KINANGOP TO MUTUBIO GATE ABERDARE NATIONAL PARK
1st February 2014

Dear All,
Nigel Hunter and I left Karen at 6.40am for a day visit to the
subalpine Mutubio Gate in Aberdare National Park.

At the Kinangop Flyover we turned on the road towards Kieni, and took
the first left down the road to Njabini. This road was in places
awful, but the Chinese are there putting it to right. From Njabini we
took the super highway of the C69 which heads to Ol Kalau and
Thomson's Falls.  After Engineer, the turn off to the Aberdare
National Park is signposted. Two kilometres before the turn we passed
a large pond on the left side of the road. As we passed it I jokingly
said to Nigel that that swamp looked absolutely ideal for Lesser
Jacana. He said would you like to go back, so we reversed alongside
the marsh.

We started scanning the pond, there were Yellow-billed Ducks, a
Red-billed Teal, quite a few Red-knobbed Coot and a couple of Little
Grebes. Scanning the floating vegetation there were quite a few Wood
Sandpipers. Suddenly my binoculars were on something else, "I've got
one," I said... sure enough there was a Lesser Jacana dwarfed by the
Wood Sandpipers. Better than that, the Lesser Jacana dwarfed the
minute fluffy mouse that was scampering over the floating vegetation
trying to keep up with its parent! We watched the adult and chick for
some time before heading off towards the Aberdares.

I tried to find actual breeding records of Lesser Jacana in Kenya, and
I cannot locate one. I have seen fairly good sized young at Eldoret
Airport swamp, where they are probably resident (although the security
is a problem, and I have not looked there for years). I have seen
juvenile birds on the large swamp along the road from Eldama Ravine to
Kaptagat but this is the first ever chick, that could only have been
raised on this site.

When we arrived at the swamp, we had only been travelling 1 1/2 hours,
so not a great expedition from Nariobi for anyone wishing to see them.
Also the pond has no cover, they are just on the surface weed.