The northward migration for Palearctic birds has been very marked this year. For the past 3 weeks Marsh Warblers have been thick in the trees with an estimate of one every 10 m along a 100m stretch of beach front bush in Watamu. However, driving around the forest last week we had none, so they seem to be more restricted to bush along the sea front. Also by this morning they are not vocalising in the garden any more and I suspect the majority have now left...

In Watamu at the A Rocha centre we have ringed in addition to a lot of Marsh Warblers:

• a hepatic adult female Asian Lesser Cuckoo - interestingly ringed on 14th April and retrapped on 26th.
  
• two Basra Reed Warblers - ringed 14th both with fat score of 0, one retrapped on 20th with a score of 5
• Common Whitethroat
• Thrush Nightingale,
• Common Nightingale (race hafizi)
• Garden Warbler
• Red-backed Shrikes

Also seen around have been good numbers of Common Cuckoo, a number of Eurasian Rollers - especially around the edge of Arabuko-Sokoke (not so many along the seafront), two Asian Lesser Cuckoos as well.

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.