Hi Colin,
Congratulations for not seeing a House Crow! The oxbow sounds
incredible and I hope you get time for many follow-up visits before it
dries.
Can you tell me anything about the Red-faced Crombecs you saw?
Best for now
Brian

On 2/23/17, Colin Jackson colin.jackson@arocha.org [kenyabirdsnet]
<kenyabirdsnet-noreply@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> 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
>
> --
> -------------------------
> Colin Jackson
> A Rocha Kenya
>
> Cell:
> +254 (0)722 842366
>
> www.arocha.org
> www.assets-kenya.org
> http:/kenyabirdmap.adu.org.za
>
>