Top 5 Most Easy to Recognise Kenyan Birds
With thousands of birds in Kenya, it’s hard to know where to start when you’re new to birding. Here are my top 5 favourite, easy to recognise birds you may well come across and if you do they are easy to identify. Once you get started you’ll soon be a twitching enthusiast and you’ll be ticking off those bird lists in no time.
So impress your travel companions by knowing these easy to ID favourites.
Southern Ground Hornbill
One of my personal favourites, this large black, ground dwelling bird is recognisable for its bare bright red eyes and throat wattle. It’s call is just as recognisable, usually heard at dawn it’s low boom carry’s over long distances, as far as several kilometres and can sometimes be mistaken for a lion calling. They are about the size of a turkey, around 3 ft in height and weighing on average between 5 - 9 pounds and the largest hornbill in the world.
You can tell the difference between the sexes, if you look closely the females have a patch of violet blue on their wattles.
They are omnivorous and have been found to prey on small rodents, snakes, lizards, frogs, birds eggs, nestling birds and insects.
Due to a loss of habitat, persecution and poisoning the species is declining and is listed globally as ‘Vulnerable” on the IUCN list and upgraded to ‘Endangered’ in South Africa in 2014.
You can find these birds walking within family groups of between 2 - 9 members through bushy savanna, grasslands and woodlands foraging for food. However, they can also be found roosting and nesting in trees. Only the dominant male and female of the group breed with most pairs remaining monogomous throughout their lives. The other members of the group are usually males who held define and care for the chicks. This low reproduction rate also contributes to their vulnerable status.
The beautiful Southern Grounded Hornbill
2. Red-Billed Oxpecker
There’s not many animals you can guarantee someone seeing on safari but the red-billed oxpeckers are definitely one and are usually one of the first birds tourists learn how to spot due to their easy to spy location perched on the backs of some top Africa’s biggest animals.
There are many symbiotic relationships in the animal kingdom (where two animals mutually benefit from one another) but these birds and their mammal hosts are some of the most commonly seen and easily understood.
These olive/brown, starling sized birds with their bright red beaks and eyes with yellow wattle spend their days perched on the backs of animals such as impala, kudu, zebra, giraffe, buffalo and rhino grooming their host animal and eating the ticks, dead skin, mucus, ear wax and blood from them. These gives the birds an easy source of food and helps remove dangerous parasites from the mammals. Interestingly Elephants do not tolerate these birds at all.
Adult Red-billed oxpeckers can eat 100’s of ticks a day if they have the chance as well as 1000’s of larve which has a hugely positive impact on the health of the host animals and minimises the time they have to spend on grooming leaving them able to spend the time saved to feed and nourish themselves.
The birds perfectly evolved beaks are pointed at the same time laterally compressed which is perfect to help them comb through their hosts fur coats.
They also make a distinct ‘tsik-tsik’ call when predators are around which also benefits the host animal, altering them to danger. It’s also used by many guides as a good indicator to keep an eye out for big game.
Red-billed oxpeckers are monogomous birds, mating for life unless one of the pair dies and both male and female help to incubate the on average 3 eggs laid.
Red-Billed Oxpecker sat on a Buffalo’s nose.
3. Lilac-breasted Roller
One of the most beautiful birds in Africa and easily spotted due to their beautiful colourations with the prominent lilac breast and habit of perching up high often on telephone lines or other prominent structures in open woodland and grasslands with occasional trees. They use these high perches to look out for food, preying on small insects, lizards and other small ground dwelling grub. They catch their prey with their beak and either swallow it on the ground or for the larger prey, they take it back up to their perch and beat it until its dead and breaking apart.
This family of birds were named Roller’s due to their acrobatic aerial displays during the mating season. When courting these birds will soar upwards and then tip all the way forwards with their wings firmly to their sides before flapping to gain speed as they head straight towards the ground before quickly levelling out just before the floor and rolling to both sides a few times while calling. They also use these rolling patterns when flying against potential nest intruders and also when being territorial.
These birds are found throughout Southern and Eastern Africa and considered to be the unofficial national bird of Kenya.
A colourful Lilac-Breasted Roller
4. African Fish Eagle
Another of my personal favourites, this beautiful chestnut and black backed eagle with a striking white breast, back and head with yellow between it’s eyes and beak is a sight to behold.
This bird makes our top list not just by being easily recognised by sight but it has one of the most distinctive bird calls in Africa and so easily to identify when it calls. If you hear close enough you’ll be able to make out them saying “There’s no fish here” and once you hear it, you’ll always be able to recognise it.
The African Fish Eagle is also easy to see as it chooses prominent branches for perching by rivers, lakes and other areas of water so it can keep its eyes out for its main prey, fish, although they do also eat lizards and other small prey. Once it’s prey is spotted it dives down towards the water and gracefully pulls up just as it reaches the waters surface, grabbing the fish with its talons which have sharp barbs on them which help them quickly and successfully grab and pick up the fish at speed.
It’s not in fact a ‘true’ eagle and actually belongs to the Haliaeetus genus of sea eagles which is one of the most ancient among living birds.
African Fish Eagle Perched up on a tree
5. Lappet-Faced Vulture
The vultures are an easily regocnised group as they are often depicted in Disney films and other children movies and shows. Their hunched over look and presence at fresh kills leave no mistake. Within the vulture clan it’s not always so easy to tell them a part but with their pink, featherless, lose wrinkled skin on it’s head the Lappet-faced vulture stand out from the vulture crowd.
Classified as Endangered with their numbers continuing to decrease due to poisoning by famers and also declining numbers of carcass’ with hunting and urbanisation, these are rarer to find, however widespread in open country.
Being the largest vulture in Africa and also having a specialised and powerful beak that easily breaks open the carcass’, tears off tendons and other coarse tissues, these bird dominate at feeding times helping open up the kill for other scavengers.
These birds are mostly solitary unless feeding or at water, however they are monogamous and breeding pairs mate for life.
Lappet-Faced Vulture at a carcass.