Each day towards the evening our new friends arrive at the house. Mostly they sit in the tree and look sideways at us but occasionally they come closer.
The most friendly is a chap I have named Deckens as he is a Von Der Deckens Hornbill. He is the one who taps on the windows at ungodly hours. Although recently Emma has claimed all the ungodly hours for herself and 6am is considered a lie in. Deckens has a wifey who I have uninspiringly named Vonder. He also has two buddies and their wives who all hang around in the trees being hopeful. I have been rewarding their hopefulness with handfuls of muesli but they are too shy to come and get it off the porch and they wait until Em and I have retreated indoors.
Of course the problem with Deckens and his entourage is that Spiro is taking inspiration from him. Yesterday while we sat having lunch admiring our partially completed fence he came along with two pals and ventured with his backup onto the porch, clearly hopeful of crumbs. I had a stack of stones handy though and quickly sent them packing. This week it will be my mission to trap Spiro and transport him elsewhere before he teaches bad manners to all the local squirrels. I do feel twinges of guilt about this as, yes he is quite cute and also it was another human who taught him his bad manners but it must be done before he climbs inside anyone else's pants.
In the vein of new friends, we have taught some of the Mpala permanent researchers how to play scat, and I think they are addicted already. This bodes well for the long evenings that we have left in Kenya.
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