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The resonant thumping song of the Long-tailed Nightjar (Caprimulgus climacurus) through the dry air is a sound of blessing. The hot undulating desert landscape of sand-coloured sedimentary rocks are bare of greenery, except a few dead-looking bush punctuating the morning sunrays. The rufous-brown coloured bird, with an exceptionally long tail, makes its distinct call, a fast, mechanical trill; higher-pitched than similar calls of other nightjars. People are listening, watching. Should the bird land at the door of any of the doum-palm thatched homesteads that pop up every few kilometers in the vast horizon of sand, thorn trees, plains and hills; interspersed with scorched river-beds, sand pans, and volcanic hills, its a sign that rain is near. Animals will be quenched, satisfied. And for the Turkana people living in the deserts…

Northern Kenya is a wild frontier country inhabited by some of the toughest and most interesting people in Africa. Spartanish, tall and regal, these nomads belong to a mythical race of African ancient warriors who migrated south in the late 10th century, or from the lower Nile valley in about the 15th century. The Samburu are part of a migration of four language groups that included the Maa peoples (Nilo-Saharan language family), who first settled in the Laikipia and Loita highlands north of Mount Kenya. The Samburu people have over the years stuck tenaciously to their culture and are among the most culturally rich of Kenyan communities today. Their daily life activities are as fascinating as their elaborate traditions. As semi-nomadic pastoralists, the Samburu are closely related to the Maasai,…

Driving up north from Nairobi, that familiar feeling of excitement slowly grows and as the roads wind down towards the dusty, desert heat of Samburu, city life is now a distant memory. Samburu County is predominantly semi-arid with scarce erratic rainfall. Breezing past reticulated giraffes, pretty-eyed dik-diks and comical flocks of vulturine guineafowl, I’m headed for Maralal Town. Clearly, increased human dependence on forest resources along with variability in intensity and seasonality of rainfall, have resulted in prolonged drought and severe weather events in recent years as evidenced by the bare land sparsely covered in bush and scrub. In the Samburu ecosystem humans, domestic animals and wildlife co-exist sharing the same environmental resources, are exposed to common risks and in some cases antagonize the lives and existence of one another.…