Spotted-thick knee | the bird twitcher

Wow, what a lovely birding evening, a team of 7 bird twitchers led by Johnson Kafulo of GEDE, MALINDI and JOHN GITIRI, KINANGOP PLATEAU had an objective to find as many bird as possible. After touring Iveti Forest in Machakos, we set out as usual to the shrubs and open fields around Pastoral Centre.

We were equiped with essential birding equipments including binoculars, notebooks, telescope. It was amazing evening bird watching time with 53 species recorded. As we get out to the shrubs, our first species was Spotted-thick knees, this bird is facing great threat, the environment is being destroyed and soon it will nolonger be at Pastoral Centre, moving in pairs, it keep on moving around not going more 10 meters due to open field being created.

As we move towards the sewerage plant, the Eurasian bee-eaters we’re flying over head in large numbers, this confirmed that migration is on high peak, another migrant spotted was the yellow-billed kite/black kite.

We arrived at the sewerage plant when the sun was almost going down, we set up the the telescope to have a clear view of the species feeding there.

It was time to differentiate the teal swimming in the pool, with our able guide’s, the team were taken through the different features of the teal, and as Gitiri explained the Red-billed teal has a cape like feature as oppose to cape teal, the cape teal also lacked the black color on the head. Reed commorant were also flying over heading to their roosting site. To contribute to the conservation initiative in Kenya the species have been recorded in Kenya Bird Map. These were the bird species recorded.

1. African paradise Flycatcher, pied crow, speckled mousebird, little bee eater, singing cisticola, white headed barbet, Red-headed weaver, Black couco shrike, yellow rumped seed eater, three streaked Tchagra, Willow wabler among others. You can check on the Kenya bird on the other species observed.

Thanks to the team of 7 bird twitchers.

Johnson Kafulo – Gedee, malindi

Jonathan Mukaija – Kakamega

Benson Furaha –

Alex Mwangi – mount kenya

Kibwana -meda creek

John Gitiri- Kinangop Plateau

Morning birding day two at the Pastoral center in Machakos had a few suprises.The morning bird watching started at 6am with members of the team gathering for a five minutes briefing tips. The birding leader took members through birding checklist. The checklists for new birders here refers to things needed for bird watching, these included bird watching gadgets and equipments such binoculars, guidebooks,notebooks among others. With briefing done, were moving from one spot to the other spending atleast 10 minutes. Our number one suprise was the Spotted Thick-knee, which is locally common in dry bush, the Thick-knees were chasing away the Sacred ibis and this was spectacular scene of different bird species fighting each other. The cause of the fighting we believe was due to the feeding ground, as the Sacred ibis were moving towards the bushes where the Spotted Thick-knees were feeding. we then moved towards the nearby valley and here we recorded over 30 Species including the black kite.

When birding always have your birding essentials and accessories ready. These items help make bird watching lovely and useful and assist in bird identification. Things needed for bird watching are not limited to guidebooks but also a bird guide to direct twitchers save time in areas with a lot of thickets. Bird watching kit is therefore necessary if you want to become a better birder.