Endangered Species

Today has had a bit of a wildlife flavour to it. Our part of Kenya does not boast any of the Big Five safari beasts to lure tourists, though there was a rumour of hyenas in the hills when we first came here. We were told that they had all been poisoned because of their anti-social diet of goats and occasional babies. This may all be rumour of course. It makes a good story though.

During this visit I have noticed an increased variety of bird life around our compound. This may have something to do with our farming activities or, possibly, the apparent change in climate, (it has been very wet for the last 12 months). Whatever the reason the birds are a welcome addition to the scenery, (until they start eating our crops).

Snakes are less welcome visitors to our place. East Africa is home to the decidedly unfriendly mamba family of snakes. Both green and black mambas are common in our area. The Black Mamba has a well deserved reputation as a fearsome beast. The less well known Green Mamba is highly venomous but less aggressive than its black cousin. I’ve had the usual busy day working on school issues today so haven’t been out much. This afternoon my daughter Ellie told me that our daytime security guard had killed a Green Mamba that had been hiding out in one of the two traditional houses that we use as storage areas. She said it wasn’t very big, (about eighteen inches long), but it was a timely reminder of the need to be vigilant. Kill on sight seems to be the usual rule over here as far as snakes go. It seems a shame. The Green Mambas are very bright green and are very pretty snakes.

We had a much more amazing wildlife encounter early this evening. The children play football on the field after supper. Beldine, one of our older girls, came hurrying over to our house after supper with something to show Ellie, (she and Ellie are very close). It wasn’t clear at first what Beldine had brought with her. It was pretty amazing when all became clear. In England it is, I think, illegal to buy tortoises as pets. Over here the tortoise is a native resident. You don’t see many of them but they are around. Beldine is obviously very observant as she had managed to find a baby tortoise. It looked like a bite sized pie with little legs and was very cute. We briefly considered starting our children’s zoo with it but decided, on reflection, that it wouldn’t be the right thing to do. We returned it to ‘the wild’ in a secret location that we hoped the children wouldn’t find. Baby tortoises have a lot of enemies so we are all rooting for its survival. As long as they maintain their allegedly docile disposition I’m quite happy to co-exist with Green Mambas too.