We sat in the house as it rained non-stop. It was early in the morning and I had to get ready for work.
Dom tallied up the lists. 595 species. He had one more day to get to 600 while I went to work. Instead, he stayed home to rest and tried to scrounge up 5 more armchair species that had not made it onto the checklists.
Finally, just as I step out the door Dom remembers that we had heard a Gray-capped Warbler somewhere...was it at the park boundary at Meru NP? Yes that was it. That makes....600 species!
So how did we do it?
Let me tell you a tale of how it all went down...
March 30th, Nairobi National Park
NNP can be either hit or miss. Sometimes underwhelming, sometimes overwhelming, and other times, merely whelming. Hopefully this was gonna be one of those magical times. This was Angela's last day in Kenya, and Dom's first. He had arrived late the night before. I had made sure to get to the airport early this time, not like last time. Of course, his flight arrived late cause of this (Murphy's law). We went back to my place and got some sleep. Tomorrow would be a big day.
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| The morning rain boded well for our quest |
We rolled up at the East Gate at about 6am sharp, the earliest you're allowed into the park. We were sticking out heads out of my sunroof, ears fully tuned to any song that could suggest a possible lifer for Dom. About 1km in, we were stoped in our tracks by three massive white rhinos, one of which refused to move out of our way. He was an absolute tank. Unable to leave and use the other gate without paying twice, we were forced to wait. One small car decided not to wait, and skirted behind the rump of the beast. He tried to ram the car but was not quick enough. We were hopping for something to send to Ozzy Man Reviews. Past the Rhino barricade, we cruised toward Athi Dam, hoping for Shelley's Francolin. It was not long before we found a single keener which almost attacked our car when I played its call on the speaker.
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| Shelley's Francolin |
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| Pangani Longclaw |
Some lions were walking across the grassland, tailed by hyenas. At the vulture pools, we found about 15 Short-tailed Larks feeding with Red-throated Pipits in breeding plumage. Not a bad start to the day! On our way to the dam, we briefly got good bin views of a White-tailed Lark on the road, but it flushed before we could snap it. We circled round the Dam, almost getting stuck in mud twice. We heard a Pearl-spotted Owlet at a distance, and got a sneak peak at a White-backed Night Heron hiding in a fallen-over Acacia tree. between the Hippo Pools and Kingfisher we had a lovely mixed flock with a Wahlberg's Honeybird and some Red-throated Tits, birds you don't see every day. Kingfisher Picknick site was the best I've seen it. We had Green-backed Honeybird and a pair of Black-faced Waxbills were detected by the faintest of chip notes. By day's end, we'd tallied a very respectable 175 species. We went to Carnivore Restaurant for a goodbye dinner for Angela, where we ate some of the animals we'd spent the day viewing, then dropped her at the airport and drove home.
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| Common Elands |
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| Red-throated Pipit |
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| Short-tailed Larks |
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| Short-winged/Siffling Cisticola |
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| White Rhino |
March 31st - flight to Malindi
We woke up at the ass crack of dawn to catch our morning flight to Malindi on the coast. Unfortunately, I'd made a rookie mistake. Given that it was a Sunday, it was impossible to get a Bolt taxi that early, and I'd neglected to arrange a ride with my own guy. With no time left to hesitate, we had no choice but to take my car and park it at JKIA for the week, whatever the parking fee may be. At least we caught our flight. We got the rental van and made our way to the Tana River Primate Reserve, with a stop at the Sabaki River Mouth. We drove as far as we could on the sandy road then walked past the mangroves and over the sand dunes, to behold an epic spectacle of nature. There were hundreds of shorebirds on the mudflats, flamingos and gulls and terns covered a sandbar at the mouth. The salty sea breeze invigorated our lungs and the cool waters of the Sabaki tickled our toes. We were titillating with excitement for what rarities we were about to pick out form the flock. We let our fee tsink into the rich stinky mud, nourishing our skin with minerals, a more rejuvenating experience than even the fanciest spa resort in Malindi. A good combing of the shorebirds revealed two Broad-billed Sandpipers in full spankin' breeding plumage and I briefly glimpsed a White-cheeked tern flying over the surf. Triumphant, we walked back through the mud with our shoes off to make our way to the primate reserve.
On our way to the Tana River Primate Reserve, we encountered more and more dry scrub birds typical of places like Samburu or Tsavo, making several stops on the side of the road. The best sighting was just north of Sabaki, a soaring Ayre's Hawk-Eagle.
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| Ayre's Hawk-Eagle |
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| Vulturine Guineafowl |
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| Buff-crested Bustard |
We got there a little before dark. The head warden guy was eager for us to pay first but he struggled to keep our attention because Two Grayish Eagle-Owls were being mobbed by several birds, among them a pair of sunbirds, which at the time we thought to be Violet-breasted Sunbirds but we later found out they may have been Tsavo Sunbirds.
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| "Grayish" Spotted Eagle-owl |
Dopamine surged across our synaptic gaps in every nerve of our body as our optic nerves delivered the action potential to our overstimulated brains, giving us a powerful natural high. Eventually, it got dark and we could no longer see birds, which posed a logistical challenge. To the warden's relief, we were availed to finally able to pay the fees. The warden said we'd have to camp outside the office for the night because the tracks were too muddy for our van.
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| Make with this what you will |
April 1st - Birding the Tana River Primate Reserve
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| Golden Pipit |
In the morning, we drove to the river where the primates live. It was this mini relict lowland tropical forest with two endangered monkeys: The Tana River Red Colobus and the Tana River Crested Mangabey. The birding was not bad either. Particularly easy on the eye were some magnificent Fischer's Turacos, running up the thick limbs of ancient trees, squawking and gorging on fruit just as they had done for thousands of years. Not even the most cynical, city-blunted citizen could sight one and not succumb to their splendor.
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| There's a Fischer's Turaco somewhere in this fig tree |
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| Tana River Crested Mangabey - one of the ultra rarest primates in the world |
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| Interesting snake...an Asp? |
Later that day, we drove further up the Tana to a riverside monastery with a special mission. We were to rent a small boat that my friend Victor had told us about, hoping to find a Pel's Fishing Owl just as he and Angela had recently. There we were, in the middle of nowhere, getting into a boat with some monks at a monastery, looking for an owl on a river in the midday sun. We used half the trip's supply of sunscreen just on this one boat ride. There we were in our bright orange life jackets in a hippo-infested river, roasting in the midday sun, just as Icarus' wings melted as he flew to close to the sun, so too did we realize that we were trying to pack too much into one day. We did not see a Pel's that day, but it was a fun boat ride. Our wallet's lighter from the boat ride, we drove on to Dakacha where our cheap hotel and guide Julius awaited in the village of Marafa.
That night was one of the hottest nights I've ever had, and not in a good way. We stripped ourselves of every layer of clothing and lay there soaking in our own sweat, praying for the morning to come. We were meant to search for Barred Owlet the night before but had arrived too late, so this morning would be our only crack at that highly elusive coastal species. We'd had a couple pass over our heads in the dark but never got a look. As the day broke, we birded on...
We birded a beautiful site called Kibaoni Nature Preserve. It's kind of a Miombo Woodland kind of savannah where you can just walk between the trees, there is no trail. As we birded by day, I was making calculations in my head on how we could re-jig the itinerary to have another shot at the Barred Owlet. Dom however was mesmerized by the onslaught of lifers: Retz's Helmetshrikes, Fiery-necked Nightjar, Retz's Helmetshrikes, Eastern Nicators, Gray-headed Bush-shrikes...By about 12:30pm, in the heat of the mid-day sun, to my absolute shock, I heard the unmistakable purring of a Barred owlet. We honed in on the sound as I tried to ignore the post-traumatic stress of having almost seen this species many times, with many hours of sleep lost that I will never get back. We got closer the the bush from which the angry purring emanated. As we closed in, the intensity of the call increased, tickling the hairs in my cochleas. I felt a tingling in my forearms and my arm hairs stood on end, an ancestral response to some man-eating beast of ancient times. Cortisol diffused between neurons as a fight-or-flight response kicked in, raising my blood pressure, dilating my pupils and heightening my senses. Where was it? We circled round the bush as we pannic-scanned the foliage. Finally, we spotted its face looking straight at us, at 180 degrees to its body. The nemesis was finally vanquished.
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| The incredibly hard to see (at least in Kenya) African Barred Owlet |
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| Black-collared Barbet |
Julius is not much of a conversationalist, but he's damn good at finding birds. His fine ear tuned ear detected a Black-collared Barbet which we spotted atop a snag.
That night, our suffering was at an end because we took up lodging at a fancy coastal resort with air conditioned room and a buffet fit for a king. We washed the grime off our bodies and took a dip in the serene Indian Ocean, and feasted on a buffet.
The next morning, we birded Arabuko-Sokoke with our guide Kalama. I'd never used Kalama before, but he turned out to be an ace guide. It's a good thing because he wasn't cheap. Within the first hour of birding, we'd already gotten smoking views of two Four-coloured Bush-shrikes, requiring us to do some intense Pilates under branches on the forest floor. We spent quite alot of time chasing after these interesting weird cuckoos that kept giving us the slip. Finally we got one to settle on a distant branch and confirmed what we'd suspected...Asian Lesser Cuckoo! We happened to be in the brief window when the pass through on spring migration. How lucky! After a sterling morning in which we were bedazzled by Amani Sunbird, Sokoke Scops Owl and Sokoke Pipit, we met up with my friend Ivy who had recently taken up birding, at Mida Creek.
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| Asian Lesser Cuckoo |
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| Sokoke Scops Owl |
The 'bird hyde' at the end of the boardwalk provided a perfect opportunity for a beginning birder, especially with the scope.
It was really good! We saw Eurasian Curlew and Bar-tailed Godwits in the scope. Our spirits were satiated by magical coastal birds as we quenched our thirst with fresh coconut water. What a day!
The next day was more birding in Arabuko-Sokoke. At the elephant swamp, we we got a decent look at a Mascarene Martin. Apil 5th was left open. Originally we'd meant to do Sokoke again, but calculated that we might get more lifers at Dakacha and that it was worth the extra drive. Julius took us to a nice creek that had Dwarf Bittern and Fischers Turaco, after which he took us to his secret stake-out for Brown-headed Parrots on someone's farm. Eastern Nicator joined the list.
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Dwarf Bittern
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