Cisticola Tours Guide, Washington Wachira, exceeds 1,000 species in one East African Birding Big Year (2022)

Cisticola Tours Guide, Washington Wachira, exceeds 1,000 species in one East African Birding Big Year (2022)

Birding is a great passion and a career base for all Tour Guides at Cisticola Tours LTD (https://www.cisticolatours.com/). We have, for many years, successfully shown world birders most of the birds of East Africa, through our different tours and safaris. “It always gives us much joy when we take birding guests to spots where rare birds occur; but the greater joy is achieved when we finally find these rare species and show them to the guests”, commented Washington Wachira.

The concept of a Big Year has been in the birding arena for many decades and to some people it is a life goal to conquer an existing record. Basically, a Big Year involves spending one calendar year birding a specific geographical region; and looking to find as many birds as possible. This can be a single state/ county, country, continent or even the globe. The American Birding Association (ABA) Big Year record is 840 species and this was set by John Weigel (in the year 2019). The Big Year World record stands at 6,852 species; which was set in the year 2016 by Arjan Dwarshuis. The earliest recorded continent-wide birding Big Year record was set by Guy Emerson in 1939 (497 species). He was a businessman who timed his business trips to coincide with the best birding seasons across different areas in North America.

We at Cisticola Tours LTD have been running birding tours and safaris across East Africa; covering the countries of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. This is the region, with the addition of Burundi, which is covered by the region’s renowned field guide – Birds of East Africa by Stevenson and Fanshawe. We decided to target this region and track one of our guides to see how many species we could record in one calendar year (2022). Every Big Year has a set of rules that guide the process. This includes the specific species checklist to use for the year, the region and how species qualify to be added to the final list. With the global style of Birding Big Years, the ABA rules often take precedence.

We therefore tried to work with these rules and match them as much as was logistically possible. On the same front, we decided to only use the eBird Checklist and App for all records across the entire year. All species that were to be included needed to also be from an actual birding group session, so that meant if the species was only seen during a private activity, that list would not count. Therefore, we included only birds seen on a tour, a group bird walk or a session involving a team of birders.

The record as at midnight 31^st December 2022 stood at an impressive 1,002 Species.       

The locations birded and the missed sites

In the year, several great locations were visited. The expeditions visited all national parks in Rwanda. In Kenya, most sites visited were in Central, Southern, Western and Eastern (mainly around the Coast and Tsavo) regions. For Tanzania, the trips were mainly in the Central and Northern parts of the country. In Uganda, regions visited included sites surrounding the Lake Victoria basin, Southern and Western Uganda (with Pian Upe Game Reserve, Budongo Forest and Murchison Falls National Park added in Northern Uganda).

However, many key birding locations were never visited because during the year, there were no tours to those sites. These included:-

• Northern Uganda, all regions North of Gulu, including the entire Kei-Kidepo region
• Semuliki/ Semliki and Rwenzori/ Ruwenzori regions of Western Uganda
• The Echuya-Mgahinga Region of Uganda
• The entire Western and South-Western regions of Tanzania
• Tanzania – localities West of Lake Victoria
• Southern Tanzania – all regions South of Ifakara
• Usambara Mountains and the entire North-Eastern Tanzania
• Deserts of Northern and North-Eastern Kenya
• Kenya’s Southern Coast
• The entire country of Burundi
• All islands in the Indian Ocean
• All islands in Lake Victoria

The species in summary

Across the year, many wonderful species were recorded, of varying rarity contexts. Some species were not what birders would consider a rare bird, but the moment was special for other reasons. This also included finding the first records of a species in a given geographical area. Some of the memorable ones included:-

• Seeing a Bearded Vulture (sometimes called Lammergeyer or Lammergeir) at 3,655 metres while hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
• Being within metres of the rare Kipengere/ Tanzania Seedeater in the Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania
• Finding the stunning Olive-flanked Robin-Chat or Ground Robin (“Mbulu” type), Tanzania
• Finding the first Cassin’s Hawk-Eagle for the Aberdare Mountains, Central Kenya
• Finding a displaying party of Somali Short-toed Larks (race megaensis) in Samburu, Kenya
• Enjoying the rare Kungwe Apalis right over our heads while our group walked in Nyungwe Forest, Rwanda
• Watching parents feeding their young, a case of the Grauer’s/ African Green Broadbills in Bwindi Forest, Uganda
• Watching the display flight of the Green-breasted Pitta in Kibale Forest, Uganda
• Watching the nesting behavior of the endemic Fox’s Weaver in Pian Upe, Uganda

The first ten species seen in the year 2022 were (in exact sequence):

1. Streaky Seedeater
2. African Citril
3. Kenya Rufous Sparrow
4. Pin-tailed Whydah
5. Grosbeak Weaver
6. Baglafecht Weaver
7. Variable Sunbird
8. Northern Double-collared Sunbird
9. Bronze Sunbird
10. Amethyst Sunbird

These first ten species were all seen in Ngong Road Forest, Nairobi, Kenya. The Big Year started on 24^th January, 2022.

The final ten species seen in the year 2022 were (in exact sequence):

1. Rufous-necked/ Red-throated Wryneck
2. Little Rock-Thrush
3. Red-fronted Parrot
4. Abyssinian Ground-Thrush
5. Abbott’s Starling
6. Boran Cisticola
7. Somali Short-toed Lark
8. Gray Wagtail
9. Brown-headed Apalis
10. Gray-olive Greenbul

All the final ten species were seen in Tanzania and Kenya across different locations.

The 2022 East African Big Year Record

The record as at midnight 31st December 2022 stood at an impressive 1,002 Species. These are all the species that were accepted by the eBird Checklist. All these species were recorded by one Tour Guide, Washington Wachira, on all his tours and expeditions.

This record was extrapolated onto larger geographical regions:-

• Washington Wachira was ranked number 5 across the entire African continent by species, in the year 2022
• Washington Wachira was ranked number 34 in the Global Eastern Hemisphere by species, in the year 2022
• Washington Wachira was ranked number 504 in the World by species, in the year 2022

Potential species splits

Some species splits are not recognized by eBird; but are acceptable on other checklists such as IOC and the official Kenyan Birds Checklist. During the year, these species were also recorded, but did not count towards the final tally. Some of these species or potential splits include:

1. Placid Greenbul
2. Dodson’s Bulbul
3. Kakamega Greenbul
4. Olive-breasted Greenbul
5. Yellow-billed Kite
6. Snowy or Brown-and-white Barbet
7. Usambiro Barbet
8. All the debatable splits on Francolins and Spurfowls
9. The inconclusive “Lesser Black-backed Gulls” of the inland lakes of the Great Rift Valley
10. Hybrid Lovebird
11. Burchell’s Coucal
12. The inconclusive Montane Nightjar (Rwenzori Nightjar or Usambara Nightjar) complex of the Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania
13. African Hoopoe
14. Thick-billed Honeyguide
15. Athi Short-toed Lark
16. Potential “Athi” or “Sentinel” Lark
17. Eastern Saw-wing
18. Rwenzori Hill Babbler
19. Ruaha Chat
20. African Reed Warbler
21. Eastern Crombec
22. “Kakamega” Hyliota
23. Grey-backed Camaroptera
24. Brown-tailed Apalis
25. Potential “Nanyuki or Mt. Kenya Babbler”
26. Gorgeous Sunbird
27. “Southern” Red-headed Weaver
28. Red-backed Mannikin

Notes:

• Some species names in this article are given with alternate names from different books or other sources.
• Some of the possible splits are proposed, so they may take some time before being fully accepted by all checklists.
• No birds were twitched during the entire year.