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Birding Kenya (1 Viewer)

Seth Miller

Seth Miller

Well-known member
United States
So I'm going to be going to Kenya end of October beginning of November this year. It's a family trip (I'm only seventeen so going with parents and siblings :) to visit some relatives that are living Nakuru. We'll be in Nakuru for a few days then have a safari at Masai Mara for three days and then be back in Nakuru for a week or so. All in all about a two week trip. Since I haven't had any experience in Africa at all yet I'm sure I'll get loads of lifers. I have a few questions that I would appreciate any input from you all.

First of all what bird books would you recommend. Planning on buying one, and I generally prefer bird books with illustrations rather than pictures, though if the best bird book for Kenya really is one with pictures then I might consider it.

My brother and I are the only ones in the family that are interested in birding, but my parents are very supportive of it. My dad was wondering if it would be worth the cost for us to spend an extra day at Masai Mara for my brother and I to focus on birding. We would already have had at least two days of wildlife watching that would definitely include me and my brother watching birds, but not completely focused on birds. And we would also be going to Nakuru National Park on at least one day without or without a guide not sure yet. Basically is there a big enough difference in the birds of Masai Mara and Nakuru to warrant an extra day at Masai Mara.

Also would be interested in any other tips on birding, including spots near/in Nakuru.
Thanks for any help!
 
Well now we got more details about how expensive Masai Mara is and decided not to do an extra day. :) Do you all have any ideas about how many birds I'll be able to get on the game drives at Masai Mara and where ever we'll be staying at Masai Mara? I'm just not sure how many birds to expect with four game drives at Masai Mara and a week just hanging out at Nakuru and possibly birding nearby local parks or something, and at least one day at Nakuru National Park. I'm hoping for 150+ because that would get me to my goal of 500 life birds before I graduate from high school, but not sure if 150+ is realistic or not with what we'll be doing.
 
Seth Miller said:
Well now we got more details about how expensive Masai Mara is and decided not to do an extra day. :) Do you all have any ideas about how many birds I'll be able to get on the game drives at Masai Mara and where ever we'll be staying at Masai Mara? I'm just not sure how many birds to expect with four game drives at Masai Mara and a week just hanging out at Nakuru and possibly birding nearby local parks or something, and at least one day at Nakuru National Park. I'm hoping for 150+ because that would get me to my goal of 500 life birds before I graduate from high school, but not sure if 150+ is realistic or not with what we'll be doing.
Click to expand...

To see the biggest range of birds, cover a variety of habitats, 150 should be easily do'able if you've never been to Africa.

This is the book you want though the second may be a bit easier to use for just the Mara.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Birds-Keny...sprefix=kenya+and+north,stripbooks,149&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Birds-Masa...+the+masai+mara&qid=1556554983&s=books&sr=1-1

This would probably be a big help but I can't personally vouch for how good it is.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/50-top-bir...garachu&qid=1556554875&s=books&sr=1-1-catcorr
 
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Familiarise yourself as much as you can with the vocalisations of the larks and cisticolas, would be my advice for anyone birding Africa. I'm sure you'll have a mind-blowing time :t:
 
Thank you for your help! My dad has also been trying to find a reasonably priced birding guide for a day in Nakuru National Park for my brother and I. But the ones he's been finding are quite expensive with the cheapest being $425. Do any of you all know of cheaper ones? We'll be staying quite close to the park if that makes a difference.
 
Seth Miller said:
Thank you for your help! My dad has also been trying to find a reasonably priced birding guide for a day in Nakuru National Park for my brother and I. But the ones he's been finding are quite expensive with the cheapest being $425. Do any of you all know of cheaper ones? We'll be staying quite close to the park if that makes a difference.
Click to expand...

Kenya is a pretty expensive country for birding, especially inside the parks if you use their own guides but $425 seems pretty excessive.

Many guides will charge for a day but you may well be getting charged per person here?

In many places, there will be unofficial guides who hang around park entrances and they're often very good, maybe wait until you get there and see if you can pick up a local or your hotel can probably hook you up, they usually can in places such as this.

Have a look through these guys.

http://birdingpal.org/Kenya.htm
 
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Hi Seth, we visited the South East of Kenya last year but I guess the format of the Game Drives is similar wherever you go. The Guides were generally very knowledgeable about the animals and the larger more obvious birds but you will have to work out most of the smaller ones yourself which we really enjoyed. There is only 1 book you need and that is The Birds of East Africa by Terry Stevenson. The locality maps are small but very accurate and there weren't many things we couldn't identify even though we had never been near the region and so much was new to us.
The price you have been quoted for guides seems high. We paid about $170 for a full day in Shimba Hills National Park but it was low season so that might have had an impact on price. I should be able to find their details if you are interested.
And you will have lots of opportunities to see really good things away from the Parks, particularly the things like Sunbirds and Cisticolas that the drivers won't want to keep stopping for. New things will be around you every day, wherever you go.
If you have any questions about our experiences or what you need etc I'll be happy to reply based on our two week stay which was tremendous
 
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Foxy said:
Hi Seth, we visited the South East of Kenya last year but I guess the format of the Game Drives is similar wherever you go. The Guides were generally very knowledgeable about the animals and the larger more obvious birds but you will have to work out most of the smaller ones yourself which we really enjoyed. There is only 1 book you need and that is The Birds of East Africa by Terry Stevenson. The locality maps are small but very accurate and there weren't many things we couldn't identify even though we had never been near the region and so much was new to us.
The price you have been quoted for guides seems high. We paid about $170 for a full day in Shimba Hills National Park but it was low season so that might have had an impact on price. I should be able to find their details if you are interested.
And you will have lots of opportunities to see really good things away from the Parks, particularly the things like Sunbirds and Cisticolas that the drivers won't want to keep stopping for. New things will be around you every day, wherever you go.
If you have any questions about our experiences or what you need etc I'll be happy to reply based on our two week stay which was tremendous
Click to expand...

Have to disagree on the book.

The last thing a relative begginer wants is tons of extra species that won't be seen in Kenya and will only cause ID headaches. That book covers the whole of Tanzania as well as Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
 
andyadcock said:
Have to disagree on the book.

The last thing a relative begginer wants is tons of extra species that won't be seen in Kenya and will only cause ID headaches. That book covers the whole of Tanzania as well as Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
Click to expand...

Agree to a point but Seth has a life list of 346 so not too much of a beginner and the region was completely new to us too and we found Stevenson easy to use. The distribution maps are so good that out of range stuff is quickly and safely eliminated. The quality of the text and illustrations makes the difference, not the range. Some of the local books are so basic that they are equally confusing the other way and don't cover female/juvenile plumages. We had a local guide trying to convince us of something totally off the mark using his local book which didn't have a lot of the more uncommon stuff in it.
But books are a personal choice so if we all put out what we prefer Seth can make an informed choice
 
Seth Miller said:
Well now we got more details about how expensive Masai Mara is and decided not to do an extra day. :) Do you all have any ideas about how many birds I'll be able to get on the game drives at Masai Mara and where ever we'll be staying at Masai Mara? I'm just not sure how many birds to expect with four game drives at Masai Mara and a week just hanging out at Nakuru and possibly birding nearby local parks or something, and at least one day at Nakuru National Park. I'm hoping for 150+ because that would get me to my goal of 500 life birds before I graduate from high school, but not sure if 150+ is realistic or not with what we'll be doing.
Click to expand...

We got 200 in a mixed holiday of two weeks: organised Game Drives and day trips and some birding on our own mixed up with some 'sand sea and sun'. Certainly 150 should be a realistic objective, good luck, I would like to know how you get on!
 
andyadcock said:
Kenya is a pretty expensive country for birding, especially inside the parks if you use their own guides but $425 seems pretty excessive.

Many guides will charge for a day but you may well be getting charged per person here?

In many places, there will be unofficial guides who hang around park entrances and they're often very good, maybe wait until you get there and see if you can pick up a local or your hotel can probably hook you up, they usually can in places such as this.

Have a look through these guys.

http://birdingpal.org/Kenya.htm
Click to expand...

I'm not sure why they were wanting so much, but we'll keep exploring options. At least some of the people weren't wanting to do a tour unless it was more than one day which makes sense. My dad contacted the professionals listed on Birding Pal and the ones that have responded so far have been quite expensive as well. I'll probably try contacting the two "nonprofessionals" on Birding Pal as well. We'll be staying with my uncle and aunt who live there so maybe he'll be able to check out the guides at the Park.

Foxy said:
We got 200 in a mixed holiday of two weeks: organised Game Drives and day trips and some birding on our own mixed up with some 'sand sea and sun'. Certainly 150 should be a realistic objective, good luck, I would like to know how you get on!
Click to expand...

I'll probably try to have a thread in the vacational trip reports about the trip. Not sure if I'll have time to do it as we're on the trip or if I'll do it afterward. But I'll definitely have some stories and pics!

Also thanks for all the help Andyadcock and Foxy! Much appreciated. :)
 
Foxy said:
Agree to a point but Seth has a life list of 346 so not too much of a beginner and the region was completely new to us too and we found Stevenson easy to use. The distribution maps are so good that out of range stuff is quickly and safely eliminated. The quality of the text and illustrations makes the difference, not the range. Some of the local books are so basic that they are equally confusing the other way and don't cover female/juvenile plumages. We had a local guide trying to convince us of something totally off the mark using his local book which didn't have a lot of the more uncommon stuff in it.
But books are a personal choice so if we all put out what we prefer Seth can make an informed choice
Click to expand...

Firstly, with respect to Seth, I think we have different ideas as to what a begginer is.....

Re the books, both are by Helm so not of a 'local' type, are of a pretty similar standard and I think I'm yet to see any real guide worthy of the name, that does not include females? I don't know which guide you used but most proffesional guides will be using a book such as we discuss here.

Plates are more crowded in the Kenyan guide which allows for more text which is obviously beneficial and an added feature of the Kenyan plates is that Weaver nests are illustrated which they aren't in the E Africa guide.

On range maps, in the Kenyan guide they are separate in a slightly more extensive species account whereas in the E Africa guide, they are opposite the plates with a more condensed species account due to the limitation on space, they cram almost 300 additional species in to an extra 10 pages, excluding the index of each book which is obviously at cost to the text.

Unless on a trip covering several countries, I know that most birders prefer to work with as condensed a species list as possible, especially if new to a whole continent and in a country where a dedicated birding trip list of 500-700 is possible in three weeks as it is here. Regular, travelling birders will often prefer a single country guide over a regional one where available.

I personally see no point taking a book that has almost 300 species in it that you just don't need to bother with but as you say, Seth can make up his own mind.

Edit: I'll be in Rwanda and Uganda later this year and in the absence of anything more condensed, I will be using the E African guide.
 
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Just to add also that birds of East Africa will shortly have a second edition so it's probably worth waiting for that IMO, due Nov.
 
I've not been to Kenya, but to give you an idea of what you might see in terms of numbers of species, a 3 night standard game-viewing route through the Serengeti and Ngorongoro, with hired non-birding driver + vehicle, netted me more than 300 bird species. I'm guessing you could do about the same in the Masai Mara.
 
Larry Sweetland said:
I've not been to Kenya, but to give you an idea of what you might see in terms of numbers of species, a 3 night standard game-viewing route through the Serengeti and Ngorongoro, with hired non-birding driver + vehicle, netted me more than 300 bird species. I'm guessing you could do about the same in the Masai Mara.
Click to expand...

And I guess they'd all be lifers, doubling your list in one fell swoop.....:t:
 
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I've been working on ordering the Helm bird book for Kenya and have a few questions. So if I try to order it from the US site its $45 new or used, but the UK site is cheaper with one used in very good condition for only $25, but I can't ship to the US or Bangladesh. One option I have found on the US site is a 1999 guide for $20 used in good condition, but is the price difference good enough that I should buy that old a guide?

Larry Sweetland said:
Familiarise yourself as much as you can with the vocalisations of the larks and cisticolas, would be my advice for anyone birding Africa. I'm sure you'll have a mind-blowing time :t:
Click to expand...

Is the best way to do this by listening to recordings on xeno-canto?
 
Seth Miller said:
I've been working on ordering the Helm bird book for Kenya and have a few questions. So if I try to order it from the US site its $45 new or used, but the UK site is cheaper with one used in very good condition for only $25, but I can't ship to the US or Bangladesh. One option I have found on the US site is a 1999 guide for $20 used in good condition, but is the price difference good enough that I should buy that old a guide?



Is the best way to do this by listening to recordings on xeno-canto?
Click to expand...

Yes. And maybe have access to the recordings in the field, so you can compare at the time
 
Seth Miller said:
I've been working on ordering the Helm bird book for Kenya and have a few questions. So if I try to order it from the US site its $45 new or used, but the UK site is cheaper with one used in very good condition for only $25, but I can't ship to the US or Bangladesh. One option I have found on the US site is a 1999 guide for $20 used in good condition, but is the price difference good enough that I should buy that old a guide?
Click to expand...


Have you tried ebay, is this the book? If so, it should be perfectly ok, Princeton are the main publisher for many books in the US that appear in the UK as Helm or Poyser.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Princeton-...832975&hash=item215786fcd4:g:tqoAAOSw3utY6MVT Note that the shipping charge is to the UK as that's where I searched from.

I don't think there have been too many changes to the list for a 1999 guide to be radically different.
 
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andyadcock said:
Have you tried ebay, is this the book? If so, it should be perfectly ok, Princeton are the main publisher for many books in the US that appear in the UK as Helm or Poyser.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Princeton-...832975&hash=item215786fcd4:g:tqoAAOSw3utY6MVT Note that the shipping charge is to the UK as that's where I searched from.

I don't think there have been too many changes to the list for a 1999 guide to be radically different.
Click to expand...

That's the book, although I had been looking on Amazon. There's one in Good condition for only $10! Very glad if there isn't really a big diff between 1999 and 2005 editions except for the price. :)
 
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