On Sunday 6th November, Nigel Hunter and myself decided to check out Lake Nakuru, as this is a good time of year for something unusual passing through the area. 

As we passed through Dagoretti, there was a Cinnamon Bracken Warbler singing from the railway bridge embankment, rather an incongruous place for a montane warbler, and Red-faced Cisticola singing from a garden plot in the town. They are not a common species in western Nairobi unlike the east of the city.

Leaving at 6.30am, we were at the Lanet Gate at 8.15am as the road was extremely good at that time of the morning apart from the absolute chaos at the Gilgil weighbridge.
There had been showers overnight, but no rain fell whilst we were there and it was sunny for most of the time.


The water level is the highest I have seen it in twenty-five years, and much of the habitat is now inaccessible but the birds are in super abundance apart from Lesser Flamingos who are outnumbered by Greaters by three or four to one! White Pelicans were anything over ten thousand, but there were unusual numbers of Pink-backed, and we saw up to forty usually in bands of their own kind amongst the Whites. Great Cormorants that are nesting in many of the fever trees on the eastern shore are in vast numbers all around the lake in numbers that it was not possible to calculate accurately, there was only one Long-tailed!

The main attraction is the gulls and terns which are in really impressive numbers. Amongst the large number of Grey-headed Gulls we found no less than five Slender-billed, there is an image of four sitting together attached to this report. Over a dozen Black-headeds and two Lesser Black-backs. The terns were in thousands, particularly White-winged Black, but Whiskered were in large numbers also and many in full breeding plumage. Gull-bills were also in hundreds, but the rare visitor was a Caspian keeping well out over the lake.  Amongst the gull/tern assemblage were three Skimmers.

There were huge numbers of Little Grebes and in the NW corner a raft of about a hundred Black-necked Grebes, but again it is not possible to see the vast majority of the lake edge.

Waders were in good numbers but little of the shore is available for scrutiny, and there is no margin per se as it is all small islands and bays right up to vegetation. The most interesting was a Lesser Sand Plover, but it was nearly all Ruff and Little Stints, the former only in numbers that can be termed "impressive" with no accurate count possible. There were good numbers of Ringed Plovers and Marsh Sandpipers, but not many Greenshank, and only five Curlew Sandpipers and a single Black-tailed Godwit. The second most numerous wader after Ruff was Black-winged Stilt, and there were probably around a hundred Avocet, all somewhat abraded.

Grey Herons were in large numbers and well spread all around the lake, Little Egrets were common and there was one white Dimorphic present. Whilst African Spoonbills were in hundreds including large feeding assemblages, we probably saw no more than thirty Glossy Ibis which is a low number for here. Yellow-billed Storks were spread all around the lake, and there was an immature Saddle-billed Stork. The only ducks were over one-hundred Cape Wigeon, fifteen Hottentot Teal, a couple of Red-bills and a female Knob-bill, but no palearctics.

Apart from the waterbirds there were a Eurasian Roller, two Eurasian Bee-eaters and a female Red-backed Shrike as we came down from Lanet Gate. Willow Warblers were fairly numerous in the Fever Trees, but no other migrants, even around owlet mobbings. We had two Steppe Eagles, three Common Buzzards, and two both not-full adult male Pallid Harriers, just one Eurasian Marsh Harrier and what I think may have been my first ever Osprey at Nakuru. There was a Pallid Honeyguide singing below Baboon Cliffs, four White-fronted Bee-eaters on the fence at Lanet, and just two Spotted Flycatchers. Palearctic Swallows were low in number, Barn Swallows were common, but outnumbered by Sand Martins. Only six Yellow Wagtails all identified being flava.

We departed at 3.45pm, and were back two hours later, with the condition of the highway this really is a good day out from Nairobi.

Best to all
Brian