Dear Fleur and all,
Your bush-shrike is intriguing, kismayenisis of which you were in the
range, is unique in the three races of Red-naped in having the entire
crown reddish, not with a black forehead. I am sure that I have seen
Tsavo birds all through the year, and I have never seen anything where
the rufous has been replaced by grey, but immatures do have all grey
crowns, and I suppose the acquisition of rufous on the nape must be
gradual. It's amazing that all of your birds were in a grey-crowned
plumage apart from the one that was acquiring rufous.

Not a squeak of a Manda Boubou then, maybe it is essentially littoral.

Were any recordings taken of East Coast Boubous in the forests, Don
and myself need to get comparative material on calls to compare with
Manda and Sokoke for the Manda Boubou paper when we get the dna
results from Denmark.

Best for now and welcome back from what has to be the remotest corner of Kenya,
Brian

On 11/29/13, Fleur Ng'weno <fleur@africaonline.co.ke> wrote:
> Greetings birders
>
> Boni and Dodori National Reserves in the far east of Kenya, and Boni and
> Lungi forests between them, are little-explored but biodiversity-rich. A
> team from National Museums of Kenya and Nature Kenya carried out a brief
> bird survey in the area in early November. The team comprised Timothy
> Mwinami, Martha Ngala, Sandy Oduor, David Ngala, Fleur Ng¹weno and three
> guides/guards from the Awer community. Simon Musila of NMK is advisor to
> this Conservation Leadership Program project.
>
> We had exciting sightings of mammals such as the endangered Aders¹s Duiker
> and newly found Sengi (Elephant-shrew). Bird species characteristic of the
> East African Coast Biome included Southern Banded Snake Eagle, Fischer's
> Turaco, Mangrove Kingfisher, Little Yellow Flycatcher and Tiny Greenbul.
> Forest Batis and several others represented range extensions, and we
> watched
> Mouse-coloured and Olive Sunbirds challenging each other by flashing
> ³headlights² of red or yellow pectoral tufts. Southern migrants such as
> Yellowbill and Red-capped Robin Chat were still plentiful, and northern
> migrants such as Barn Swallow and Common Nightingale were arriving.
>
> One bird was a challenge (photo and field sketch attached). We were in
> Banahalisi, an area of low Acacia woodland interspersed with patches of
> dense scrub on white sand, on the road between Mangai village and Kiunga
> town.
>
> The bird was a bush shrike, fairly big, with a relatively large head and
> medium-long tail. It was black above and white below, with a prominent
> white
> stripe above the eye and a prominent long white patch along the wing. The
> crown was edged in black, but grey in the centre, with the grey extending
> to
> the nape and upper part of the mantle. One bird had a dull rufous area on
> the grey nape; the others did not.
>
> Several birds were observed throughout the day. They foraged in bushes, on
> the ground with Rufous Chatterers, and in mid-canopy of acacias. They made
> several sounds, including an explosive loud crackling call, a tac-tac-tac
> similar to a boubou, and a few musical notes usually answered by a
> crackling
> call. The next day we tried to catch the bird in a mist net but failed.
>
> The team was unable to find this bird in books such as Birds of Africa,
> Birds of Africa South of the Sahara, or Birds of the Horn of Africa.
> However, Don Turner kindly read my notes and replied: ³Your bird is an
> aberrant form of the Red-naped Bush Shrike, race kismayensis, which is
> common there. Normally it just has a grey back, but clearly the grey has
> extended on to the nape in place of red.²
>
> The birds we saw did not look like the two specimens of Red-naped Bush
> Shrike in the National Museums of Kenya collections, which seemed to be the
> models for the book illustrations. However, our birds did look like the
> Red-naped Bush Shrike photo recently posted by Brian Finch, and those on
> the
> internet photographed in Ethiopia ­ except that we did not see red on the
> head.
>
> The team saw another bird on Sankuri Ridge, in dense thicket on red sand.
> It
> was also a bush shrike, but brown above and white below, with a prominent
> long white patch along the wing. It foraged on the ground, in bushes and in
> trees. It may have been an immature of the presumed Red-naped Bush Shrike
> race kismayensis.
>
> The team therefore plans to return for detailed photos and measurements. A
> report on the survey will be written, and a short note similar to the above
> is in the December issue of Nature Net, the Nature Kenya newsletter.
>
> With thanks to the Awer community, Nature Kenya, National Museums of Kenya
> and the Conservation Leadership Programme,
>
> Fleur
>
>
>
>