If you haven’t looked at it in a while you might try a quick gander. We now have 40 different bird species pictures that we have taken in Kenya.

The journey to visit all NRT schools has begun. Before recommending an education program for the NRT it is necessary to get into the field and see what is actually in place. So, I designed a school assessment survey, hired a consultant to help, and started visiting every school, ECDE (pre-school), primary, and secondary in the conservancies. Paul Leringato, the consultant, and I are gathering information about the students, teachers, existing infrastructure, and NGO’s which are currently helping the schools.
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On Monday, January 13, 2014, Paul Leringato and I climbed into my Toyota Land Cruiser and headed to the Naibunga Conservancy, one of NRT’s more remote conservancies. Loaded with a change of clothing, computer, school survey forms, power bars, and a couple of bedrolls (just in case we found ourselves stuck overnight under an acacia tree), we were going to visit the schools in the conservancy and assess their teachers, students and infrastructure. Four five-liter bottles of water, toilet paper, and a few biscuits (cookies) from the Nakumat in Nanyuki completed our provisioning.

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Tim Quigley is visiting and he is a birder. With his help we have added a bird page to the blog. As we photograph new birds we will post them there. We will identify them if we can. If you think we are mistaken or in cases where we don’t manage an identification please leave a comment with your thoughts.

While Tim is here I think we will do okay on the identifications. After he leaves all bets are off.

To reach the Bird page click “Bird” on the masthead.

We arrived back in Kenya at 8:30 pm, Monday, January 6th, our friends Susie and Lynn in tow. All of us were tired, but glad to be missing the polar vortex sweeping through the USA (-20 F. degree temperatures in Minneapolis). Nelson, one of the NRT drivers, greeted us with a cell phone call saying he was waiting outside the international arrivals building.

Passage through immigration, customs, and baggage was uneventful as usual and Nelson, 5’ 10”, solidly built, wearing green fatigues, a beret and a large smile met us at the door. Grabbing Anne’s suitcase he hustled us to the waiting Nissan Patrol and we were soon on the super highway (which means crosswalks and speed bumps only every few miles) heading into Nairobi and the Fairview Hotel to spend the night before the four to five hour drive to Lewa on Tuesday.

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As most of you know, I’m not a birder. What I know about birds rivals what I know about plants. Here’s what I know about plants. There are four kinds; trees, bushes, grass and flowers. Some are pretty, some aren’t. They are usually green but not always. The way I can tell a weed from a flower is that the one I pull up, trying to be helpful, is a flower.

Likewise with birds, there are big birds, small birds, and medium sized birds. Most of them fly, and most of them are pretty. Like people, the size and shape of their beaks vary. Most importantly, when you are in the ninth grade holding a milk shake in the school lunch area a seagull will fly over and poop in the cup. And that is pretty much it.

However, here in Kenya we are constantly surrounded by a huge variety of different birds. They vary in size, color, beaks, and shapes. So perhaps I should re-evaluate my opinion.

I’m posting a bunch of photos of birds that Anne and I have taken. I’ve included comments that I think the birds in the photos might be making and their name, either their actual name (in a few cases) or what I call them for lack of knowledge of their actual name.

Enjoy, and if you want to give me the correct name, feel free.

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Saturday morning we got up to a steady rain. It had been raining all night long and looked to continue. ”John! It’s 7:30, let’s get ready. We’re going to visit Bush Adventures in Laparua this morning.” We began to scurry about when three things happened simultaneously; Rehema walked in, the computer dinged that we had an e-mail, and the phone rang.

All carried the message, “Don’t go anywhere.” The roads were saturated. We were likely to get stuck and even if we didn’t, driving would ruin the roads, creating deep ruts and potholes. We figured that if Adrian, the Lewa logistics manager, cared enough to e-mail, phone, and relay a message through the grounds keeper and Rehema, he was serious.

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First of all, thanks for your condolences for my fathers passing. They are appreciated by Anne and me.

Dad’s memorial resulted in the biggest Knapp gathering in my lifetime. Mom was joined by all six of her children, all but 1 grandchild (8) and all but 3 great-grandchildren (9). It was a four generation celebration of Dad’s life and legacy.

We are back in Kenya and back to work in our newly verdant surroundings. We thought it was greening before we left but it is now absolutely lush.

We will be posting blogs again soon.

I walked into the office on Friday and ran into Chris Mahoney. He is a project manager for Just a Drop, a charity that builds and maintains water projects for the tribal areas of Africa. Chris is here to fix a water system that Just a Drop had installed in Westgate, one of the NRT conservancies. In Westgate the manyatta (village) is six kilometers from the river. It is the children’s job to go fetch the water each day. Chris was especially interested in this project because the river is a dangerous place. As he explained, “The village loses 3-4 children each year to wildlife. In the year before we installed the water pump at least one child was killed by an elephant and just the month before we put it in a six year old girl was taken by a crocodile.” Installing a pump and piping system had eliminated the long trek and kept the children safe from the elephants and crocodiles, but now the pump needed repair.

Chris stopped me as I walked by. “You’re the head of NRT’s education project,” he said. “I have a case study for you.” The day before, Chris and Dan (NRT’s Chief Science Officer) had been at Westgate when they were approached by the school’s Head Teacher. There was a problem. The Head Teacher wanted to talk about two girls in eighth grade. They were two of his sharpest students and he expected them to do very well on the KCPE (the Kenyan National Exam that determines placement for secondary school). They are both 13 years old.

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