KENYA – Siana Springs

It was a beautiful morning for Brian and I to spend a wonderful 3 hours walking around the gently sloping thorn scrub hills of Siana Springs. There is a very small population of Magpie Shrikes that inhabit this area but with the vegetation being well grown it makes it very hard to scan to great distances.

We whistled up a Pearl-spotted Owlet (left) which in turn attracted a great many birds including Red-headed Weaver, Golden-breasted Bunting Holub’s Golden Weaver, female Black Cuckoo-Shrikes, Dark-capped Bulbuls, Yellow-breasted Apalis, Tawny-flanked Prinia, Willow Warbler, Chin-spot Batis, Ameryst Sunbird and a White-browed Scrub Robin.

There was a tremendous amount of species that we came as well as accidentally scaring the living daylights out of a pair of Bat-eared Foxes that were sleeping at the base of a shrub. Buff-bellied Penduline-Tits moved just far enough ahead of us to make catching up with them too tough. However a Long-tailed Cisticola (below) was far more cooperative and we also had good looks at Buff-bellied Warbler, Upcher’s Warbler, Olivaceous Warbler, Red-throated Tit, Purple Grenadiers, Eastern Black-headed Oriole, Black-backed Puffback, Diederik Cuckoo and Striped Kingfisher.