They looked so content.

They were lying partly in the shade and in the dry soil below a large conifer tree. Taking a dust bath one presumes.

An hour and a half later and there are twelve left. Perhaps this is really a Pigeon School ?

Aberdare Park in Wales is around 50 hectares. Aberdare National Park in Kenya is around 77,000 hectares. The mind boggles at this scale.

If our mathematics are correct, you could fit nearly 3790 Aberdare Parks into the Kenyan Aberdare National Park.

Why did the Kenyans name such a vast nature reserve Aberdare National Park ?

It appears that during the hey-day of colonial exploitation in Africa (in 1884 to be precise) the explorer Joseph Thompson gave the name ‘Aberdare’ to the Kenyan mountain range he discovered. He choose the name Aberdare as Lord Aberdare (Henry Austin Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare (1815 – 1895)) was then President of the Royal Geographic Society.

Of course, the Kenyans, who discovered the mountain range many years before Thompson, called it something else. They called it Nyandarura, a name for a traditional rack used for drying animals hides and skins. The Kenyans farm areas of the fertile Aberdare lands and according to local sources, drums would be used, especially at the edges of the Aberdare forest to scare away elephants and other wild beasts and prevent them straying onto farmland and taking precious crops.

Today a project is underway to erect an electric fence around much of the Aberdare forest. Newspaper reports from Kenya this week report that progress is underway and that they have already completed around 337 kilometres (or 210 miles) of electric fencing.

–It seems a day,
One of those heavenly days which cannot die,
When forth I sallied from our cottage-door,
And with a wallet o’er my shoulder slung,
A nutting crook in hand, I turn’d my steps
Towards the distant woods, a Figure quaint,
Trick’d out in proud disguise of Beggar’s weeds
Put on for the occasion, by advice
And exhortation of my frugal Dame.

Motley accoutrements! of power to smile
At thorns, and brakes, and brambles, and, in truth,
More ragged than need was. Among the woods,
And o’er the pathless rocks, I forc’d my way
Until, at length, I came to one dear nook
Unvisited, where not a broken bough
Droop’d with its wither’d leaves, ungracious sign
Of devastation, but the hazels rose
Tall and erect, with milk-white clusters hung,
A virgin scene!–A little while I stood,
Breathing with such suppression of the heart
As joy delights in; and with wise restraint
Voluptuous, fearless of a rival, eyed
The banquet, or beneath the trees I sate
Among the flowers, and with the flowers I play’d;
A temper known to those, who, after long
And weary expectation, have been bless’d
With sudden happiness beyond all hope.–
–Perhaps it was a bower beneath whose leaves
The violets of five seasons re-appear
And fade, unseen by any human eye,
Where fairy water-breaks do murmur on
For ever, and I saw the sparkling foam,
And with my cheek on one of those green stones
That, fleec’d with moss, beneath the shady trees,
Lay round me scatter’d like a flock of sheep,
I heard the murmur and the murmuring sound,
In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay
Tribute to ease, and, of its joy secure
The heart luxuriates with indifferent things,
Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones,
And on the vacant air. Then up I rose,
And dragg’d to earth both branch and bough, with crash
And merciless ravage; and the shady nook
Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower
Deform’d and sullied, patiently gave up
Their quiet being: and unless I now
Confound my present feelings with the past,
Even then, when, from the bower I turn’d away,
Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings
I felt a sense of pain when I beheld
The silent trees and the intruding sky.–

Then, dearest Maiden! move along these shades
In gentleness of heart with gentle hand
Touch,–for there is a Spirit in the woods.