I visited Lunga lunga 2 times this week, on Tuesday 20th and Friday 23rd August, there were quite a few surprises I would like to share!

I started off a Lily pond which was now full with water, after some good rains. There were about 50 openbill storks, a purple heron, black crakes, African jacana, a large flock of village, eastern golden and grosbeak weavers, lots of red-billed queleas and zanzibar bishops, and a good surprise was seeing about 40 black-crowned Night herons roosting on large broad-leaved trees along the edges of the pond(they aren't usual in such big numbers for this area, maybe migrants?).

Next I proceeded to my farm, where we get many of the tsavo biome species like: Von der Decken's hornbill, white-crowned shrike, white-browed sparrow weaver, Superb starlings. And as i was leaving i got to see blue-naped mousebirds and a Bateleur in flight. Other coastal residents like the brown-headed parrots and east coast boubou were calling widely. Having got around 50 species, i made my way to the Umba river which is the highlight of Lunga Lunga. 

Going down the steep hill towards the river valley, I noticed the river was almost dry and the birds had gathered in good numbers to feast on the fruits and get a cool drink. I first saw the noisy trumpeter hornbills noisily feeding on figs and on closer inspection a Southern-banded snake-eagle(pic attached) that was ready to chase them off it's favourite tree. I carried along the almost dry river and saw a feeding party of a variety of different species like Chestnut-fronted and Retz's Helmetshrike, Green woodhoopes, Dark-backed weavers, Brown-breasted barbets, African golden Orioles, and a handful of Black bellied starlings. After enjoying all these birds i moved on to the usual spot to find Grey-olive greenbuls(pic attached), they were accompanied by a beautiful Narina Trogon(pic attached) and a pair of African Paradise flycatchers. Going further upstream I saw the resident Brown-hooded, Striped, pied, malachite and Giant Kingfishers. Grey-headed kinfisher was seen on my way home. As I crawled over the rivers rocky boulders, there was a large "pool" that had remained and was full of fish. Here I saw Wooly-necked storks, purple and grey heron, reed cormorant and a pair of African Finfoots! I saw them briefly before they scurried away into a crocodile burrow. As I went on, I saw the resident White-backed and Black-crowned Night-herons in their usual place. After this area the river is quite heavily deforested and there isn't much to see accept for shambas and livestock on both sides. While going back, I saw the Finfoot pair again but I didn't manage to get a picture yet the second time (they were extremely shy and fled into the forest running into a cave). Happy enough to have seen them properly I made my way back to Diani.