A week ago we did a waterbird count at a new site for me - a large oxbox 
lake north of the Sabaki and upstream that I'd seen often from the plane 
when landing at Malindi. Amazingly, despite the drought it was pretty 
full of water - where everywhere else is dry. One of the wazee we talked 
to there said the water comes in when the Sabaki is in flood - though i 
couldn't think that it had had very high water levels during the past 
few months though perhaps it did in December?

With the water there, it was very busy with water birds and given the 
area we didn't manage to cover, I'd estimate a good 1,000 Reed 
Cormorant, 300-400 Glossy Ibis and 100-150 herons of various sorts. Also 
a flock of 11 Northern Pintail - my first for the coast in over 10 years 
- and about 15 Pygmy Geese - again they've been hard to find in recent 
years here.

Of other particular interest were:

Jameson's Firefinch - a pair in scrub along the road in the same atlas 
square (pentad).
Upcher's Warbler - there were a surprising number of larger acacia trees 
there which have not (yet) been removed for charcoal and one in 
particular was quite busy with birds - the Upcher's as well as a pair of 
Red-faced Crombec.
Little Rush Warbler - singing in the reeds, heard several times - the 
lower and slower song of the more southern birds, not the one our 
highland birds have.
Rufous Bush Chat / Scrub Robin - we had at least 12 of these in the one 
pentad. This year they have been extremely numerous and obvious along 
the north coast here.

We had a tight window of time so were not able to spend as much time or 
go as far as we'd have liked, but it was an awesome spot and worth 
exploring further.

Species list for the pentad hit 87 species with some surprising gaps 
such as House Crow... yes, we spent some serious effort searching for 
House Crows and didn't find them! Same for House Sparrow - searched the 
small villages we drove though to no avail.

Last bird of the pentad was a pair of Pangani Longclaws right by the 
road taking shelter from the heat under a bush. Had a Golden Pipit in 
the same pentad two weeks earlier when on the way through to Marafa but 
he didn't show that morning.

Colin

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Colin Jackson
A Rocha Kenya

Cell:
+254 (0)722 842366
       
www.arocha.org
www.assets-kenya.org
http:/kenyabirdmap.adu.org.za