African update 4 - Arabuko Sokoke and coast

Sorry for the long time since my last update, the usual excuses of no internet connection and no time. Left Tsavo West NP on Sunday and drove straight through to the coast. It's a beautiful region, people are great and we are having many adventures and experiences. We're staying at Mwamba Field Study Center just by Watamu operated by A-Rocha Kenya.
Our main purpose here is ringing shorebirds with Colin Jackson and his team at Mida Creek which is a fantastic site. We had pretty good catches that included Crab Plovers, Lesser and Mongolian Sandplovers, Terek Sandpipers - images will follow soon!
We visited Arabuko Sokoke Forest twice, and scored well with Sokoke Scops Owl, Sokoke Pipit, East Coast Akalat and Amani Sunbird, with lots of good stuff in the forest. I can certainly recommend our local guide David Ngala who has amazing skills in locating and attracting birds. Thanks David!

Sokoke Scops Owl

We visited a few other good birding sites in the area, worth mentioning are Sabaki River Mouth and Chem-Chem lake. Saw lots of stuff, with Malindi Pipit being an obvious highlight:

Lesser Flamingo

Tomorrow we are leaving the coast and starting to make our long way back to Nairobi, with a few good sites to visit before flying out on Saturday. Hope to get another update up before leaving Kenya.

African update 3 - still at Ngulia

We had two great nights of ringing, with good misty conditions. Yesterday we had 1600 birds and today we had 2200 birds. Good stuff! Working with such an excellent team made these busy sessions very comfortable and easy. Some good Palaearctic migrants ringed included Pied Wheatear, Rock Thrushes, Upcher's Warblers and in addition we had a few Afro nightjars.

Pied Wheatear

Yesterday I was too knocked out so did nothing after ringing, but today we went on a nice safari drive down to Rhino Valley, where we added a few species to our growing list. No real highlights but lots of good, colourful birds like this Golden Pipit:

Lots of shrikes in the park, especially isabellines:

Tomorrow we are leaving to Watamu on the coast, so this is our last night at Ngulia. I am leaving with some sadness - it's such a great place and an amazing experience, but I am sure I will be back here in the near future, and also I am really looking forward to the next leg in our trip.

African update 2 - Ngulia

Last two days were very good, though ringing was not. Last night was useless with no mist at all and no birds on the ground. The night before started with good mist, and during one hour (00:30 to01:30 we caught 350 birds) but then the wind changed and mist lifted. After just one minute thousands of passerines took off into the sky and south - an incredible sight. Morning catch was OK but not too busy.
Both yesterday and today we did safari drives through the park after ringing. Yesterday we drove to Mzima Springs which are very beautiful, and produced some waterbirds as well as Crocodiles and Hippos. We had several Leopard encounters yesterday - apart for the Ngulia lodge resident, we bumped into three more doing real leopard stuff, including one chasing after a Dik-Dik. Impressive! This is the Ngulia beast having its dinner:

Other interesting mammals included two Black Rhinos and some Gemsbok.
Best bird was a Black-throated Wattle-eye, and other favourites were Pygmy Falcon and Pangani Longclaw that posed very nicely.

Pangani Longclaw

As I am typing this mist is coming in, so things are looking good at the moment. Good night!

African update 1 - Ngulia

Wow, Africa is amazing. So many colours, sounds and smells.
After a long journey through Addis Ababa we arrived at Ngulia last night. A Leopard along the way near Mtito gate was quite surprising. The last part of our journey through Tsavo West was after dusk, and we had about 30 nightjars of four species.
Night ringing never actually happened as mist didn't form. There was some rain at night but not enough to knock all of those birds down. Morning catch was rather slow but for my team it was pretty good as we all had the chance to get used to the birds, to adjust to the system and to meet the terrific team. There were no Palaearctic dramas but all the predicted goodies showed in small numbers - Iranias, Basra Reed Warblers, Isabelline Shrikes etc.

White-throated Robin (Irania)

Some nice afrotrops included a stunning Somali Golden-breasted Bunting and a Lesser honeyguide.
An introductory afternoon safari drive to the Rhino sanctuary was fun. We saw most common species expected in this habitat, and I enjoyed Black-faced Sandgrouse, Crested Bustard and Secretarybird.

Yellow-necked Spurfowl

Unfortunately, internet connection here is awful (Scopus, thanks!) so it is almost impossible to upload images. I promise to get these images up as soon as possible.
Colin Jackson has a blog of his own in which he gives daily Ngulia updates - check it out:
http://www.arochakenya.wildlifedirect.org/

The return to Africa

Tomorrow I am flying to Kenya for a two-week long birding and ringing trip with another four friends. Last time I was there was in December 2008, and it was an amazing experience. This year I will spend a week ringing at Ngulia, Tsavo West NP, and then another week of shorebird ringing near Watamu on the coast. Should be fun!
On my previous visit I had only my 400 mm lens, and still got some good stuff. This time I'm much better equipped, and hope to get some satisfactory results. Haven't had enough practice with my new 7D but hope I won't pay too high a price for this.
I am not sure how easy internet access will be, but I hope to be able to have an update here every few days, so keep posted!

Southern Ground Hornbill, Masai Mara, December 2008

Olive-backed Pipit!

This morning before work I took my kids to the kindergarten, which is right next to my old house that I had moved out of just two months ago. As I walked back to the car a pipit flew above me from one tree to another giving that soft call I know so well - Olive-backed Pipit! Luckily I had my bins with me and had good views of the bird walking along some large branches and flying from tree to tree. It wanted to come down to my former lawn to feed, but there were too many people walking around so it stayed high up. No camera with me, and in the afternoon I couldn't relocate it.
Bummer, I almost had it in my garden list...