It's been a busy few months here at the Naivasha Raptor Centre, where we’ve had a full roster of patients in our clinic. There have been two electrocuted birds that have been brought in, and these rarely resolve or end well. Electrocution is probably the most significant threat to our medium and large perching raptors in Kenya, resulting in 90% declines of this group in the country and region over the past 40 years. Read these two articles co-authored by our team to learn more: Evidence of widespread declines in Kenya's raptor populations over a 40-year period and Tracking data highlight the importance of human-induced mortality for large migratory birds at a flyway scale.
Left shows the electrocuted long-crested eagle and right the electrocuted augur buzzard.
We have had two African Harrier Hawks as well, but with the same injuries, yet two different outcomes. These birds are fairly common in Kenya, and are often seen raiding other birds’ nests and bat roosts using their double-jointed legs to grab food from crevices and cracks. Both were victims of road traffic accidents; a juvenile sustained head trauma that didn’t resolve after intensive treatment and sadly had to be euthanised. An adult was picked up with a broken wing from Malu, which we splinted, and after about 6 weeks healed beautifully. Unfortunately, due to his feisty nature, he managed to break most of his tail and wing feathers, so he’ll have to be here until he next moults, but the chances of his release are excellent.
Adult Harrier Hawk picked up near Gilgil. Our raptor vet Juliet Waiyaki strapped the broken wing with the help of raptor technician Jonathan Ewaton.
At this time of year, during the rains, most of our raptors take advantage of the increased amount of food and start breeding - especially rodent eaters such as owls. We often get requests to relocate owls from roofs, such as these, a brace of young Barn Owl chicks.
Unfortunately, their parents chose to nest in a roof of a local flower farm, and the chicks were soon evicted (owls are seen as bad omens in most of sub-saharan Africa, and are persecuted as a result). Sadly, only two chicks survived out of 4, but the fact that any of them did was thanks to a long-time friend and local guide, Douglas ‘Tchagra’ Gachucha, who rescued them and brought them to the NRC. Their prognosis is excellent - they will be fed to the gills, then introduced to our adult pair who will socialise them prior to being ringed and released back into the Naivasha area; they’re great for farmers as they efficiently control rodents, for free!
Talking about breeding birds, some of our captive owls are reproducing too fast for us to keep up! Our long-term pair of Spotted Eagle Owls produced their last chick earlier this year, but we haven’t been able to catch, ring and release it as the pair are already on another clutch of eggs, or have young chicks - the process of extricating the young is quite hectic and may cause the mother to break eggs or injure chicks, so it’s a waiting game at the moment.
This gorgeous young Spotted Eagle-Owl is ready for release but its parents are on a new clutch and very protective and aggressive towards anyone entering the enclosure. So this young eagle-owl has to wait a little bit longer till its siblings are ready to fledge too.
The other pair, consisting of a female that came in with a damaged eye, and a male that was sired by our long-term pair is also breeding. They have two chicks from their first ever clutch that are still growing, but dad is currently incubating the next clutch of eggs, presenting us with the same problem!
The first ever clutch of Popeye and Olive, our second pair of resident spotted eagle-owls.
All in all, this is great news as we may have up to nine spotted eagle owl chicks to release this year, which would be an all time record. This species is fairly common, but very shy and well camouflaged, so they are rarely seen in the wild. They are great at pest control, and if you’d like to encourage them to live and breed near you, you can download these approved nest box designs.
An update on one of our long-term residents: in 2022 we picked up a juvenile Fish Eagle that had been badly injured in a fight, possibly in the process of being chased off by her parents who wanted to start brewing again. She was rescued by a fisherman on the far side of the lake with a protruding eyeball, which had no hope of resolving. After two years of settling, we took her for an X-Ray, and decided to remove the eye, and suture her eyelids together. Juliet, our in-house vet, conducted the surgery and it was a huge success. As the bird has now moulted into a late subadult plumage, we have now put her in with our resident male, who has been at the centre for the last 8 years after breaking his wing. Early signs are good, and it seems like they’re getting on well.
Sub-adult female on the right recently joined the adult resident male on the left and they get on well.
Anyone who has recently visited the Naivasha Raptor Centre has seen that we are at capacity - all of our enclosures are filled, and yet we have a steady stream of incoming birds that we treat, care for, and would ideally like to release. Some of them, unfortunately, cannot survive in the wild due to the extent of their injuries, but can live fulfilling lives in captivity - either as education birds, foster parents, or breeding birds who’s young are released into the wild. As such, we are raising funds for additional enclosures: another set of display enclosures for our smaller birds (small owls, and some birds that don’t need a large amount of space due to their injuries and habits, therefore freeing up some of our existing enclosures), as well as a purpose build Rüppell’s vulture cliff to house this species and form a captive breeding enclosure so that we can release their young into the wild and try to augment their consistently plummeting populations. If you are able and willing, please donate. Any contribution, no matter how small, is hugely appreciated.
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Kenya Bird of Prey Trust
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