Dear All,

On 20th August, I went into Hog Ranch (Langata) with Rupert Watson.
Shamefully I must admit that although having lived a kilometre or less
from there for over the last fifteen years, I had never been
birdwatching on the property. I was surprised to find a pair of
Black-throated Wattle-eyes living there along the small gorge. When
the species is completely absent from nearby Nairobi Park, the
presence of this (as well as Lemon Dove and Grey Apalis and until
recently Black-collared Apalis also species not recorded in NNP), is
all the more remarkable.  Other nice birds included White-starred
Robin, numerous Cabanis and Yellow-Whiskered Greenbuls, a pair of
Slate-coloured Boubous, several Violet-backed Starlings and a few
Quailfinch. Apart from the Rothschild's Giraffes there were two Suni.
There really is great potential here.

I posted details on Bafirawari Flycatcher on ABC Forum, Sites and Sightings
if anyone is interested in reading about it or commenting of course.
If there are any other photographs taken they can be posted here, I
have some nice video of the species now but it seems I only took three
images on the last trip!

NAIROBI NATIONAL PARK 28-8-09

This is the doldrums period, still if it's only a few weeks out of a
whole year when Nairobi National Park lacks its usual lustre, we can
live with that!
On 28th August Rupert Watson and myself went in just for the morning,
entering through the Main Gate at 7-00am, the man at the gate was
super efficient and we were through in a minute. A beautiful sunny
start with a little build up of thin cloud then continuing sunny.
Our first stop was Ivory Burning Site, with a huge wedding about to
take place and a 26 peak Bedouin tent unit, personally I think this is
great revenue for the park and apart from the litter which is cleaned
up almost immediately, something we can live with. The tent was
actually on the other side of the road and not on the Ivory BS picnic
area itself. There was a fine variety of resident species, the only
migrants being several Violet-backed Starlings. Nothing caught
attention until a couple of Wood Sandpipers on the feeder stream to
Hyena Dam, and at the dam African Water Rail were calling but that was
it. On the run-off Mrs Whinchat was on her usual perches, and having
survived the entire winter, it's only a few weeks now before her
friends reappear. It will be interesting to see if the urge to go
south is non-existent and she continues her stay in exactly the same
tiny territory. There was another calling rail, two Yellow-billed and
a single Great Egret, an immature Purple Heron, a Barn Swallow,
numerous Quailfinch and a number of Zebra Waxbills, both last named
being widely distributed. There were a few Yellow-crowned Bishops at
Karen Primary School Dam, also a Lilac-breasted Roller, Olmanyi Dam
had a Greenshank.
There were a number of Red-rumped Swallows, but no Lesser Striped
Swallows have returned as yet.
Impala Lookout hosted another wedding with another bedouin set-up, and
yet another was away from the picnic areas being set up on the Kisembe
Forest Vlei. Presumably there was another at Kingfisher Picnic Site,
the secondmost popular but we never reached that section of the Park.
Mammals were super-spectacular, really good numbers of Zebra and
Wildebeeste are in the northern parts of the Park particularly Hyena
Dam and Karen Primary School Dam. Giraffes seemed quite numerous in
several groups of up to twenty, a good assortment of plains game but
try as we did we were not able to welcome one of the newly arrived
White Rhinoceros that were liberated this week. Whilst the
introduction of a foreign species is distasteful, especially a
non-native, once again if it improves the revenue……

Best to all

Brian