Muthoki Country Lodge and a Grey-Headed Kingfisher

Muthoki Country Lodge has been our home in Wamunyu for the week, with luxurious tents and fabulous food. We have four-poster beds with mosquito nets, and even hot water bottles secreted in the beautiful bedding while we’re eating tasty, hearty and beautifully presented food.

The centre of our early evenings is the open-sided dining room, with its long table. It also has a beer fridge. A cold Tusker lager is a wonderful thing.

My volunteer friends have been kind and welcoming and it’s been a constant thrill to have their company. Some of them are in staying in fancy buildings in the Lodge rather than tents.

I’m pleased that I’m having an authentic Kenyan woodland experience out in my tent, especially since the sound travels straight to my ears on my pillow and I can hear the frogs croaking from the lake and the Bushbabies screaming in the night directly outside my tent.

The later part of our evenings are spent around the firepit. Everyone else seems to go to bed at 9pm, but there’s no way I can possibly go to bed before midnight. It’s me, a large log fire, a member of staff to keep it burning strongly, and a night watchman, an older man who is keen to tell me that all of his family are dead.

On our final day, volunteers have the opportunity for a birdwatching walk within the forty acres of Muthoki Country Lodge. Our friend Mike is the perfect guide for me and for our total beginners and it’s entertaining to find that there’s not a single bird for the first twenty minutes of our meander. Soon, however, there are plenty of opportunities for saying “Wow, look at that!”

Here’s a Grey-Headed Kingfisher, Halcyon leucocephala, one of several different species of Kingfisher in Kenya. Unlike the Common Kingfisher in the UK, it’s not possible to tell the difference between the sexes with human sight.

What a beautiful bird. Thankfully I get a clear view through all the foliage. It’s a bird of dry country and eats insects and lizards.

We’re lucky enough to see it bob its head, fly, and catch prey. The first time it’s a large adult insect and the second time it’s a large caterpillar. I get photographs but sadly I’m not happy with them. The bird sat in a place where I couldn’t get a clear view and where there were leaves and branches in the way.

I’m just going to have to accept these images as the best I can get. Would you be disappointed?