Ngong Forest

Every first and third Saturdays of the month are forest walk days in the Sanctuary. I arrived at our normal meeting point at the racecourse restaurant parking before the usual walk time.This was to give company to those who might have arrived early. As I waited, I was kept busy by a troop of Sykes monkeys that jumped from tree to tree searching fruits to feed on. On the other side of the parking was a troop of olive baboons emoting dust bins to get the left overs from the restaurant as there was a big party the previous night.

Sykes Monkey

Minutes passed, it was past nine no one had turned up for the walk, i decided to take a short walk towards racecourse main gate. On my way, i met three gentlemen who had Binoculars hanged on their necks and walking in a hurry towards the parking. I immediately knew they were here for the walk. I said hi to them and they quickly apologized for being late and blamed it the notorious traffic jam on the road leading to the site. They introduced themselves as volunteer guides from Nature Kenya and that they had come to assist in guiding.

Nature Kenya Guides in the forest

This particular Saturday, there were no visitors to guide so we decided to have our own ‘guides walk’. It was interesting as every body was specialized in a certain field, Onesmus was very good in shrubs and herbs which has been a problem to me as I seem to specialize more on trees. Kassim was good in birds and mammals of the forest. Through working closely with entomologists from ICIPE with projects in the Sanctuary, I have improved on identification of butterflies, beetles and various forest birds.

Butterflies: Sub family- Charaxinae

Beetle: Phonacinus spp

By the time we were winding up the walk, we had spotted over ninety species of birds and three species were new to me, the black cap, Red tailed or Familiar chat and the Madagascar squacco or Malagassy pond heron which we saw at the dam. To me it was an educative walk and i felt visitors missed a great day.

By Nicholas Akach

akach.nicholas388@gmail.com