Dear All,
I must admit that during the recent drought I have not given any
attention to the Paddock, it always looked so depressingly barren with
no ground cover just dirt.

On Wednesday night we had 1 1/4 inches of rain so I went up to see if
anything had come in. Local birds were much happier, but the only
surprises were that the White-rumped Swifts were checking out the nest
site (that was a rapid comeback), and there was a single Lesser
Striped Swallow. This was an adult but not in breeding plumage. When
they return after their break they are so dapper so this bird has
presumably been a hanger-on. The only Palearctics were a Willow
Warbler, but that has been present since I returned on 27th Sept, and
overflying Eurasian Bee-eaters likewise.

Another damp night Thursday brought us to just over two inches for the
two days, (this represents one quarter of our entire rainfall for
2017!), and I went up into the paddock at 6.30am, and all seemed so
quiet, nothing much in the trees, and as barren a sky as you could
imagine. I noticed some movement along the usually concealed fence
line, but now lacking in vegetation, and on raising my binoculars
could not believe that I was looking at a Common Redstart in female
dress. I was stunned but still conscious enough to take some images.
There has only ever been one record of Common Redstart in the Nairobi
District, and that was an adult spring male that I saw with Stephen
Easley over fifteen years ago when it spent two days in Acacia
mellifera near the Cement Factory, East Gate NNP. I carried on
searching for migrants or anything, much of the local stuff was now
active and I saw quite a bit, but it was another 1 ½ hours before the
next migrant, a lone Barn Swallow and the Willow Warbler did not start
singing until 8.30am when I was back in the house.

Before coming back in though, another shock was to ensue when I found
a Grey Flycatcher sitting on top of a Grevillea robusta. Even though
they are only a couple of kilometres away in the Acacia scrub of NNP,
it’s fidelity to acacias meant that it was never on my radar as a
potential in our broad-leaved paddock with scattered Acacia
xanthophloea. So what’s next!

Best to all
Brian