Dear birders
Greetings hoping these finds you well.
Yesterday, I visited Ol Doinyo Sabuk National Park, still working of the
pollination using birds. In the first place I realized that I were missing one
sheet of my data and hurriedly decided to go and bird watch again. It later
turned out to be a good idea and cleverly to have lost one sheet of the data.

Being an hour drive on relatively good road by our standard I found myself
birding around and accompanied by a single local who despite of being born
there had never gone up the hills in the park. 
It hard rained the night before and so I was in doubt whether to hike or drive
which I did the later at last. Road was ok but just before getting to the
top….heeeh there are 1/2mx1/2m rocks along the road.

Some of the birds that made the days included a 20 min watching the
Orange-winged Pytilia. Another rare birds for the last ¾ century. I first
noticed a female, which would have been common Green-winged Pytilia but
immediately I thought I was on the wrong habitat and sooner noticing it was
overly dark grey than the later. Ohh the primary wing feathers also had some
faint yellow with red. Tried to photograph and luckily the males, which was
also near joined. With red on the whole face and not extending halfway the neck
I was convinced it wasn’t a green-winged but one I had not seen. View photos at
http://birdwatchingeastafrica.com/records.htm 

Drama went on when a Tropical Boubou joined the party and was feeding next to
them…..Not Trouble. Was able also to take a photograph of both. While now
watching them through the scope a boubou turns to fight an incoming visitor and
was a Corncrake. With brown on the wings and a grey background much upright
standing than the boubou I remembered one that was brought at NMK but dead.
Imagine these were two lifers in a single, mono eye view from the telescope.
The Corncrake run back to the side of the road and later started crossing the
road afresh but this time passing a meter away from the boubou. And just moving
my hands for the camera could notice from the scope that it has already noticed
me and moved in to the grass. 

Two ticks. The scene could be one of my best moments of birds with two rare
birds together and probably the best scene to have missed a photo of the two.
Though Corncrake has been recorded on the Atlas² 76A before 1969 it’s probably
near for the area. While pytilia is new for the park as well as the Atlas²

While getting up a single male Purple-throated Cuckoo-shrike flew and perched
less than 5 meters from the can after a near by Black-crowned Tchagra made a
hash call. Very orange red gape visible even with closed mandibles. This is
also new spp for the Atlas² as well as the park
Also around was a single Eurasian Honey Buzzard soaring above the forest.

Also a pipit along the road with less or faintly streaked  on the back which
after getting scared flew in to the tree hence I recognized it as a Nairobi
Pipit photos also at the http://birdwatchingeastafrica.com/records.htm  
( I would wait a confirmation or comments from Brian Finch.)

This park is less visited and hopefully these encourage more birders to visit
the area. Yesterday though being a Sunday I only noticed 1 car with 2 persons
that meant only 4 persons visited the whole day. I confirmed that with the
rangers.

I should be going sometimes later to see if i could see anything from the list.
This tiny park is lucking justice from birders.

all the best and good spotting


With Kind Regards 

chege wa kariuki
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Birdwatching East Africa
E-mail:chege@birdwatchingeastafrica.com
Website: http://www.birdwatchingeastafrica.com
it's professionally meant for birdwatchers!!!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Po. Box 2286 00100
GPO Nairobi Kenya
Tel: +254 (0)20) 201 4 724
Cel: +254 (0)722 329 570
Cel: +254 (0)720 778 948

Also visit Kenya Birdfinder's 
http://www.worldbirds.org/kenya 
enter any old or new records of kenya and help in monitoring the population 
trends of our birds.... afterall you can download checklists free-of-charge