Mau Eburu Forest Birding

Mau Eburu forest is the easternmost conservatory of the 22 gazetted forest blocks that form the vast 420,000-hectare Mau Forest Complex, located within Kenya’s Great Rift Valley. Mau Forest is the largest indigenous montane forest in East Africa. It is one of Kenya’s water towers, boasting some of the highest rainfall rates and the largest drainage basin in Kenya.

Mau Eburu forest is located among the folds of “ Mount Ol Donyo Eburu “, meaning a mountain of steam, assigned by the Maasai people some 300 years ago. Mau Eburu is a geologically active volcanic massif rising 2,855 meters above sea level, which, some 900 meters above adjacent areas on the Rift Valley. Mau Eburu forest area covers 21,536 acres (87 square kilometers) of pristine indigenous forest and forms part of the Rift Valley conservation and ecology ecosystem stretching from Lake Nakuru National Park , Lake Elementeita , Soysambu Conservancy , Lake Naivasha , to Longonot and Hell’s Gate National Parks.

Mau Eburu forest overlooks Lake Naivasha to the South East, Lake Elementaita to the North, and Lake Nakuru to the North West. The Mau Eburu forest covers some phenomenal rugged terrain, rich in measurable vistas. Exceedingly deep valleys, cut by mountain streams that fall over sheer rock cliffs into narrow gorges dressed up with ferns. No less spectacular are the forest’s magnificent stands of the tall-growing conifers, pencil cedar, and podo dispersed, higher up, with thickets of African mountain bamboo and giant heather. A wide belt of closed-canopy broadleaf forest, almost pristine in places covers the tumbling upper slopes of Eburu, many of the plants, wildlife, and birds marooned in the forest have western affinities. Mau Eburu forest forms part of the catchments for Lakes Naivasha and Elementaita, with several ground springs, and is the source of the Ndabibi River and other various small streams.

More than 60 species of mammals are known to occur in Mau Eburu Forest. It is a delicate miniature island of biodiversity and home to 13 of the fewer than 100 surviving wild populations of the critically endangered Eastern Mountain Bongo -Mau Eburu flagship. A gorgeous and grandiose Antelope that is doing quite well, young ones have been recorded by the cameras installed to track their movements.

The Eastern Mountain Bongo is listed as critically endangered, their total number estimated to be fewer than 120, and is restricted to a few upland forests in Aberdares Ranges , Mount Kenya , and Mau Escarpment. The forest is home to 10 percent of the global wild population of the critically endangered Eastern Mountain Bongo . Other Mammals in Mau Eburu Forest: Cape Buffalo, Mau Guereza Monkey, Sykes’s Monkey, Leopard, Bushbuck, Common Duiker, Bushbaby, Tree Hyrax, Yellow-backed Duiker, Giant Forest Hog ( forest-dependent), Blue Duiker, Black Fronted Duiker ,