For the love of birds | Washington Wachira

With me here today

I brought something beautiful.

This is a feather from one of the most beautiful birds we have in Kenya,

the crested guinea fowl.

But this feather is more than just that.

If you've taken time when you are outdoors

to look at the feathers around you,

you'll have noticed

that there is this huge variety of different sizes,

shapes and even colors.

The feather is one of the most astonishing pieces of technology

invented by the natural world,

and for centuries, this feather has helped birds to keep dry,

to keep warm and even power flight.

Only one section of the tree of life can actually make a feather.

Among all the world's animals,

birds are the only ones who can make something

like what I'm holding today.

I personally have given them a nickname,

and I like to call them the feathermakers.

It is the major difference between birds and any other animals we have on earth,

and if you can't make a feather, you cannot call yourself a bird.

(Laughter)

For us humans, who are earthbound,

birds represent freedom.

This feather has enabled birds to conquer gravity

and take to the air in an extraordinary way.

Don't you sometimes wish you could fly like a bird?

Birds are my passion,

and I want to change the way each one of you thinks about them.

The easiest reason I love them so much is because they are beautiful.

There are 10,000 species in the world,

and each one of them is uniquely beautiful.

Birds are amazing,

and this talk is dedicated to all the birds of the world.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

Indeed, these birds have been part of our lives and cultures

all over the world for centuries,

and every society has a story about birds.

You probably have heard childhood stories of different birds

and how they relate with man.

I personally recently learned

that our human ancestors would follow flocks of vultures

and then they would help them

to identify where carcasses have been dropped by large carnivores,

and these humans will scavenge and eat part of that meat.

Birds have been used as brands and labels all over the world.

You know the bald eagle?

It was chosen as the national emblem for the US

because of its majestic strength,

beautiful looks

and even a long lifespan.

And just like us humans

who have managed to live in virtually all habitats of this earth,

birds have also conquered the world.

From birds such as these beautiful penguins

that live in the cold ice caps

to even others like the larks,

who live in the hottest deserts you can imagine.

Indeed, these species have conquered this world.

Birds also build houses like us.

The real pros in housebuilding

are a group of birds we call the weaverbirds,

and this name they were given

because of the way in which they weave their nests.

An interesting one:

birds also love and date just like us humans.

In fact, you'll be surprised to know that males dress to impress the women,

and I'll show you how.

So here we have a long-tailed widowbird,

and this is how they would normally look.

But when it comes to the breeding season,

everything changes,

and this is how he looks.

(Audience murmurs)

Yeah?

Birds also, multiple species of them,

do love to touch and cuddle just like humans.

And I know you're wondering about this one.

Yes, they kiss too,

sometimes very deeply.

(Applause)

Some have even learned to cheat on their spouses.

(Laughter)

For example, the African jacana:

the females will mate with multiple males

and then she takes off to find other males to mate with

and she leaves the male behind to take care of the chicks.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

And birds help us so much,

and they play very crucial roles in our ecosystems each day.

Vultures clean up our environment

by literally digesting disease-causing pathogens,

and they finish carcasses that would otherwise cost us lots of money

to clear from the environment.

A sizable flock of vultures is capable of bringing down a carcass

the size of a zebra straight to the bone

within just about 30 minutes.

Owls help to rid the environments of rodents

and this helps us a lot because it saves us money --

we don't lose our crops --

and secondly, we don't have to buy harmful chemicals

to handle these rodents.

The beautiful sunbirds we see in our environments

are part of nature's pollination crew,

and they help our plants to form fruits.

Together with other pollinators like insects,

they have actually helped us

to get most of the food crops that we depend on for many years.

Unfortunately, the story of birds is by far not perfect.

They are faced by numerous challenges every day wherever they live.

Top on the threats facing birds

is habitat loss

and reduced food availability.

Birds are also hunted, especially migratory species

and ducks that congregate in water bodies.

Poisoning is happening to flocks that like to stick together,

especially in places like rice schemes.

Moreover, power lines are electrocuting birds

and wind farms are slicing birds

when they fly through the blades.

Recently, we've heard the talk of climate change

making a lot of headlines,

and it's also affecting birds,

because birds are being forced to migrate to better breeding and feeding grounds

because unfortunately where they used to live

is no longer habitable.

My own perspective towards birds was changed

when I was a small boy in high school,

and there was this boy who struck,

injuring the wing and the leg of a bird we called the augur buzzard.

I was standing there,

just a mere 14-year-old,

and I imagined a human being in a similar situation,

because this bird could not help itself.

So even if I was hardly any biologist by then,

I gathered with three of my friends and we decided to house the bird

until it had regained strength and then let it free.

Interestingly, it accepted to feed on beef from our school kitchen,

and we hunted termites around the compound for its dinner every day.

After a few days, it had regained strength

and we released it.

We were so happy to see it flap its wings

and fly off gracefully.

And that experience changed the way we looked at birds.

We went on to actually make a magazine,

and we called it the Hawk Magazine,

and this was in honor of this bird

that we had helped within our own high school.

Those experiences in high school made me the conservationist I am today.

And a passion for birds should especially matter for Africa

and all Africans,

because among all other continents,

Africa hosts some of the most amazing bird species

you can find anywhere in the world.

Imagine having a name like "shoebill."

That's the name of that bird.

And there are countries like DR Congo,

Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya

who are leading the continent in highest numbers of diversity

when it comes to the species.

These birds continue to provide the continent

with very crucial ecosystem services that Africa needs.

Moreover, there is huge potential

for Africa to lead the world in avian tourism.

The economy will definitely benefit.

Imagine how many communities will benefit from groups of tourists

visiting their villages just to see the endemic birds

that can only be found in those villages.

How can we help birds together?

There is now a chance for all of you

to turn your passion for birds

into contributing to their continued survival,

and you can do that by becoming a citizen scientist.

Citizen science is a growing trend around the world,

and we are having scenarios where people are sharing information

with the rest of the community about traffic updates,

security alerts and so on.

That is exactly what we realized as bird-watchers,

and we thought, because birds are found everywhere,

if we've got all of you and everyone else in Africa

to tell us the birds they find where they live,

where they school, or even where they work,

then we can be able to come up with a map of every single species,

and from there scientists will be able

to actually prioritize conservation efforts

to those habitats that matter the most.

Take for example these two projects,

the Africa Raptor DataBank,

which is mapping all birds of prey in the continent of Africa,

and the Kenya Bird Map,

which is mapping about 1,100 species that occur in my country, Kenya.

These two projects now have online databases

that are allowing people to submit data,

and this is converted into very interactive websites

that the public can consume and make decisions from.

But when we started, there was a big challenge.

We received many complaints from bird-watchers,

and they will say,

"I'm in a village, and I cannot access a computer.

How do I tell you what birds live in my home,

or where I school, or where I work?"

So we were forced to renovate our strategy and come up with a sustainable solution.

It was easy:

we immediately realized that mobile phones

were becoming increasingly common in Africa

and most of the regions could get access to one.

So we came up with mobile phone applications

that you can use on your iPhone and on your Android phone,

and we made them freely available

for every bird-watching enthusiast out there.

So we came up with BirdLasser, which is used by the Kenya Bird Map,

and also we have the African Raptor Observations,

which is now used by the African Raptor DataBank.

This was a huge breakthrough in our work

and it made us get enormous amounts of data

from every birder out there in the regions.

With this, we realized that citizen science

is indeed very powerful,

the reason being, citizen science is adaptive.

And we were able to actually convert many bird-watchers

to start sharing new information with us.

When we were starting,

we didn't know that birds could be a huge gateway

to approaching conservation of other forms of animals.

Interestingly, now in the Virtual Museum for Africa,

we have maps for dragonflies and damselflies,

butterflies and moths,

reptiles, frogs, orchids, spiders,

scorpions, and yes, we are even mapping mushrooms.

Who could have imagined mapping mushrooms?

So this showed us that indeed we've created a community of people

who care about nature in Africa.

I hereby call upon all of you

to join me in promoting the value of birds

within your communities.

Please just tell your friends about birds,

for we are always inclined to love and care for that which we know.

Please spend a few minutes in your free time

when you are at work, at school, or maybe at home,

to at least look around you and see which beautiful birds are there.

Come join us in citizen science

and tell us the birds you're finding in the places where you visit.

Even simpler,

you could buy your child or your sibling

a pair of binoculars

or a bird book

and let them just appreciate how beautiful these birds are.

Because maybe one day they will want to care

for that one which they know and love.

The children indeed are our future.

Let us please teach them to love our feathermakers,

because the love of birds

can be a huge gateway to appreciating all forms of nature.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)

Thank you.