Dear All,
Following the second postponement of the Nguruman trip (now moved to
March), Nigel Hunter, Patrick and Karen Plumbe and myself went on
another "speed-birding" trip for a night at Sagala Lodge between Voi
and Maungu.
We left Langata at 6:45am and being a Saturday morning things were
quiet, and we were at Machakos an hour later. Here we took the
Machakos-Wote-Makindu Road, and as always there was no traffic and by
avoiding the Mombasa Road the passage to Makindu was a pleasure. A few
weeks before, Nigel thought he had heard Nicators calling from an
impressive steep wooded valley 34kms down the road from Machakos, and
so we stopped to listen, and spent an hour and a half in this area.
Sure enough the song of Eastern Nicator exploded intermittently from
the dense scrub at the bottom of the valley. This must make these
birds the closest resident members of the species to Nairobi, the
previous closest population being the Sasamua Dam area of Embu.
Another very nice surprise was the presence of Hinde's Babblers and
totally unexpected. The valley could well support a number of
families. We made note that we should in the near future find a hotel
in Machakos and explore this area more thoroughly. Zanzibar Sombre
Greenbul song reverberated throughout the area, and Northern Brownbul
was also present here. In the time we were there we did not hear any
evidence of Violet-crested Turaco in spite of how seemingly ideal this
valley is. The place was dripping in Nightingales, and there was one
Irania in full song. Many other species were present, and undoubtedly
in the short time we were there, many we missed. Our next stop was
10kms before Makindu, now into the heat of the day. There was an
extensive patch of commiphora woodland brimming with glowing Tsavo
Sunbirds and an equally stunning Black-bellied Sunbird, also there
were numerous other birds typical of the area including
Golden-breasted Starling. By the time we got to Kibwezi there was not
a bird moving and few calling, but we enjoyed the butterflies, and
this promises to be an extraordinary year all over the country after
so many successive bad seasons. Whilst the larger species are flying
smaller species like skippers and blues are still very poorly
represented although Coeliades anchises (One-pip Policeman) was
swarming.