The Kakamega Rainforest in western Kenya, close to Lake Victoria and the Uganda border, represents the country’s only remaining remnant of what was once a belt of tropical forest sweeping across the African continent. It is home to a range of wildlife found nowhere else in the country, including an outlying population of the Blue-headed Bee-eater, which made it a must visit location for this particular tour.
Sunday 9th November 2025. After a 2 hour late evening flight from Addis Ababa we overnighted at an airport hotel In Nairobi before catching an early morning internal flight to Kisumu. There we were met by our excellent guide and driver, Steve Kameme, who was to accompany us over the next 10 days whilst we made our way via Kakamega through the Great Rift and onwards to the arid north. A couple of hours later saw us bumping our way along mud tracks leading deep into the forest. Progress was arrested by a section of the road that had become a quagmire due to recent rains. Good natured locals informed us of an alternative route and one guy even volunteered to escort us on his motorbike. We arrived at our lodge weary and shaken up by what is ironically, but affectionately, called the ‘African Massage’ meaning hours tossed around in a 4×4 banging your elbows, backside and head against unyielding protuberances- it’s no contest and the jeep always wins. We hobbled to our bungalow, washed and had lunch and immediately felt better. And what a superb location. Rondo Retreat was originally built by a South African settler for his family and it is an utterly charming place. Very quiet and picturesque and of course surrounded by pristine rainforest and its associated wildlife. You can’t get much closer to nature than this we thought. We certainly got very close to lots of nature and at times nature got a little too close to us, but we’re the imposters and have no cause for complaint.
A short while after lunch our Kakamega specialist guide arrived, a pleasant guy named Job, who within minutes had conjured a White-spotted Flufftail from deep cover. These skulking birds are apparently notoriously difficult to see, but that was lost on us as they paraded up and down and proceeded to bathe in the stream. Another couple of birders appeared and put it all into perspective by saying to Job ‘You are one hell of a guide, we’ve been looking for this bird for 3 days’. Interesting I thought.
We spent an hour or so walking around the forest trails close to the lodge before saying our goodbyes and arranging a meeting time for the morrow. I’d already given Job the challenge of finding the bee-eater and he seemed reasonably confident we had a chance of success, but something in his manner made me wonder whether I’d overestimated our chances. It’s a small bird and a big forest, the population is not large here and we only had a couple of days – this was our only opportunity because it’s not as though we can pop back next weekend for another go. For some reason I was getting quite worried, but then sitting on the veranda, kicking myself up the backside (still sore from the massage) and reminding myself how extremely fortunate and privileged we were to just be here did the trick. I watched the butterflies, listened to the birds and fell into a pleasant doze.
Monday 10th November 2025. Forest birding is hard work. There are birds secreted there, lots of them, but they are generally small, adept at camouflaging themselves, and have acres of thick cover to hide in. With patience you will ‘see’ a lot, that it a lot of small shapes tazzing through deep jungle, peeping out every now and then to blow a raspberry or thumb their beaks at you. You have to be quick and alert to every movement, hoping you can track the little beast until it momentarily shows itself and you can clock the key features. A camera helps. If you can get a pic of the bird you can hopefully marry it up with a field guide later and confirm the identity. Alternatively, an expert guide that explains what’s going on works even better and we certainly had one of those. Job was turning out to be a prize asset. Armed with a microphone linked to his iPhone that could be slung over a convenient branch, we could retreat to a comfortable distance while Job played the call of the target. In this way we saw several splendid species that would otherwise have just remained ghostlike in the forest. Is it cheating? Possibly, but then it only takes a minute or so of the birds time, allows them to posture and assert their territorial rights and they soon lose interest and fade away into thick cover. It does allow us nerds a chance to appreciate them, which is what this whole venture is about. Why else would we be here? Why else would our guide and driver be here? Why else would the lodge and its compliment of staff be here? Why else would the forest still be here? I’ve long held the belief that if we, and others like us, weren’t visiting these places, they would cease to exist, resulting in the extermination of millions of creatures, not to mention the lost livelihood of communities that rely on tourism for their income. Lunch beckoned.
Crunch time. The afternoon session was set aside as time to track down the bee-eater. Job directed us to an area of the forest where he knew the birds could be found and we began our search. Blue-headed Bee-eaters are forest dwellers. They do not perch conveniently on exposed twigs by the roadside, or on telegraph wires like the White-throated Bee-eaters we saw as we bumped along the track. No, they like to sit quietly in deep forest waiting for insect prey to pass by. Not easy to find then.
Armed with our 21st century technology we positioned ourselves at a crossroads of tracks and played the call. After a short while Job pointed to a small shape that arrowed from our right, flew across the track and perched briefly in a nearby tree. It was just a silhouette, no way to register any colour or form before it flitted away and would not reappear. Job assured us it was the target bird, but it was a frustratingly inadequate glimpse. Sensing our disappointment, he suggested we move along the track to our left. We followed and after 50 metres he suddenly dived into the forest beckoning us to do the same. We clambered through the scrub to find him pointing to a little bird perched on a branch right in front of us. There it was, a lovely, gorgeous, totally unconcerned Blue-headed Bee-eater. A surreal moment for me; you see pictures in books, you read about their habits, you plan a trip that gives you half a chance and there it is sitting in front of you. Pinch yourself, aim the camera and……Yes! Gotcha! How did he do it? How did he know it was there? Did he hear it, because I didn’t? Was it simply intuition? Job, my friend you are truly one hell of a guide.
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