A really great excuse to get out and do some birding for 48 hours solid...! I was with 
Jonathan Mwachongo, Jonathan Baya and Nancy Munene and covered Lake 
Chemchem on the 4th with seasonal pools along the road (Dwarf Bittern at Sabaki 
Bridge, the only family of Superb Starling I know of for about 100km at Ngomeni as 
well as Ruppell's Long-tailed St by the road), Kensalt Saltworks, and ended up 
camping out in the porini beyond Marereni where the forest is getting slashed and burnt 
and charcoaled faster than you can imagine - we managed to find a few scraps of 
habitat left however... and even had a Sokoke Pipit singing over head as well as 
Fischer's Turaco, regional speciality. We also picked up Af Barred Owlet and a high 
density of Af SCops Owls together with Fiery-necked Nightjars after dark there. A 
Thick-billed Cuckoo singing over the forest in the morning was nice and a pair of 
Brown-headed Parrots were the first I've seen around here for a couple of years (they 
used to be regular at Chemchem but presumably with the significant habitat 
disturbance they've moved off / died). 

Birds of interest at Chemchem were an Allen's Gallinule (my first around here in about 
4 years), a couple of late Mad Prats migrating south, Pallid Honeyguide, Af Cuckoo- 
Hawk (in fact we had about 5 altogether over the w/e), 3 Af Pygmy Goose and 60 Red- 
billed Teal (very large no. for around here). A pair of Malipits (Malindi Pipit) together 
with Gripits (work it out...!) was very nice as the well as a single Yellow Wag and 5 
Sand Martins - the latter not very common down here at all either. Saltworks were also 
excellent and in the creek just off the end of the works we had a Broadbilled Sandpiper 
as well as a Eurasian Oystercatcher (the one with just one leg is still at Mida too..). 
There were over 1000 Greater Flamingo in total on the pans and large no's of Greater 
Cormorant; an ad Ayre's Hawk Eagle was a nice bonus over the pools - and not the 
first time I've seen this 'forest' species a long way from any forest in fact. 

Sunday 5th saw us wend our way to Sabaki picking up Northern Wheatear and my 
earliest Willow Warbler for the coast at the usual Malindi Pipit site - my first time there 
to be looking for wheatears and not Malipits! Sabaki holds a really special place in my 
list of favourite birding sites and it didn't let us down this time - apart from just being 
such a special place to wander around, Fire-fronted Bishops, piles of waders, 300 or so 
Lesser Flamingo (unfortunately too far away to look for Jane from Mt Meru...), a pair of 
Af Skimmers and as we were heading back along the river bank all the waders 
suddenly took off in mad panic and sure enough, an adult Peregrine Falcon breezing in 
overhead looking very unruffled - given the quite black head, broader moustachial 
stripes and darker back, this was probably of the local race minor and if so was likely a 
female on the medium to large size. We also saw another 3 or so late Mad Prats and a 
single Collared Prat as well as stonking views of another Af Cuckoo-Hawk about 20m 
over our heads. We finished off with a race to Ganda seasonal pool just 1km from 
Chemchem over the low hills but with a different vegetation on it and it proved a good 
choice as we added Purple Heron, the only Common Squacco of the w/e, 8 Af Green 
Pigeons, another 2 Allen's Gallinule and the hoped for 3 White-backed Duck as well as 
some more bonus Pygmy Geese. We tried for the Palmut Vulture in Gede Ruins last of 
all, but even tho we could see the nest in the torchlight, we couldn't honestly bring 
ourselves to string a sighting of the actual bird!! 

Final tally? A reasonable 202 species which isn't bad considering we didn't cover 
Arabuko-Sokoke or Mida at all in our group - tho' there were some real clangers 
missed out - Water Thick-knee, Ethiopian Swallow (my first time to Malindi jetty without 
a single swallow in sight...!), and Black-and-White Mannikin were among the main 
ones! 


-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- - -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- - -- -- -- 
Colin Jackson
Mwamba Field Study Centre & Bird Observatory,
A Rocha Kenya
PO Box 383
Watamu, 80202
Kenya

Tel: +254-(0)42-32023 (O), 32037 (H)
Mobile 0722-842366
eml: colin.jackson@arocha.org
<www.arocha.org> 
see also <www.assets-kenya.org>