Kenya part 4

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Early morning the compound and Lake Naivasha produced Black Heron, Pink-backed Pelican, Fischer’s Lovebird, Long-toed Lapwing, Horus Swift and Nuanza Swift. Left Lake Naivasha and headed south towards Kinangop Grasslands. Kinangop Grassland is the easiest place to see the endemic Sharpe’s Longclaw. The birds breed on grazed grasslands in the highland. We quickly found one Longclaw and ended up seeing at least three different birds one of them offering extremely good views after 20 metres of crawling in the grass and some good pushing by Joseph. Other good birds at the site included a group of 15 migrating Lesser Kestrels, Capped Wheatear and Levaillant’s Cisticola. In the afternoon we birded the southern most part of the forest in the Aberdares. We arrived at the site at 1200 after some challenging driving. Highlights included Mountain Buzzard, Hartlaub’s Turaco (a total of seven birds heard but unfortunately none seen), Bar-tailed Trogon (male seen good though always posing with the back towards us), Silvery-cheeked Hornbill, Mountain Greenbul, White-starred Robin, Brown Woodland Warbler, Hunter’s Cisticola (one bird singing at a nearby stream), Grey Apalis (only heard), Chestnut-throated Apalis (common, with two birds seen and another 8 birds heard), Eastern Double-collared Sunbird and Olive Sunbird. Mammals included an unidentified Duiker, Colobus and Sykes Monkey. A visit to the forest in the early morning would definitely have proved more fruitful, next time… Arrived back in Nairobi at 1630 after four days of high speed birding/mammaling

Sharpes Longclaw at Kinangop Grassland. Eastafrican Endemic and globally threatened. Extreme good views.

Capped Wheatear at Kinangop Grassland. Only place we saw the species.

Bartailed Trogon, Aberdares. The uncommen trogon in Kenya became my first but not last.

Golden-winged Sunbird, Aberdares. Extremely attractive sunbird.

Silvery-cheeked Hornbill, Aberdares.

RDN