21st Sept 05 - we had a Corncrake brought in to us at the Mwamba Bird Obs here in 
Watamu that was extremely, critically weak and hardly able to keep it's head up. I tried 
to feed it sugarwater etc but sadly it died after c.15mins. It was incredibly thin with 
basically no muscle left on its breast and on weighing it immediately after it died, it was 
about half the normal min weight reported in the refs. It had been attacked by a cat, 
rescued and brought to us. This is quite an early record for this species and one of very 
few records on the coast to my knowledge. 

On 6th October 05 we caught two Spotted Ground Thrushes at Gede Ruins forest, near 
Watamu, Kenya. These are the first records from this forest patch this year despite two 
days of ringing in May and an observer covering part of the forest thoroughly since July. 
THe good news is that the first bird was a first-year bird with retained juvenile median 
coverts, greater coverts and remiges (the juv coverts showing clearly buffier than the 
adjacent new adult coverts). This means that there was at least some breeding 
success for the species this past breeding season in the population that comes to 
Gede/Arabuko-Sokoke.  The second bird was a Full Adult. Both appeared in good 
condition, were ringed, measured, photographed and released.