NAIROBI NATIONAL PARK 8th OCTOBER 2017


Dear All,
On 8th October, Nigel Hunter collected me at 6.30am, we were at the
paying in station for NNP by 6.45am and even with a number of people,
there were three desks open and all the ladies were working
efficiently meaning that within ten minutes we were in the Park.

Another sunny morning, no rain had fallen in the past week and the
drought still rages.

For a change we started at KWS Mess, there were a few birds about
including the first local Spotted Flycatcher of the season. Driving
down towards the Ivory Burning Site we were surprised how there was no
bird song coming from the scrub, and the Site itself was much the same
story. An unseen Yellow Wagtail flew over though.

We headed off for Nagalomon Dam, with a Secretarybird on the Ivory
Burning Arena as has been a regular feature over the past few months
and whilst usually a pair and just one bird on this occasion maybe
there is a nest close by. Another single was seen in Athi Basin. There
was one Spotted Thick-knee on the Drift, but the dam was so quiet. The
closest thing to Palearctic waders were nine very boisterous
Black-winged Stilts, otherwise four Darters, and a few Grosbeak
Weavers in the reeds starting to sing again. A Zanzibar Sombre
Greenbul also started singing from the scrub. The back road to Hyena
Dam also failed to produce anything of interest, but House Sparrows
seemed more numerous than usual, and a few Red-billed Queleas were
associating with the numerous Speke’s Weavers descending onto the
balconies for their food handouts.

Hyena Dam looking so exposed with almost zero vegetation presented a
depressing sight compared to its hayday when it actually used to be so
vegetated that the water was only visible from breaks in the reeds! It
provided an African Spoonbill, three Great White and a Yellow-billed
Egret, a pair of noisy Gabar Goshawks, five Black-winged Stilts, back
to four Long-toed Plovers including the white-winged bird, an African
Jacana, a dozen Wood and two Common Sandpipers and a Little Stint.