with a half-conscious bird.

     And this bird is not alone.  This is the third bird to crash into that parking lot.  You may remember the first one, I had his picture up here in a previous blog.  That bird seemed to be doing better, but died after a few days, after that, another eagle like this one appeared in that same area around that parking lot.  It didn't survive a single night.

     So, that is the great mystery...  why are the birds falling out of the sky?  all three birds are young, one of them a mere chick.   None of them show signs of being attacked by the notorious pied crows that defend their territory with Al Capone-style fervor.  Why are they falling out of the sky?   Well, we don't know, that is why it is a mystery.  All we know is that they are all too dehydrated to move.   This bird at least shows signs of typhoid, which I am treating it for, and all the birds have refused to eat or drink.  

       It remains a mystery what is killing the birds, even more mysteriously, what is knocking them out of the sky.  It is one thing for a bird to slowly die, but we seem to be dealing with seizures or heart attacks, just so sudden is the way that they fall.  Theorys range from typhoid, to heat stroke, and even the possiblity of an unknown avian disease (let's hope it stays avian, these things live with me!)

      But probably the most likely thing might be simple pollution.  In Kenya, Garbage mixed with oil products is stacked all over the markets and the lower-class housing estates.    The dry season has just been coming to a close, and it is possible that with the coming of heavy rains, oils, dirt, and chemicals are being washed by the heavy rains into the bird's water supply, and even chemicals may cover the fur of the rodents and other smaller animals that are the hawk's prey.  There is also a study going on about the possiblity of Chlorinated Hydrocarbons being found in birds near agricultural areas, although this is highly unlikely due to the fact that we are in the city.

 

Is pollution Killing large birds in Kenya?

Let us hope that we solve this mystery.  We find what is killing these fine animals.  Almost every time a bird falls from the sky in Kenya, it is tortured to death by kids, cats, dogs, or whatever else may come its way.  These are the lucky few, even if I never save a single bird, I am at least content in knowing they died a comfortable death, and not a living biology disection experiment.  Although if they do die, they probably will be dissected, not just for highschooler's sake, but to find out why these majestic birds are mysteriously

 crashing to the ground.

According to wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawny_eagle ) these birds are of "least concern", that doesn't matter to me, they are eagles, and as such they majestically grace any geological location that they may be found.  Therefore I do what I can to save these grand masters of the sky.

Greenery

I took this picture outside of Mamboleo, I just thought it was a cool view of the hills.

Kisumu

It is really hard to say for certain where the "center of town" is in Kisumu. This is my best guess. This picture was taken standing in front of the Orange HQ (Orange telkom, NOT Orange Democratic Movement). I was facing across the street to Mega Plaza.

When I took this picture I thought that this may be the "center of town", but looking back I realize it is highly unlikely to be the center of town, this isn't even main street.

Road

I have to drive on this road every day....

crocodile

Yes, in case you are wondering, I was standing on the banks of Mara river when I took this picture, and no, he was not alone...

Power outage

The power went off during a storm last night.   Which is why I am later than usual in posting this.  After the storm died down, and the skies cleared a little, I went out to try and get a shot of the moon and stars.    here is my picture of the moon.

Vultures!

I decided I haven't put up one of my old Masai Mara animal shots for a while, so here is a picture of some vultures I took a while ago.

The Island in the Lake

This is an Island in Lake Victoria.  In the foreground you can see invading hyacinth plants being blown into the bay.