From: Darcy Ogada <ogada.darcy@peregrinefund.org>
Date: 2015-09-07 15:58
Subject: Fwd: Ol Donyo Sabuk 6 Sep 2015

Okay, I'm trying this again.  See below.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Darcy Ogada <ogada.darcy@peregrinefund.org>
Date: Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 11:11 AM
Subject: Ol Donyo Sabuk 6 Sep 2015
To: kenyabirdsnet@yahoogroups.com


Hi all,

I was up Ol Donyo Sabuk yesterday.  Being hopelessly dry in Thika, I was hoping the mountain would produce more birds. 

It certainly wasn't my best day up there, but I managed some nice birds.  I finally managed to get some photographs of the brown-capped weavers, which I usually see, but always in terrible light and with a strained neck.  Yesterday I was very lucky to photograph both the male and the female. They were both doing their nuthatch-like feeding style of probing under the lichens as they scooted up and around a tall tree.
Inline image 1Inline image 2


I also managed this rather distant photo of a montane white-eye.  As further support that despite the top of this mountain being only c. 2100m the forests at the top support montane species. 
Inline image 1

Other non-montane species were groups of cabinis's greenbul, and singles of augur buzzard, yellow-rumped tinkerbird, brown-crowned tchagra.

On the mammal side of things, I did manage to see and photograph a troop of colobus monkeys.  While seeing them there wasn't surprising, I can't recall ever having run into them before on the mountain. 
Others were syke's monkeys and baboons heard from afar, and dwarf mongoose.

While Ol Donyo is not the easiest park to see birds, it has a lovely bit of forest at the top and apart from some semi-drunk hikers I didn't encounter anyone else.  Karibu Thika!

Cheers, Darcy