MAGADI ROAD 29th DECEMBER 2014


On 29th December Nigel Hunter and I visited Magadi Road again, in the
area beyond as far as we got on the previous Monday, trying to
establish what palearctic migrants were now wintering in the area. As
we drove through Ongata Rongai we found a new Sacred Ibis rookery, in
the grounds of Laiser Hill School. The birds were crowded on the top
of the small acacia cheek to jowl.

In the middle of Kisamese there was a Southern Grosbeak Canary singing
from an electricity wire. This seems to be a common observation
nowadays, and yet a few years back they would only sing from the tops
of small trees even though wires were present. I have seen them
singing from wires Icross Road, Savanna Resort below Ngong and
Lukenya, maybe elsewhere in addition but only those spring to mind.

We drove through Corner Baridi seeing little but one each of Northern
and Isabelline Wheatears, but on descending past the Olopolos police
check there were three separate Schalow’s Wheatears, a Little Rock
Thrush and a Lyne’s Cisticola all along the road.

Our first proper birding stop was along the lugger before the short
hill climb to Olorgesaillie Museum turn off. Here the wintering
migrants were an Irania, single Barred, two Upcher’s, three Olivaceous
Warblers and four Whitethroats.

The Upcher’s was first heard calling and was thought that is what it
was, giving the rarely heard but diagnostic dry churr. It was
obviously a happy bird, as it was calling incessantly and loudly all
the time, and in bouts of excitement these churrs would run into each
other resulting in an Acrocephalus like rhythmical churring but almost
all on one note, that just varied in tempo. I must try and locate a
recording of one taken on the breeding ground to see if this is all
they do. This was a very birdy area, although nothing out of the
ordinary.

I have now listened to the song taken on breeding grounds, and it not
only does not sound like a Hippolais, but has an uncanny (though
purely coincidental) similarity to Kilombero Cisticola!!!!

The next stop was the Olorgesaillie River gorge. We were not surprised
to see Horus Swift around the nest holes, as they were at the nest
site in Naivasha two weeks earlier. There is little doubt that the
breeding season in drastically changing. In the scrub single Sprosser
and Eurasian Reed Warbler were calling and there was an Olivaceous
Warbler in an acacia.

Our next stop was just after the next village of Esonorua, in an area
we nickname the Delta. It has to be seen after severe flooding to see
why it deserves this name, but when we were there it was still green
but the ground dry. There was a female Red-billed Buffalo-Weaver
feeding on a lawn-like area, always an inexplicably rare species on
the seemingly ideal Magadi Road. A little further on we stopped to
look at nesting adjacent Vitelline and Lesser Masked Weavers, and
whilst doing so I could hear a bird singing and said to Nigel I can
hear a Bishop singing and I think it is a Southern Black Bishop of the
“race” friederichseni. We located the bird singing in a low open bush,
but not the plumage we were expecting to see, but although so vocal it
was in full non-breeding plumage. Photo attached. Before the image was
taken the bird flew off. We waited and searched and after twenty
minutes it started singing from another open bush further along the
road, and gave excellent views.
This is really a Tanzanian form, that sneaks into Kenya just around
the Shompole/Natron area, where as a breeding bird it can be quite
common. However this is the first time I have seen the bird in Kenya
away from this core population. I haven’t actually measured the
distance, but would put it at over sixty kilometres away and possibly
quite a bit more.

On the return we had an adult plumaged White-throated Bee-eater, with
no tail streamers at all. This lone bird was the first seen in the
area for some time now, since they started to disappear in July.

Finally we called in at the lugga we visited last week, (it is the
first lugga heading south after the Ol Kejo Bridge). Iranias were
calling very weakly, maybe they are much more vocal in the mornings.
There was our only Spotted Flycatcher of the day here, and another
Eurasian Reed Warbler. Last Monday for a microsecond we had a bird
flash between two bushes, and thought it might be a Zanzibar Sombre
Greenbul, but the observation was not conclusive. On this occasion it
was the noisiest bird present. This now extends the range another two
kilometres south along the road (from the Icross Road), continuing its
fairly dramatic spread into the Rift.

Best to all
Brian