Birds of farmlands
Research conducted in Kakamega forest (Mulwa et al. 2012) indicated that vegetation complexity could represent an adequate measure of habitat quality for birds across
different habitat types. The presence of farmlands contiguous to forests contributes to offer a great variety of habitat types. Especially when large trees are present, traditional farming plots shelter forest visiting species as well as farm resident ones. The number of birds species found on traditional farms can be greater than the one found in natural forests. This is because farms provide excellent feeding grounds for a large variety of birds, including many forest generalists; on the other hand they do not support adequate breeding grounds for many species. The proximity to diverse natural landscape features (riparian gallery forests, native vegetation, wetlands, ...) is indeed very important to ensure that a large variety of birds can persist on traditional farms.
Traditional farms in Kenya are healthy and productive agricultural landscapes. Often they are able to combine human subsistence activities with a great variety of birds. However, it should be kept in mind that the biodiversity protection value of subsistence farms is highly dependent on the overall structure of the landscape at larger scale.
