Dudu Diaries

This Saturday I visited the Kibera Slum in Nairobi with Paula of
WildlifeDirect and her remarkable sister Su Kahumbu, one of Kenya’s
most passionate organic farmers who is working very hard to raise
awareness about organic farming and other issues related to good
farming practices.

Isaak, a partial hearing child attached himself to me immediately

The Kibera Slum is probably not the kind of place you would ever
expect to hear about on a conservation blog. Many people associate the
slum with images of violence and chaos especially in the recent
violence that erupted in Kenya. However, given that a third of the
population of Nairobi lives in the slum (estimated at nearly 1 million
people!), the needs and hopes of the people who live there need to be
part of the big issues addressed by conservationists.

To those who livet here, garbage is just a part of the landscape. It is dumped in any open spaces, and is the unbelievable playground and hunting area for young children.

We went to look at a wonderful project that is literally, just taking
root, with a local Youth Group. A group of former prisoners are
cleaning up and restoring a piece of land that is basically a garbage
dump on the edge of the railway tracks. This piece of land is being
turned into an organic farm.

After one week the garbage had been cleared from the dump and neatly piled for erosion control, and soil prepared for planting

What impressed me about this project, apart from the incredible joy,
hope and determination of the people involved, was the way that life
itself – biodiversity – has made an unbelievable comeback on the land
being restored.

Sorrel and other plants grow wild here - the seeds come in the garbage

Negotiating the open sewers clogged with plastic bags and refuse, eyes
smarting from the fumes from endless fires burning everything from
dried fish to old batteries, one would be forgiven for thinking that
life barely survives here. But nothing could be further from the
truth. Given just a little breathing space to heal, Mother Nature has
begun to bounce back with vigour.

One of the first things was to restore the natural processes of decay
and nutrient cycling to the soil. And of course who better to do this
than those tireless soil-making machines, our dear little friends the
earthworms. In beds fed with scraps, the earthworms have been
established and are rapidly increasing in number (they are
hermaphrodites and can mate multiply!).

These children have hardly been exposed to natural vegetation or animals. On being introduced to worms the first child thought they were snakes and the first worm was hurled onto the railway tracks - the little boy believing he’d rescued us from a deadly bite!

As I walked over the soft, fragile soil, carefully raked clean of
debris, a brief rapid fluttering caught my eye. Intrigued, I followed
the tiny grey fleck as it whirled through the air. Finally, after
several frustrating minutes, it settled on a piece of paper lying on
the ground. I peered closely and was very pleasantly surprised. This
was a Woolly Legs – a strange and wonderful butterfly whose
caterpillars are carnivorous and feed on scale insects and other
similar pests! This makes them a useful insect and a cherished friend
of farmers who need to control scale insects on their crops.

Later, as the sun warmed the red soil, another flash of colour swirled
around coming to rest on a rock. Here was a newly arrived Painted Lady
– a migrant species, that has come to the tiny patch of land to start
a new generation of butterflies. She sat sunning herself on the rocks
in between the freshly dug furrows. Her choice of this spot also
indicates that the land is healing and welcoming to living things. The
herbs now allowed to sprout freed from the suffocating piles of
rubbish will bring in more and more insects. We saw 15 different
species of butterflies on the farm over the rest of the day –
absolutely amazing and wonderful.

Butterflies were not the only creatures making a comeback. We saw five
different kinds of bees, including honeybees, feeding from the small
patch of flowers at the edge of the little farm. These will be
important pollinators once the crops are established. A number of
dragonflies were also patrolling the area. They too are friends well
worth having as they feed on pesky flies and mosquitoes. Even the pile
of plastic bags raked out of the plot, piled up and planted on as an
erosion barrier was beginning to attract creatures – several small
spiders had taken up residence here.

As the land continues to heal and more and more plants are established
the numbers of creatures is bound to grow and I look forward to
visiting again and seeing who else has come back to live on the farm
and help the farmers keep the land healthy and productive. This also
goes to show you that life can thrive absolutely anywhere – we just
have to give her a chance!

The children were absolutely amazing, funny, happy and healthy! They have been incorporated into the project for future generations. They had the privilege of being the first to plant seeds in the seedbeds.

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Tags: Kenya, Kibera, organic farming, slum upgrading

I have just been visiting the Tugen Hills with Paula from WildlifeDirect at the invitation of a local conservationist, William Kimosop, who is working to link protected areas and community conservation in the area. It is a rugged and exciting part of the Great Rift Valley with dramatic plunging escarpments and steep forested mountains.

At the top of one of the hills we climbed, Morop (also spelled Marop), we encountered one of Africa’s most majestic creatures. It was a long hot steep climb in the hot bright sunshine through a mixture of dry highland forest and rocky bushland.

At the top of the hill, the vegetation is thin and sparse and the ground loose rocky scree. As we stopped to rest and catch our breath, a gust of wind blew up from the hot valley below. It brought a gift from the forest with it. Three gorgeous Regal Swallowtails, floated up from the forest canopy below.

The Regal Swallowtail, Papilio rex, is Kenya’s largest butterfly species. It is a striking butterfly with yellow-spotted wings and orange-cinnamon flashes at the bases of the wings. These three beauties were all males. Males of many different butterfly species frequently engage in a behaviour called ‘hill-topping’. They fly up to the tops of hills and circle around. They chase each other and are basically ‘checking out the competition’. And, of course, should any female wander by, they will actively court her.

The butterflies flew lazily about, gently tossed by the wind, half-heartedly chasing each other from the prime places in the
sunshine that they were enjoying. It was a lovely sight- dancing dabs of colour high, high above the hot, shimmering belly of the Great Rift
Valley…

More on the Tugen Hills (and the amazing and wonderful ways of cockroaches soon!) Thanks to everyone for your kind comments!

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Tags: 220, 414, 423, 424, 425, 426

First – sorry to my fellow insect-lovers for not posting on the blog for a while. I’ve been in Boston at university and as the winter progressed, both insects, and time to blog, was very limited. I’m glad to report that I’m back in Kenya (briefly!) and have been visiting Kakamega forest for the past few days… which by the way is one of my favourite places in the world and one of Kenya’s most diverse forests.

The forest has been very dry (it last rained about two weeks ago), so it is very different walking through the crackling dry leaf litter and the absence of mud – in the rainforest! – is striking. Nonetheless there are lots of insects around as usual the hot dry weather seems to have had an effect on certain kinds of butterflies who are more abundant than usual.

I was walking down a path at the edge of the Yala River. This area of forest is one of the few virgin fragments in the sprawling Kakamega rainforest, much of which has been disturbed in the past and/or is currently heavily utilised. But along the banks of the Yala River, deep inside the forest are patches of relatively undisturbed forest home to some of Kenya’s loveliest butterflies.

Among the many forest beauties flitting about in the sunspots and by the streams was one very striking and gorgeous iridescent species known as the Blue Mother-Of-Pearl. The edge of the river was bathed in hot sunshine and the butterflies lazily fluttered about. They moved over the sandy soil pressing their proboscises against the wet ground imbibing salts that are leaching upwards through evaporation. This behaviour is known as mud-puddling and it is primarily done by male butterflies in search of precious salts that they will present as a nuptial gift to a female butterfly as part of a spermatophore – a special package of nutrients – when they mate.

Sometimes when many butterflies have gathered, they will often be quite relaxed, and if approached slowly will not startle. One favourite game that I love to play with large numbers of mud-puddling butterflies is to try and get them to climb onto my hand. Be pressing one’s hand into the damp earth before and gently and very, very slowly moving it under a butterfly, you can occasionally get one of them to climb onto you. (Sweat works just as well and some butterflies will even try and land on you to drink it!).

I laid down my net and backpack and inched forward slowly. You need to move like a chameleon – just one limb at a time and absolutely no sudden movements. After several false starts that resulted in clouds of colour whirling about my head finally the butterflies began to treat me as part of their surroundings.

Inching forward, I pressed my hand into the cool earth and gently moved it towards the one darker butterfly who was sitting at the edge of the throng. I positioned it underneath her, and without a moment’s hesitation she stepped up onto my palm and began ‘tasting’ my skin with her proboscis.

I watched her as she shuffled over my palm As a breeze wafted over the river, she decided that she needed to warm up and spread her magnificent wings pressing them against my hand to gather as much warmth as possible.

Of course, this lasted barely a moment and I was stunned by the rich colours, but quickly I managed to snap a picture with the camera in my other hand. Despite my adulation for her resplendence, I knew that she would not stay and let me gaze on her beauty long. Once she warmed up within a few seconds she flitted up and away, swirling into the bright, speckled canopy!

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Some of nature’s most wonderful children are shy, elusive creatures. There are over eight hundred different kinds of butterfly in Kenya. Some of these like the gaudy swallowtails and emperors are heart-stoppingly gorgeous, with colours that simply take your breath away and have to be seen in the living creature, dancing in the sunlight, to be fully appreciated.

Many butterflies are less colourful, but nonetheless fascinating. One of the most diverse groups of butterflies are the lycaenids – the blues and coppers. While most of the species are fairly small – with wingspans of less than an inch, they are like miniature works of inlaid jewelery, full of iridescent colour and minute detail.

Not only are these tiny butterflies exquisitely beautiful, they are even more amazing in terms of their life-cycles, as many of them live as caterpillars in close association with various kinds of ants. Some of them even develop inside the ants’ nests, and departing from their image of gentle, harmless creatures have turned carnivorous and feed on the ants’ brood – their larvae!

One group of these butterflies that is very diverse in Africa are the Giant Cupids – the genus Lepidochrysops. They are very localised butterflies and little is known about their life history – something that I am hoping to investigate.

Finally, after many weeks of searching – climbing hills and mountains all over Western Kenya, long, hot walks along the edge of the Great Rift Valley, and carefully probing through dozens of fields of wildflowers I found some of these enigmatic butterflies in the Kerio Valley.

I was walking down a dappled path in the late afternoon. The hottest part of the day was done and now the sun, warm and soft, sifted through the leaves and splashed onto the flowers growing everywhere. An oriole flitted through the branches overhead and alighting in a thorny Balanites proceeded to sing out his delicious melody that flowed through the bright air. As I listened, day-dreaming, out of the corner of my eye a fast, shining silvery-blue being whirred by. He danced down the path. My heart almost stopped beating – no, could it finally be? Yes, he turns and dances back down towards me passing me again. Twice he passes by, then suddenly, tired by his showing off, settles on a flowering Barleria where I can admire him up close!

I have a feeling that this special meeting will lead to much discovery and joy

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