NAIVASHA AND MANGUO PONDS 16th SEPTEMBER 2012
Dear All,
On 16th September Nigel Hunter and myself visited Naivasha to see what
affect the rising water levels was having on the birdlife.
It was a bright and clear morning, and we first visited KWS Hippo
Camp, and were impressed by how the water levels had risen to inundate
the land on both sides of the causeway. There is still dry land back
from this and it still holds the woodland species.
There were no margins for waders, and we were only to see four Common
Sandpiper, one Green Sandpiper and two Common Greenshank. The resident
plovers included a couple of Long-toed. There were also no ducks apart
from a scattering of Yellow-billed and one Red-billed Teal and of
course plenty of Egyptian Geese. Tern and Gull numbers were way down
with a number of Grey-headed Gulls and Whiskered Terns but only one
Gull-billed Tern. There were plenty of Yellow-billed Storks and Grey
Herons, but only four African Spoonbills and one each of Glossy Ibis
and Goliath Heron. There were only three Squacco Herons as well. There
wasn’t a Coot to be seen here, but Little Grebes and Common Moorhens
were fairly common. There were a number of Giant Kingfishers using the
flooded acacias as perches. With Mottled and Black Swift there was a
single House Martin, Nigel saw a Sand Martin, there were small numbers
of Barn Swallows and two Grey-rumped Swallows present. A Yellow
Wagtail flew around but did not land, and we heard another two flying
south very high, that we could not see. In the profuse flowering Fever
Trees there was a Willow Warbler busily chasing insect around the
flowers. There were five species of cuckoos in song, Red-chested,
Black, African, Diederic and Klaas’. Interestingly the Black consisted
of both all black nominate, and the red-chested gabonensis that we
have come to expect here. Other birds included several Brown
Parisomas, and Grey-backed Fiscals seemed more numerous than usual.
The only raptors that were not Fish-Eagles were singles of Gabar
Goshawk, and the resident race of Peregrine. The whole area look very
attractive at present.
From here we looked at Oloidien which had two-hundred Flamingos, eight
of which were Greater, a Ringed Plover and fifteen Little Stints.
There were good numbers of ducks in the NW corner which included
parties of Cape Wigeon and Southern Pochard. Manguo Ponds had over
thirty Black-winged Stilt (the only stilts seen all day), four Ruff
and a Little Stint. We watched a pair of Maccoa Ducks displaying, and
there were about fifty White-backed Ducks, otherwise there was nothing
out of the ordinary.
Best to all
Brian