Monday 18 November 2013

For the past three weeks, I have been away from the island, volunteering with my sister at the A Rocha centre in Kenya- hence the reason for the somewhat reduced updates on the blog. However, Pete Howlett, and latterly Mark and Steve have done a great job keeping updates during this time, although thankfully there have not been many things to report on the island anyway!

As a bit of a different post, I thought I would share some of the images that I have taken during our time at the fantastic Kenyan A Rocha centre. Mwamba (the A Rocha Kenya field study centre), is sited along the coast of Watamu, set back from the beautiful white Watamu Beach. There are several important sites for bird and wildlife in the surrounding area, including Mida Creek, the Arabuko Sokoke Forest, the Sabaki River Mouth and Gede Ruins. There is a great diversity of birdlife found amongst this wide range of habitats, for example the endangered Sokoke Pipit, Sokoke Scops Owl, Spotted Ground Thrush, Amani Sunbird and East Coast Akalat to mention a few. Along with these rare species, the estuaries and river mouths of Sabaki and Mida Creek hold internationally-important numbers of waders, such as Crab Plovers.

Hundreds of species of birds have been recorded in this area, and so one could go on all day about the migrants that originate from Palearctic, Oriental and Nearcitic regions (to name a few). However, here are a few images some of the species that I had the pleasure of seeing and photographing during my time there.

 Pied Kingfisher
 African Paradise Flycatcher
 Lesser Flamingos
 Mangrove Kingfisher
 Grey-headed Bush-shrike
 Typical mixed wader flocks. Greater and Lesser Sand Plovers, Terek Sandpipers, Little Stints, Ringed Plovers and Ruddy Turnstones
 Trumpeter Hornbill
 African Pied Wagtail
 Red-fronted Tinkerbird
 The very shy Four-coloured Bush-shrike, or more appropriately named Gorgeous Bush-shrike!
 Long-crested Eagle
 White-throated Bee-eater
Crab Plovers
 Yellow-throated Longclaw
Red-capped Robin-chat

2 comments:

  1. Stunning photos Ben - trust it all went well

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  2. Hi Steve! Thanks. Yep, we had an amazing time there thank you. Really enjoyed it.

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