This is a tale of an atlasing adventure to the Narok County district of Kenya, adjacent to the world- famous Maasai Mara National Reserve. I’d been invited to direct a Biosphere Expeditions group to conduct wildlife surveys in Enonkishu, the northern-most of the Mara conservancies. People come from all over the world – Finland, France, Australia and Germany, for example – to help with these expeditions. We would observe not only buffalo, cheetah, lion and leopard, but also the Maasai roaming with their large herds of cattle. The western boundary of the conservancy is the Mara River, beyond which lies a patchwork of small agricultural plots, intensively farmed and heavily populated.
The survey meant a chance to extend my BirdLasser life-list and to contribute to the Kenya BirdMap project. Since the project’s integration with the SABAP platform, birdwatchers in Kenya have been making great strides in creating good coverage of the country. However, there are still very large gaps, including the south-western section of the country in the direction of Lake Victoria.
This story is from the July - August 2020 edition of African Birdlife.
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This story is from the July - August 2020 edition of African Birdlife.
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