East Africa – Day 33

Kenya 20 August 2015

I have not been able to upload photographs to my blog without wifi or decent band width but will add my photographs to my blog post as soon as I can.

Today is the second day of our birding trip to Kenya which we have organised through a local ground agent and bird guide Moses Kandie of Birdwatching Express Tours. He provided lots of references, who all said that Moses was a brilliant guide and well organised. Having now birded with him, he is a great birder, very focused on what we want, which is seeing our target birds, and a great guy too.

We had a night at Crater Lake reserve and were up at 5.00 am again for a 5.30 am breakfast. But had woken up in the middle of the night and so had read until I got caught by my Dad. So in the morning, I was really tired.

We started birding at the reserve, seeing Zebra, Giraffe, Buffalo and antelope.

We also saw lots of great birds including Brown Parisoma and Ruppell’s Robin-Chat, both of which were new.

After a good morning of birding, we had a long drive, when I was passed out the whole way.

We then drove to Kinangop Plains, a small place, on the equator, for a specific bird species. It was Sharpe’s Longclaw, which Moses showed a picture to a couple of cattle herders and a boy who had stopped to watch us. They went off to try and find the bird for us, which is scarce. We walked around a few grassy fields, in an organised search. In the end, we found the Longclaw in short grass not far from the gate. We left, happy birders, whilst Moses paid all three for their help. This kind of Eco tourism is important to protect the birds.

At this site, we also saw Hunter’s Cisticola and Golden-winged Sunbird.

We then drove to Nakuru National Park, where we had lunch and took our bags to our room, which was the furthest possible from the restaurant.

In the afternoon, we went out birding around the park the highlight of which was seeing a mother and young Black Rhino that Dad found.

In terms of birding, it was a bit quiet but we did see Heuglin’s Wheater and Speke’s Weaver but neither were new.

The lodge had a lot of Baboons around but on the way to dinner, I could hear the Baboon related screams of a teenage girl, being, at the same time, shouted at by her Dad!

I tried to get an early night, but by the time we had dinner, I was still exhausted.

Trip List – We also had an amazing Trip list – 585 birds for Uganda, 183 birds for Rwanda, a total trip list of 612 for Uganda and Rwanda, 149 trips for Kenya and 324 lifers for me.