NAIROBI NATIONAL PARK 19th December 2012

Dear All,
Sorry for the delay in posting this. We had a bad run with KPL in
which I could not send this, and then as the power improved it got
forgotten.
Nigel Hunter, his grandson Toby and myself were through the NNP main
gate  a little before 7.00 am. It had been dry overnight, though there
had been recent rain.
We first visited the KWS mess garden. There was a Black Kite sitting
in the trees,  three Tree Pipits were back feeding on the lawn, the
Nightingales were around the rubbish tip, but it might have been a bit
too late to see them feeding on it. There were a couple each of Garden
Warblers, Blackcaps and Willow Warblers and the Black-collared Apalis
was back and singing noisily from the hedge. At Ivory Burning Site
there was one bird of note and that was the presence of the Parks
first ever Green-headed Sunbird, an adult male sitting on the top of a
croton.
Along the back road we picked up an Olivaceous Warbler, a Spotted
Flycatcher and a pair of Nairobi Pipits, a Jacobin Cuckoo and more
surprisingly a d’Arnaud’s Barbet. There were also a few noisy Eurasian
Bee-eaters although we did not actually see them. At Hyena Dam there
was a Black Stork, Eurasian Marsh Harrier, a fairly late Lesser
Spotted Eagle adult, African Water Rails, the pair of Blacksmith
Plover still with their four flying offspting in good health, ten Wood
and a couple of Green Sandpipers, and a party of female Yellow-crowned
Bishops flew over calling. This was a surprise as I do not associate
them coming in on the short rains, more confined to the period May to
July. On the run-off there was a Spur-winged Goose, a Steppe Eagle, a
Yellow Wagtail and four Whinchats. In the typha were a full breeding
male Yellow-crowned Bishop displaying to two females. Additionally the
Jackson’s Widowbirds had returned to this favoured area with some
fifty birds including displaying males.