Dear all,

We carried out the local part of the national waterbird census last 
weekend and had a great couple of days birding! New for me for the 
coast were 8 Black-tailed Godwit on Lake Chemchem inland from 
Malindi as well as 15 Northern Pintail. Also a mad number of 
Garganey - over 160 (actual no's yet to be totalled..) - my maximum 
to date has been 4-5 only! All this on Chemchem together with 110 
Black Herons and 20-30 Ruff, also less common on the coast. 

Nothing outrageous at Malindi harbour - just a single Black-headed 
Gull that is a bit of a rarity for us down here. 

Sabaki was similarly quiet for oddities but we did have the highest 
count that I'm aware of so far of Broad-billed Sandpipers (if anyone 
out there knows different, I'd be happy to be corrected..) at 105 
birds! Previous highest I know of is about 89 and certainly 
my previous highest is 54. Also new for me at Sabaki was a Malindi 
Pipit - I've checked out every pipit I've ever seen there and only 
found Grippits (i.e. grassland pipits), so to find a Malippit there 
was new. I know people have reported them regularly from there and 
I've suspected they've been id'ing grippits wrong, which I still 
think happens a lot, but there are few Malippits around it would 
seem.
Salt pans at Gongoni were relatively quiet with quite high water 
levels. The phalarope pools had over 100 Black-winged Stilt and 
about 30-40 MArsh Sand, but no phalaropes! Mida Creek count this 
coming Saturday which will be nice..

Enjoy!

CJ

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
Colin Jackson
Mwamba Bird Observatory & Field Study Centre
A Rocha Kenya
PO Box 383, 
Watamu
Kenya

Tel (O): +254-(0)122-32023
    (H): +254-(0)122-32037
Mobile: 0722-842366
e: <colin.jackson@arocha.org> or <colin.jackson@bigfoot.com>
website: http://www.arocha.org
...see also our Community Conservation programme at:
<www.assets-kenya.org>