Violet-backed Starling Breeding in Kakuzi, Murang’a County

By Simon Odhiambo

On Sunday, 26th January, John Gitiri and visitors stopped by Kakuzi for a little birding. As we walked, out of nowhere, I spotted a male and a female Violet-backed Starling flying past. The birds flew towards an Acrocarpus tree and the male landed and crawled into a hole in one of the dry branches of the tree. Later in the day, excited and armed with my camera, I observed the male and female fly in and out of the nest hole, each time with a beak full of caterpillars. This looked like a busy feeding exercise. On every 6th or 7th visit to the nest hole, the male would come out with a beak-full of solid bird dropping and fly away with it, I guess for safe disposal.  Initially it was the male doing the nest sanitation and just before I concluded that this was his role, the female interfered with my line of thought by flying out with a beak-full of droppings.  I continue observing the nest at least once each day as I am interested in documenting the fledglings and finding out if this is another successful breeding of Violet-backed Starling in Kenya.