A forest of the Kikuyu Escarpment
Published Saturday magazine, Nation newspaper 13 May 2017
Along the path in the forest that rhymes with mutamaiyu or the African olive tree or the Olea europaea (African variety) someone signals to the left and a whole bunch of humans vanish into the evergreen forest that’s part of the larger Kereita forest – a place of the warriors – on the Kikuyu escarpment.
Following the markings on the GPS the group’s looking for a stunner – the Bar-tailed trogan which l have seen at eye-level in the forests of Mount Kenya. It’s not a bird that you ordinarily find flying around – although if we did, the world would be more colourful.
“Gatamaiyu forest is an IBA,” tells the doyenne of all birds, the amazing Fleur Ng’weno. “It was listed as an Important Bird Area because it has a wide variety of forest highland birds and also because the Abbot’s starling is found here.”
Twenty-two years ago l landed at Tortilis Camp bordering Amboseli National Park and l was enchanted – a tiny camp, beautifully built in a grove of equally beautiful thorn trees that looked like they had been sculpted to adorn the camp.
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