Past the winding road via Kiganjo’s coffee fields in central Kenya the long range of the Aberdares appears on the Mweiga-Nyahururu road. Stretching 160 kilometres, the mountain range is a vital source of fresh water for the country.
Suddenly under an intense blue midmorning sky on the side of the tarmac road with Satima the highest of Aberdare’s peaks in sight, a sun-scorched sign reads ‘Mackinder’s Eagle Owl site’. While other cars whizz past it, we halt to a stop.
Stepping out of the car, we scan the cliffs with binoculars for the rare owls in the copper-coloured cliffs. This is one of the most important sites for the orange-eyed rare owl that’s only found around the massifs of the Aberdares and Mount Kenya.
“You know, you could be staring at them without realising it,” I state. The friends look at me disbelievingly.
“She’s right.”
And l spin around to see Paul Mureithi, the owl man surfacing from the gigantic dip in the ground. Mureithi, tall and lean from years of trekking in the wilds for the nocturnal birds that are mostly seen as a bad omen in African and Asian cultures, guides us down the narrow path to the cliffs.
“Look there,” he points to the edge of the cliff wall.
“It’s there,” exclaims someone. When the others see the owl, the gasp is audible. It’s so camouflaged in the cliffs.
“That is the female,” tells Mureithi. We’re joined by Mzee Peter Nginga, the farmer who owns the land by the cliffs with Wanjira his daughter and her son, Peter Junior. “I like owls because they eat snakes and mice,” says the boy as his mother proudly looks at him.
“Let’s walk to the other owl,” says Mureithi and we cross over a thin stream flowing through the farm.
It takes another few minutes for our eyes to adjust to the shape of the eagle, again so melded in stone.
“That’s the male,” continues our owl man. “The pair has marked its territory with each on either side of the cliff.”
It’s surreal that creatures of the wild can be so invisible in plain sight.
The owl champion
Mureithi’s foray into the owl world began by chance. Fresh out of college in the early 1990s he met a group of tourists at the curio shop he was working at. He showed them a carved owl. They asked if he knew of owl sites around. “I said yes and took them to the cliffs near our home. From them I learned about the Mackinder’s Eagle Owl.”
This incidental meeting was to influence Mureithi life.
“After this incidence, I started looking for more owl roosts around the cliffs near my village,” continues Mureithi. “But the farmers were clearing the bushes along the streams to irrigate their farms and using poison to kill the rodents and birds destroying their crops. When the owls fed on these poisoned creatures, they also died.”
Today Mureithi is an owl crusader, involving the community in protecting the rare owls. “Instead of using harmful pesticides to get of pests on the farms, it’s better to let the owls eat the rodents and snakes on their farms.”
Since 1995, Mureithi has records of 24 breeding sites of Mackinder’s Eagle Owl covering 860 square kilometres. In addition, working with local farmers and livestock herders from whom he receives updates about the owls, Mureithi is monitoring two other rare owls. One is the Cape Eagle Owl that is a sub-species of the Mackinder’s Eagle Owl. It is more common in South Africa.
The other is the Abyssinian long eared owl, today listed as Kenya’s rarest owl and only found on Mount Kenya.
Go owling
Contact Mureithi: mackinder_owl@yahoo.com
Never flush out the owls because nests that are constantly disturbed are abandoned by the owls.
The orange-eyed owls have to deal with speeding vehicles on the tarmac highway, becoming victims of hit-and-run collisions. The increasing number of electric lines crisscrossing the flight paths of the owls have them flying into them at night while hunting and becoming entangled.
Explore the Aberdares – there are eight gates to the 765.7-square-kilometre national park and do a round trip entering through the eastern side via Shamata or Rhino gate (check with KWS to purchase tickets at KWS Mweiga) from the Nyeri-Mweiga side and exiting through the western side to Naivasha or Njambini. You can camp or stay at one of the beautiful lodges in the park – make sure you have a sturdy four-wheel to explore the moors. Or hike the peaks on the northern end like the Dragon’s jaw, Twin peaks, and the highest – Satima. BY DAILY NATION