Last week we made the last visit of the season to Whale Island after 
what has been a successful breeding season - particularly after last 
year when there was 100% failure due to rats which predated all the eggs 
leading to the birds to desert by early July. Early estimates of total 
nests this year put Roseates at over 1,400 nests and Sooty at c.40 
nests. There were plenty of Brown Noddies around the island the whole 
season but once again no definite evidence of breeding that we could see 
- what they're doing each year in such large numbers (up to 1,000 a 
couple of years ago, more like 5-600 this year) is a mystery.

There was one Bridled Tern around the island last week - the only one 
I've seen this season (again last year there was only one). I'd be 
interested to know what happened to the small numbers of Bridled that 
are mentioned in the literature as breeding on Whale Island as I've only 
seen Sootys...

Other news - an African Skimmer at Sabaki for two days last week and 43 
Broad-billed Sandpipers counted there.

On Thursday this week (30th Sept) we had 12 Eurasian Golden Orioles 
heading south together over the A Rocha Kenya field study centre.

Colin

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Colin Jackson
Director
A Rocha Kenya
PO Box 383,
Watamu, 80202
Kenya

Eml: colin.jackson@arocha.org
Tel: +254 (0)20 233 5865 (wireless)
      +254 (0)42 23 32023 (landline)
Cell: 0722 842366 / 0771 757746

For more information:
www.arocha.org
www.assets-kenya.org
www.tanariverdelta.org