NAIROBI NATIONAL PARK   29th June 2014


Dear All,
Nigel Hunter and myself were at the Main Gate to Nairobi National
Park. It has been the first visit since the extraordinary day of the
10th June. In the meantime there had been little rain out in Langata
and Karen, but the Park had done very well as we were to find out.
In three weeks there could be quite a change in the species presence,
but as we were to find it was more of an outpouring, and nothing new
had come in.

At the gate there were so many people waiting in line to get into the
Park, but we were through by 7.00am and ignoring KWS Mess, we went
straight to Ivory Burning Site which we could have also given a miss
to, as there was nothing. It was really cold, rather difficult to
appreciate the closeness of the Equator, and it started fairly bright
but soon clouded over, and remained cold all morning, clearing to sun
in the afternoon.

The three Spotted Thick-knees were at the Nagalomon Drift, but the Dam
itself was extremely quiet. There were about fifty Long-tailed
Cormorants in the roost, and a new Park high of eight Darters.  By
incredible coincidence after the recent discussion on Paradise
Flycatchers, there was a white male along the causeway!!!

We now took the back road to the new swamp behind Hyena Dam, there
were an adult and immature African Water Rails feeding in the open
with four Painted-snipe, a female and what looked like an adult male
and two immatures of the same size. Two Meyer’s Parrots also flew
noisily by, and there was a party of out of plumage Red-collared
Widowbirds. From here we drove around to Hyena Dam, and as someone was
in our breakfast parking spot we continued alongside the dam, checking
out the marshy parts. There were a Little Egret, four Yellow-billed
Ducks, the first of just two Secretarybirds today, the pair of
Long-toed Plovers still present, and another female Painted-snipe.
Now we reached the back road and did the circuit around and had not
gone very far down the road when a Buttonquail flew up. Unbelievably
when we drove to where it was, it was poking around unconcernedly and
I managed some incredible video before it ducked into a thick clump of
grass and disappeared. Two grabs from the video are attached.
Now we completed the circle and reached the breakfast position. It was
very quiet, three Swamphens were poking about, but it was otherwise
normal fare.

There was nothing on the run-off at all, the Martial Eagles were at
the new nest site along the Mokoyeti, and Eland Hollow still had its
loyal African Jacana, now the last one in the Park it would seem.
Continuing across the grasslands was extremely quiet, all the way to
Athi Dam.

In common with every other dam in the Park, Athi Dam had risen
considerable. All of the open areas around the water had gone, and
there was little waterside habitat. As a consequence, all we could
find were a Great Egret, single Yellow-billed Stork (and only two
Marabou!), four African Spoonbills, three Spur-winged and four
Kittlitz’s Plovers, and that was it.

Towards Cheetah Gate there were several Laughing Doves, but the most
interesting birds were a pair of Parrot-billed Sparrows, which doesn’t
sound much but they are inexplicably rare in the Park.

The best discovery in this area was a plant, and it has us flummoxed.
There were many of the common Balanites glabra flowering, some
profusely. Amongst them was what looked identical to them in
appearance, and it’s apparent uniqueness would have been overlooked
were it not too in flower. Only two Balanites are recorded from NNP….
glabra and aegyptica, and both have small yellow-green flowers. This
tree had large mauve flowers. The glabra’s flowers were on spiny
branches, but these flowers were concentrated at the end of a long
unarmed branch, which broke into smaller unarmed branches the tip of
each had a small cluster of flowers that even structurally looked
nothing like glabra. The stems were strangely lineated pale green and
dark green. If anyone can please help out here, I have additional
photos to the ones supplied here.
We thought that it could be something odd that was growing through the
Balanites, but although the growth was extremely thick and spiny, it
looked like it was part of the tree.

All the way to the burnt grassland near Kingfisher, all we could
muster was a family of three Pangani Longclaws, checking the dam near
Langata Gate, rewarded nothing but a pair of Pale Flycatchers. From
here we took the glade road instead of immediately exiting the gate,
our only pair of Crowned Cranes for the entire day were on the new
swampy area (breeding this year has been abysmal) a few Banded Martin
fed over the dense stand of Vernonias, and the big dam further on had
the Hippo but no sign of it’s grebe, a male Saddle-billed Stork and an
African Spoonbill.