“I know she’s there,” says Dennis. We’re standing on a grassy ridge above a tree-lined watercourse, squinting through binoculars at a tangle of sticks in the canopy of a tall Podocarpus. “Last time, I waited two hours. But she always shows her head.”
Dennis Kapelian is one of a four-strong team working for the Mara Raptor Project. He’s led me to this remote spot in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve to view the nest of a bateleur eagle.
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Actually, it’s the old nest of a martial eagle, now reappropriated by a pair of bateleurs. The depth of the bowl constructed by its original, larger owners explains why the new occupants are often hidden from view.
What is the Mara Raptor Project?
The Mara Raptor Project is an initiative of the Kenya Bird of Prey Trust (KBoPT), which is working to reverse the fortunes of the country’s large raptors, currently in population freefall. The stats are grim: 89 per cent of species have declined by at least 75 per cent over the past 40 years. And while vultures have received some publicity, other species have slipped under the radar.
The long-crested eagle and secretary bird, to name just two, are both down by a catastrophic 94 per cent. Both were once abundant. Now, you’re pushed to find them outside a conservation area – even here in the Mara, they’re struggling.
Dennis has been keeping tabs on this bateleur pair using a camera mounted on an extendable pole. I ask whether we might walk down for a peek. He gestures at the sea of grass between us and the tree, where a large buffalo has raised its gnarly head. “Safety first,” says Dennis. “I don’t trust that guy.”
The sky boils with rainy season thunderheads. It’s mid-May, which means low season for tourists but peak season for nesting raptors – and this is our third nest this morning.
The first belonged to a long-crested eagle, the sitting female’s signature plumes fluttering in the heat haze. The next was a lappet-faced vulture’s, stuffed like a haystack into the crown of an acacia on an otherwise treeless expanse, the huge bird barely visible.
So far, so good, it seems. But this isn’t the full picture. Basing myself at Olderkesi, a private 2,800ha conservancy adjoining the Mara’s south-east corner, I have one week to fill in the gaps.
The raptor crisis
“Don’t worry, we’ll find plenty of raptors,” says Doug Nagi, head guide at Cottar’s Safaris. The team at Cottar’s, which leases Olderkesi from the community and runs the only camp in the area, has partnered with the KBoPT in a new initiative to channel tourism revenue into raptor conservation.
Doug points out a hill behind the camp, where a pair of crowned eagles often perform their aerial display. “Look out at lunchtime,” he advises. I get the feeling that our mission makes a welcome change from the usual request for the Big Five.
Stratton Hatfield, manager of conservation science for the KBoPT, confirms as much.
“We’re so obsessed with elephants and lions that we lose sight of these equally important species,” he says. Hatfield came to the Mara to complete a PhD on the martial eagle, but soon found himself embroiled in the raptor crisis.
He explains how the Mara is one of the most raptor-rich areas of the world, home to around 60 species, but the birds’ decline is going almost unnoticed.
“Our goal is to have six people in the Greater Mara (the reserve plus surrounding conservancies) full-time,” he says. “Monitoring raptors, working with communities, responding to poisonings and generally being raptor ambassadors.”
Why are Kenyan raptor populations declining?
The demise of Kenya’s raptors has multiple causes. Conflict with the local community plays a part: vultures fall indirect victim to poisoned carcasses set for predators such as lions, which sometimes take cattle, while large eagles such as the crowned and martial are directly targeted for taking sheep and goats.
Behind this lie broader environmental threats. The division of once-communal ranching land into private, fenced plots is accelerating habitat loss, reducing both prey numbers and nest sites, while an ever-expanding network of unprotected powerlines has seen countless raptors killed through collisions and electrocutions.
In the Mara, hard data is a priority. “These IUCN statuses are just guesstimates: they’ve used relatively poor data and analysis techniques to draw relatively poor conclusions,” says Stratton.
He explains how keeping land managers informed is essential. “If a conservancy can say it’s got 40 pairs of Critically Endangered white-backed vultures, that’s a strong fundraising mechanism.”
Meanwhile, his team advises on best practice: a tourist ‘bush breakfast’ under a prime nest tree can deter a potential breeding pair.
Educating the community
As for raptor ambassadors, the KBoPT project boasts a significant asset in its manager Lemein Par, who hails from the Maasai community and is a vital cog in community liaison. “Everyone knows Lemein – he’s the Raptor Guy,” says Stratton.
I don’t meet Lemein in person – he’s in Cape Town, completing his master’s on raptor nesting behaviour – but we chat on the phone. He tells me he’s monitored more than 400 nests, setting up remote cameras and tagging young birds to map and record their movements.
“When I have a bird in the hand, I feel that connection,” he says. Equally vital is Lemein’s educational role, speaking to people in his own community about the importance of raptors. “People don’t hate raptors. When I explain the chain of poisoning, they don’t feel good – it’s not what they intended.”
Over the following days, Doug and I explore the conservancy and adjoining stretches of park. Raptors abound, from lanky secretary birds to dinky pygmy falcons, and we meet the megafauna that pulls in the punters: nodding lines of zebras, browsing giraffes, breeding herds of elephants.
Banded mongooses dash across the track, barbets and tchagras serenade us from the thickets, and the air is heady with wild thyme.
But breeding raptors remain the goal. Following Lemein’s directions, we head for the Sand River, where a pair of martial eagles have long held a nest site. We find this massive structure unoccupied, with one of the adults perched nearby, looking grumpy. It’s worrying. Has breeding failed? Did this bird lose its partner?
On our return, we run into a pride of lions. As we watch the cubs cavorting in the evening light, Doug tells me how, in February, this very pride lost seven members to a poisoning incident. Hyenas died, too, and who knows how many vultures.
And herein lies the bigger issue. Raptors are not only magnificent creatures in their own right, they are also integral to the Mara’s infinitely complex ecosystem.
Each species plays a vital role, whether as a predator, keeping the food web in balance, or – in the case of vultures – as waste-disposal merchants, breaking down carcasses, recycling nutrients and averting disease. Lose the raptors and you lose much more besides.
Repair and rehabilitation
A few individual birds get help. On my way to Olderkesi, I visited the Naivasha Raptor Centre, a KBoPT facility where sick and injured raptors are sent for repair and rehabilitation. Director Shiv Kapila showed me around, introducing the birds by name.
We entered a small enclosure to meet Horace the lappet-faced vulture, who promptly showed off his 2.7m wingspan and tilted his meat-hook bill at my face. A seriously formidable animal.
Shiv explained how birds that recover are released with a GPS transmitter to track their movements. He also told me about his education programme, receiving two school visits per week. “Kids arrive with a negative view of owls and vultures,” he told me. “But we get them onside – we talk about pest control and preventing disease.”
A dapper augur buzzard watched from the next enclosure. “Electrocution,” Shiv explained. “These guys perch on powerlines. If they turn their head, they’re dead.” He described how a single electrocuted raptor can cause a costly local power outage.
“Putting the lines underground or retrofitting them is expensive in the short term,” he said, “but it would solve the problem in the long run.”
Back in Olderkesi, conservancy warden Nathan Kipees shows me around the ‘holding centre’ – a large shed complete with water bowl and perching branch, where he tends to poisoned raptors. He explains how he feeds them an emetic to vomit up toxins and a glucose solution to restore energy.
Under Nathan’s care, 24 vultures have been rehabilitated and released. Another eight requiring further treatment have been sent to Shiv at Naivasha.
As the week passes, I’m sensing that the fate of the Mara’s raptors – indeed, the fate of raptors across Kenya – hinges on the skill and dedication of a handful of exceptional individuals. What they need is support, and that’s where tourism comes in.
Community-owned conservancy
“The community-owned conservancy movement is incredibly important,” says Stratton. He stresses the need to lease more land for conservation and how giving raptors a higher profile could help. In this respect, Cottar’s involvement is promising.
The company now offers a dedicated raptor safari with exclusive access to the KBoPT’s work, visiting monitored nests and witnessing fascinating behaviour in the company of experts. The safari price includes a contribution to the trust, which helps fund its projects – at present, for example, enabling Lemein to complete his master’s degree.
And guests won’t miss out on other wildlife: wherever the birds take you, there will be big cats, elephants, the whole Mara menagerie. You can’t avoid it.
One afternoon, Doug takes me to a natural spring called Ol Pilagilagi. We head out on foot – Doug with his rifle – following fresh elephant tracks along a stream that winds up a forested hillside. Baboons bark their displeasure. Finally, we reach a clearing.
“This is where we’ll put the treehouse,” announces Doug. He explains that Lemein has planned a nest platform on the hillside opposite to attract the resident crowned eagle pair, bringing them within view of Cottar’s guests. Meanwhile, at a salt lick below, a camera trap has already recorded a leopard, a serval and a black rhino. A night in this treehouse might be one to remember.
It’s my final morning. We’ve been out since dawn, watching bat-eared foxes and spying a brown snake eagle, my 21st raptor species of the week. As the day warms, Doug spies a distant, descending spiral of vultures. There must have been a kill. We change course, bumping and lurching over the savannah.
Approaching the scene, we see individual birds on nearby trees, either awaiting their turn to feed or already sated. A single white-headed vulture – the Mara’s rarest species, with just three pairs remaining – is ousted from its perch by a feisty tawny eagle. On the ground is a hissing, jostling scrum of vultures, tearing into the remains of a zebra foal.
“Leopard,” says Doug, pointing to some telltale pugmarks. “He’s somewhere nearby.” More birds swoop in, scattering jackals as they alight. It’s gruesome but mesmerising. I count them: 52 white-backed vultures; six lappet-faced vultures; two Rüppell’s griffon vultures; one white-headed vulture; one tawny eagle.
Meanwhile, a bateleur tilts overhead on seesaw wings and a dark chanting goshawk stands sentinel atop a whistling thorn. It’s raptor paradise, a vision of how things once were across the savannahs of Kenya and how – with the help of the inspiring team I’ve met this last week – they still could be once again.
