Mike Davidson, Fleur Ng'Weno, Jennifer Odouri, Karen Plumbe and myself met up at the Man Entrance Gate to Nairobi National Park at 6.30am on 4th June.

There had been light sprinkles overnight, and the place was dark and gloomy for the first couple of hours, then became a little brighter, more so in the afternoon but managed to remain cold enough that removal of the sweater was not an option the entire day. There was only a little nu-nu, enough to make the windowscreen wipers work in short speights.

We started off at the KWS Mess gardens, seeing a Suni along the main road, and the attractive sight of a pair of Crowned Cranes in "the" tree overhanging the entrance road. It was so dark and miserable when we arrived, birds were not at all showy and we stayed only a short while. The most interesting thing here was the morph, of Paradise Flycatcher that has all white wings and central tail-feathers, but a chestnut back and outer-tailed feathers. This was a young male, missing the long streamers. Some six years ago there was an adult male of this form at Ivory Burning Site on one morning, and this was only the second record for the Park. Otherwise it was the usual suspects with Green-backed Honeybird, a pair of Pale Flycatchers (the only reliable site for the species in NNP), but little else. Ivory Burning Site was also as dull as ditchwater, and we stopped barely a minute. On the back road to Hyena Dam we had African Water Rails calling at the fenced swamp, and at Hyena Dam it was gloomy and dead with only a couple more calling African Water Rails. In the run-off were our third pair of Water Rails,  about fifteen Yellow-crowned Bishops displaying like bumble-bees, and maybe as many as a hundred Jackson's Widowbirds bouncing all around us. Cardinal Queleas have moved in in impressive numbers and were common throughout all the grasslands of the Park. Red-collared Widowbirds were very common throughout a great part of the Park, and some males are still coming into breeding plumage, but White-winged Widowbirds are now in their thousands. There was also a nice male Parasitic Weaver bouncing along the track in front of the car. Yellow-crowned Bishops were also encountered at three other wetlands. In the roadside grasses were several Orange-breasted Waxbills and the first of several Crimson-rumped Waxbills.
We took the inside road turning off at Lone Tree which was now, as with all the Park dry and negotiable, and were just arriving near Karen Primary School Dam when a pair of Secretary Birds were striding through the grassland up to a small acacia, in doing so disturbed a White-bellied Bustard which got up and walked ahead of them, itself disturbing a male Dusky Nightjar which sat in full view, in the middle of the road for some time. This was of course videoed and photographed, not missing such a rare opportunity. Karen Dam had nothing and all Eland Hollow could muster up was a pair of Red-billed Teal and a Hippo.