For those of you who have not yet visited this (mis-)development disneyland on the coast, it is about time to do so as we are entering a phase where its final demise as a wetland of international importance, even before it has been listed as such, is now firmly on the cards with the push for a High Grand Falls dam. This behemoth will be capable of storing about 2 years of average flow of the river and the institution that will be charged with its operation is likely to be incapable/unwilling to provide the much needed managed flood releases to keep the downstream ecosystems functioning, its local communities thriving and its biodiversity surviving.
Locally, the usual suspects are still digging 18 Million KES canals to make water flow uphill, throwing in embankments to block the water from going where it is needed to keep the Ocean at bay, etc. but these things are so technically flawed that they remains a largely ineffectual sideshow. Less fun though when the “emergency food production” programme is used to expulse people from where they have lived, farmed, kept livestock and fished for centuries, actually increasing the emergency food requirements that the misguided programme has no chance of producing sustainably or at least not at reasonable cost. An awful lot of rice can be imported for 5 billion Kenyan Shillings! Anyway, you are not in the birdnet to be smacked around the ears with failed development speak so let’s talk birds.
On April 7th the new electric fences around the TDIP were used by at least 5 Lesser Kestrel and it was noticeable that large numbers of Eurasian Rollers were coming through on a broad front, especially in the Acacia woodland that has sprung up on the dried out floodplains in the northern part of the delta. On April 8th there was a substantial but very local rainstorm around Onkolde village (of Tana River Red Colobus fame but now on the “next to expulse” list) and for 2 hours we sat watching as first some 10,000 Amur Falcons dropped in from the sky to feast on the emerging flying ants, followed by a few thousand Eurasian rollers and a sprinkling of a few hundred unidentified pratincoles. Interestingly, at 06:30 the next morning, a few hundred Amurs were still around hawking for insects and presumably spent the night in the same woodland as the rollers.
With some difficulty some 2000 pratincoles were seen close up in the Moa area on April 10th and turned out to be predominantly juvenile Madagascar. Either the breeding season there was highly successful or the juveniles migrate before the adults. A second group of about 1000 pratincoles was seen in the central floodplain but not identified.
A red-necked falcon was hunting in the Oda area where an Indian House Crow was also seen.
The Kipini roost was rather quiet with “only” about 2000 Glossy Ibis still around. On the river upstream from Ozi a pair of African Pygmy-Goose was seen several times. The central floodplains were as usual full of Cattle Egrets but numbers of palearctic waders were low, with only a few hundred Ruff. Most of the floodplains are now very dry, brown and grazed down. Strips of green mostly exist only along the freshwater tidal channels and they accommodate high densities of Long-toed Lapwing and some Spurwing Lapwing, Water Thick-knee, African Jacana, and a sprinkling of Goliath and Grey Heron, Yellow-billed Stork, African Spoonbill, the occasional Saddle-billed Stork, etc. With cattle dying in some numbers Marabou Storks were quite numerous and from the description of an observant local, one can gather that a Lappet-faced Vulture with a yellow wing tag was also around.
Little and Intermediate Egret are in breeding plumage. The occasional Black-crowned Night Heron, Squacco, Black Heron, etc. were also observed. A few dozen Spurwing Goose, Comb Duck and Fulvous Whistling Duck were present together with a few hundred White-faced Whistling Duck. Some 50 Skimmers, a few dozen Gull-billed and Whiskered Tern and 2 White-winged Tern were also seen as was the occasional Eurasian Marsh Harrier.