Soaring heat pushes bird numbers down

Owls are considered a bad omen in many Kenyan societies. But the disappearance of the bird from its natural habitat bodes ill for the environment.

The owl is rapidly disappearing due to the rising temperatures, a result of climate change.

Other Kenyan bird species including the hornbills, tucazze sunbird, buzzard and hawk are also facing extinction.

If the trend is not checked, then we will lose an important part of our natural resources and cultural heritage.

Traditionally, different birds were said to signal different things.

Hornbills foretold the coming of the rain, signalling the period to start planting. After the sighting of the thousands of birds flying, farmers started tilling the fields, ready to plant.

If a buzzard rested on a man’s chest, it meant a visitor was coming.

“I remember how the hornbills used to fly,” Mr Enock Giteya recalls. “We would get out of class and watch their colourful parade.”

Over the past decade, it has become more difficult to even catch a group of birds flying.

There are 1,090 species of birds in Kenya, placing the country in the top five nations with the largest variety globally.

Kenya’s location is unique as it is right in the migratory path of the beauties of the air and experts say some birds fly all the way from Europe.

Popular birding places in Kenya include the Mwea National Reserve, Shaba National Reserve, Lake Naivasha, Aberdares, Lake Nakuru and Cherangany Hills.

But the bird species is greatly threatened.

One of the most beautiful is the sulphur-breasted trojon bird, which is extremely difficult to see these days according to ardent bird watchers.

Very rare to find, it seems that the days of the grey-capped social weaver, the great white pelican, the white-throated beeeater, the pied crow, the olive thrush and the marabou stork are numbered.

Even the sunbird, the streaky seedeater and the Caspian plover are no longer in plenty.

The Kenyan forests, aquatic habitats and grasslands they used to live in are greatly threatened.

Settlers have invaded the grasslands of Kinangop and Molo, threatening the existence of the beautiful birds. Loggers have mercilessly raped the Aberdares Forest, cutting down the vegetation in search of a living. Lake Naivasha is rapidly drying up. Even Lake Nakuru is not safe.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) predicts that climate change will reduce the habitat of the Aberdare cisticola that lives only in a habitat of above 7,500 feet by a further 80 percent by 2100.

Another bird, the Hartlaub turaco could lose more than 60 per cent of its already limited habitat.

Alongside climate change, experts blame degradation, pollution, poisoning, human population growth and climate change for the threat on the birds’ existence.

“Even well adapted populations like the hooded vultures are declining,” Dr Darcy Ogada, the chairperson of the Raptor Working Group of Nature Kenya, said in a recent interview.

Scientists estimate that hooded vultures have declined in the range of 45 to 73 per cent over the past four decades due to poisoning, trade for witchcraft and trade for food.

In Laikipia and the Mara, raptors have reduced by 60 to 70 per cent in the past three decades.

Also facing extinction are six bird species only found in Kenya and nowhere else in the world. These are the Tana River cisticola, the Aberdare cisticola, Sharpe’s longclaw, the William lark, Hinde-Babbler and the Taita thrush.

Even without human influence, dozens of millions of birds would be lost each year to natural predators and natural accidents. Millions of them die during their first attempt at flight.

However, climate change has increased the loss rapidly.

No one can say exactly how much warmer the planet will become over the coming years, partly because it’s impossible to know how much greenhouse gas humans will emit in the future.

Biologists believe that the loss of birds will result in some plants dying off because of having no way to pollinate.

“It will not be possible for some plants to survive because they depend on cross-pollination,” says Dr Willian Obiero, a botanist.

Current methods for identifying and protecting threatened species fail to adequately provide a solution for climate shifts.