NAIROBI NATIONAL PARK 17th November 2016

Dear All,
On 17th November, Nigel Hunter and myself met up with Geoffrey James
at the Main Gate to Nairobi National Park at 6.35am, and were through
the gate very soon after.

At home we had had ½ inch of rain over night, but it appeared that
much of the Park had had considerably more. All days are good in the
Park, but this one vastly exceeded exceptional, and between 6.40am and
5.15pm without visiting many parts we recorded 214 species, with an
impressive 41 species of palearctic migrants. With the rain overnight
it might have been expected that there would have been a good fall of
migrants, but this was not the case at all and numbers were very low.

As soon as we were through the Main Entrance, we had a couple of
Common Buzzards looking a bit wet. We continued on to Ivory Burning
Site. There were alates and small insects emerging and as we went down
the hill towards IBS, there were Nightingales and Sprossers all over
the road behaving very extravert. All through the bushland the
Nightingale species were calling. The only other migrants at the site
was the first of five Spotted Flycatchers, and first of three Common
Whitethroat seen today. On arrival at Ivory Burning Site in the dull
overcast conditions (but not raining), there was little on offer. A
couple of Garden Warblers and a single Blackcap, plus a single Willow
Warbler and the only one of two seen the whole day. Two Tree Pipits
flew over and there was a Zanzibar Sombre Greenbul singing.

There was a Spotted Thick-knee on the Nagalomon Drift after an absence
for a while, but birds had really deserted the dam itself. A few
African Spoonbills, an adult Purple Heron, Great Egret, no Darters,
Cormorants or Ibis, the pair of Fish Eagles that just move between
here and Hyena Dam, a few of the resident plovers, but the only
migrant waders were two Green and four Wood Sandpipers with seven
Black-winged Stilts.