David Ngala

Category: Bird Surveys, General | Date: Feb 14 2008 | By: admin

Hi there, Colin here again with some more updates. First though, to say a very big ‘Asante SANA!’ to our very generous donors for your donations. These came at a critical point when we needed exactly what was given to cover the costs of David’s driving test to get a full motorbike licence (he’s been driving on an ‘L’-plate so far which is ok but far from ideal). Thank you!!

David dropped round at the office yesterday with the news of having to get his “piki” licence (we call a motorbike a ‘piki-piki’ here which is because of the sound they make - we don’t ride Harley-Davidsons, you must understand!!. This is often shortened to just ‘piki’) and to get set up to do some surveys of the Amani Sunbird Anthreptes pallidigaster which is one of the rare and Endangered birds of Arabuko-Sokoke Forest. Part of his job is to assist with these surveys which are headed up by A Rocha Kenya but as he’s such a bird ‘fundi’ (expert) he’s The Man for the job to assist with it. So he was out early Monday and Tues this week with volunteer Dave the Brave (from Canada) who’s taking the lead on the sunbird surveys and was out early this morning with Albert and goes again tomorrow for the same thing. Amani Sunbirds are found pretty much only in the Brachystegia Woodland in the forest - one of the three major habitat types. The picture below shows a typical section of one of the Amani survey transects.

David’s written some more which we’ll be posting just as soon as we can get it typed up and get access to the ‘net again.