NAIROBI NATIONAL PARK 5th & 6th JANUARY 2014
NNP SCORES IT’S SECOND GREATER SPOTTED EAGLE IN FIVE WEEKS!


NAIROBI NATIONAL PARK 5th JANUARY 2014

Dear All,
On 5th January, Nigel Hunter and myself took Iain Darbyshire a keen
birder visiting from Kew Gardens in UK, around Nairobi National Park.
Whilst the air was cool, no cloud obscured the sun the entire time we
were in the Park.
We were through the Main Gate about 6.40am and headed off to the KWS
Mess gardens. It was quite quiet, especially as far as migrants were
concerned. There was a single Tree Pipit on the lawn and a Willow
Warbler in a flowering Loquat, other birds included an Eastern
Honeybird a pair of Pale Flycatchers, and a single Black-and-White
Mannikin.

Ivory Burning Site was very quiet, so we moved on to Nagalomon Dam
which was also a place with not much activity. There was an immature
Purple Heron and a Eurasian Reed Warbler calling from dense waterside
bushes.

Along the back road to Hyena Dam we found at the new swamp, a Eurasian
Marsh Harrier, a male Greater Painted Snipe, forty Wood Sandpipers and
six or so Green, one Ruff, and amongst the Yellow Wagtails, three
flava, and one each of lutea, dombrowski and beema. There were several
breeding plumaged Red-collared and Jackson’s Widowbirds. Along the
road we had seen fifteen Eurasian Bee-eaters and a Whinchat. The road
was blocked by the swamp, and we retraced our steps around to Hyena
Dam. This was very quiet, there was a Little Egret on the dam but
little else of note, and back towards the swamp from which we had
come, we additionally had a very young Black Stork, two Red-billed
Teal, the first of five Secretarybirds, three Red-throated Pipits, and
another Whinchat, as well as a conglomerate of seventy Wood Sandpipers
attracted by the black ooze. On the run-off were a pair of
Saddle-billed Storks, and a different Eurasian Marsh Harrier.