Friday, November 16, 2012

15th November- A 112-Bird day


My brother is heading to South Africa to study for a few months and we wanted to spend some quality time together. Niether of us had commitments this morning so we set off on our motorbikes on a bird trip. Convening at my Dad’s house for breakfast we quickly checked off 22 species of birds that are already on the big year list. Hopping onto our bikes we headed up just beyond Oldonyo Sambu where we pulled up near a cattle trough to bird for a while. 35 species later we moved on, with the following additions to the master list.

102
African grey flycatcher
103
African hoopoe
104
Banded parisoma
105
Brubru
106
Capped wheater
107
Chin-spot batis
108
Cinnamon-breasted rock bunting
109
Common kestrel
110
Common rock thrush
111
Common scimitarbill
112
Grey wren warbler
113
Hildebrandt's starling
114
Isabeline shrike
115
Nubian woodpecker
116
Pygmy falcon
117
Red-fronted barbet
118
Red-fronted warbler
119
Schalow's wheater
120
Speckle-fronted weaver
121
Steppe eagle
122
White-bellied canary
123
White-bellied go-away bird
124
White-browed scrub robin
125
White-browed sparrow weaver
126
Speckled pigeon
127
Yellow-breasted apalis

The lark plains have turned green, but neither of us had the patience to tackle cryptic larks, so we headed across them to the Acacia-commiphora scrub to their east. Stopping a couple times we walked around and managed to get some highlights like the Rosy-patched bush shrike, white-headed mousebird, and northern wheater. Did you know that some of the northern wheaters that come to these plains migrate here all the way from Canada.

128
Beautiful sunbird
129
Black-faced waxbill
130
Black-necked weaver
131
Black-throated barbet
132
Brown snake eagle
133
Buff-crested bustard
134
Chestnut sparrow
135
Fishers sparrowlark
136
Isabeline wheater
137
Lesser masked weaver
138
Little bee-eater
139
Northern wheater
140
Rosy-patched bushshrike
141
Rufous sparrow
142
Temminck's courser
143
Violet-backed sunbird
144
White-headed buffalo weaver
145
White-headed mousebird
146
Yellow-bellied eremomela
147
Yellow-necked spurfowl
148
Yellow-spotted petronia

By this time the sun was pretty high and our stomachs started grumbling so we headed back for lunch before heading into a beautiful little forest on Burka coffee estate. Our walk took us up to a small dam for the following additions to the master list:

149
Ashy flycatcher
150
Black-backed puffback
151
Green sandpiper
152
Grosbeak weaver
153
Hammerkop
154
Holub's golden weaver
155
Palmnut vulture
156
Pied kingfisher
157
Rock martin
158
Scarce swift
159
Tambourine dove
160
White-browed robin chat
161
White-eared barbet

2 comments:

  1. Hey Ethan, hope you're planning some more birding in honour of my birthday next week - see something good for me! And I want pictures - the grainer and more blurred the better... I'm hoping you have some strategy planned out here? What's you're plan to make sure you don't miss anything obvious and manage to hit some of those harder to get things too? Sounds like a lot of fun! What's the target? You're definitely going to hav eto pin down some of those larks at some point... Hope we can do some fun additions next time I'm out!

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  2. Mr. B. This weekend we're heading to Tarangire. I don't have a strategy except to bird as much as possible. Part of the plan is to motivate tackling those little brown larks and cisticolas...
    We will celebrate your birthday next week, and next time your here lets plan a trip to get something obscure.

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