SANCTUARY FARM, NAIVASHA 26th January 2014

Dear All,

On 26th January, Nigel and myself left Karen at 6.40am, arriving at
Sanctuary Farm, South Lake Road, Naivasha at 8.00am.

It was a clear and sunny day, becoming warm from late morning, and
relentlessly sunny.

The first order of the day was a fresh coffee and consume a slice of
delicious Lemon Cake, whilst sitting outside of the Polo Club,
watching the comings and goings on the Lake. Mysteriously the lake
level has risen again since we were there a month ago, although has
obviously been higher.

Probably the highlight here was seeing three Ospreys all flying
together, but there were other things to keep us interested.

On the way in was a Turkestan Shrike based on the all whitish
underparts without any rufous tinge, although the crown was cold grey
without any rust tinges, and a young male Eurasian Rock Thrush. On the
shoreline were ten species of herons including three Black, three
species if Ibis and African Spoonbill, but the only stork were a few
Yellow-billed. Few ducks did include eight Garganey, and amongst the
palearctic waders we had twenty Ringed Plover, thirty Little Stint,
twenty Ruff, three Marsh, just two Wood and a Common Sandpiper, three
Greenshank and six Common Snipe. As well as the Ospreys there were
also three Eurasian Marsh Harriers, all very different from each
other, and plenty of Fish Eagles of course. Amongst the two species of
cormorants were three Darters, the only species of tern seen all day
were seventy Gull-billed and with Grey-headed Gulls was one adult
Black-headed Gull. The thirty Yellow Wagtails were mainly flava, but
two young lutea and three thunbergi. There was a huge gathering of
aerial feeders that hugged the same air space over the forest for over
an hour. Good numbers of Barn Swallows, but many Sand Martins and no
shortage of House Martins. Swifts with them included Little, Horus,
Nyanza, African Black and Eurasian.

The acacias were very quiet though there were good numbers of Willow
Warblers. All of those seen were white breasted and may represent the
far eastern yakutensis, just arriving!

At the pumphouse we found my first Spotted Redshank of the season, and
in fact the first I have heard of in Kenya this passage, and this is
another bird that often does not appear until January. Also on the
flooded field were four Black-tailed Godwits. Two Ospreys were sitting
in the trees, but were probably birds seen earlier. In the waterside
scrub we spished in four Eurasian Reed Warblers (they were also
singing), a Sedge, several Willow and an Olivaceous.

When we left here we passed a small field of Sorghum, and this was
attracting many Lovebirds (Yellow-collared predominant hybrids),
Crimson-rumped Waxbills and a few Village Weavers. I did a double take
on the weavers because I had never seen a Village Weaver in Naivasha
ever before. I am glad that we did give them some attention, because
there were three males, and all were bohndorffi with the thick black
lateral lines along the side of the wings down the back, and a uniform
yellow back, whilst the underparts included rich orange. When you are
used to paroptus on a daily basis, these birds really look large.
I thought this was very interesting at the time, and it became
apparent when reading about the distributions in various publications,
in Nigels garden whilst normal paroptus were consuming on his
bird-feeder!

The race paroptus is the normal form over much of Kenya and Tanzania,
but in Uganda and western Kenya is the very attractive bohndorffi. In
Britton it states that paroptus gets only as far west as Ngong,
Nairobi and Nyeri. Whilst bohndorffi extends over the Uganda border
into Kenya, in Britton it is only recorded as far east as Lake
Victoria Basin, and Mt Elgon to Nandi and Kaptagat. Zimmermann and
Turner rightly extend this to include the Mara. So the appearance in
Naivasha is extremely noteworthy. Suddenly Village Weaver became bird
of the day!

We stopped at Manguo Pond on the return, there was a plague of
annoying urchins that caused us to relocate on another part of the
lake. There were many ducks, but the only palearctic was one Shoveler,
there were some fifty White-backs but ducks were loafing not swimming
so things could have been concealed in vegetation, which may be why we
did not find Maccoa Duck for the first time in a while. Well over 100
Fulvous Whistling-Duck were present, and Swamphens appeared to be in
droves marching through the marsh grasses. Nothing out of the ordinary
however.

Best to all
Brian