Bird atlassing using the BirdLasser app is amazing. Last week we birded a pentad covering the southern end of Arabuko-Sokoke Forest and then headed to a pentad (atlas square) on the coastline immediately to the east of the forest - the pentad only includes a corner, more or less, of land, the rest is ocean.
What was amazing was how using the BirdLasser app encourages you to find tracks and trails to lead you to what look like interesting patches of habitat within the pentad on the satellite image. After an early start in the forest before 6am and picking up East Coast Akalat, Amani Sunbird and Sokoke Pipit among other forest specialists (tho' no Green-headed Oriole despite being in the area it has been known from in ASF...), we headed for the Roka pools - old gypsum mines that are flooded and form a 'miniature Lake Elementaita' almost of soda-water type pools. Here you get Black-winged Stilts and sometimes flamingo - though on Thursday we hit it right for the tide and found large roosting flocks of sand plovers and sandpipers - including several colour-flagged Greater Sand Plover that we would have ringed on Mida Creek 3+ years ago! This is proof that they come from Mida to roost here... the major highlight, however, was three Red-necked Phalarope giving the most incredible views only a matter of 40 m away!
From there we headed farther east into pentad no. 0325_3955 -
which was 100% transformed habitat: coconut plantation, degraded
agricultural land with not a lot growing on it and old coral rag
quarries (for building blocks) that were now very overgrown. None
of what must have been an incredible forest many years ago... BUT,
despite this paucity of 'good' habitat, we still managed to use
BirdLasser to find a track leading to the coastline and while we
had to walk the last 1-2 km, we picked up such goodies as Bohm's
Spinetail (again, the best views I've ever had of them - cruising
around only a few m away at eye-level over degraded scrubby
habitat - while I'm used to seeing them high overhead over the
forest canopy), Rufous Scrub Robins (i.e. Rufous Bush Chat) all
over the place and an Isabelline Shrike (or rather Turkestan
Shrike as it should probably be called now of the form karelini
- very grey with little rufous). It also led us to a gorgeous
little beach below a cliff surrounded by rock pools - a great
place to come visit with the family some time (and I'd never
have found it had it not been for atlassing...).
Saturday was then time for waterbird counts linked to the
museum-coordinated counts in the Rift Valley. We did Lake Jilore
(NW corner of the forest), Malindi Harbour and Kensalt saltworks
north of Gongoni... And atlassing at the same time produced some
good birds. Highlights included (L. Jilore) 104 Abdim's Stork, 4
Garganey, 1 Black-tailed Godwit, several Common Snipe, a White
Wagtail, Collared Pratincoles, several Sprossers (Thrush
Nightingale) were doing short bursts of sub-song in the bush on
the hillside and we heard and recorded a Great Reed Warbler
singing as well before flushing a roosting Slender-tailed
Nightjar. Brown and Black-chested Snake Eagles, Wahlberg's Eagle,
Black-shouldered Kite and Western Marsh Harrier contributed to a
total of 75 species which was very acceptable for the three hours
in the one spot.
Amazingly, while we looked out and even searched specifically for them while driving through the villages we didn't see a single House Crow - interesting given the huge numbers there are in the urban centres and exactly why we need to do atlassing across the whole coastline to really get a good picture of actual distribution and abundance rather than simply assumed.
We're up to 75 cards submitted so far this year and 50 pentads which is a great start to the year - if you're not involved in atlassing and a birder, please do join us in what is going to be the most critical project for bird conservation over the next decade or more.
Colin
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Colin Jackson
A Rocha Kenya
Cell:
+254 (0)722 842366
http://www.arocha.org
http://www.assets-kenya.org
http://kenyabirdmap.adu.org.za