Just as a follow-up, I had a real excellent trip to the Kenyan coast. I was working from home/birding for around 9 days total. I managed to get in touch with Jonathan Baya, who is still guiding, not retired. It seems his son is now a teacher and not guiding though.
Jonathan can be reached at
[email protected], which I found in an old thread on this site and it still works. His phone/whatsapp number is +254 722 426 753.
I stayed at the Temple Point Resort because it was at the mouth of Mida Creek and I was hoping to see some interesting things with the tide coming in and out. But there really wasn't anything interesting to see. On the grounds were some Syke's monkeys and I saw Mouse-coloured Sunbird and Forbes-Watson's Swift, both lifers for me. Also saw Fltahead Leaf-toed and White-headed geckos and Rough-scaled Plated Lizard on the grounds.
I do not recommend staying at Temple Point at all. It is very remote with no beach and the rooms, service etc are all quite below par. There was a nice swimming pool though. Good for laps, that was very salty, so much so that you could feel the additional buoyancy. There was never-ending pressure from staff to buy expensive drinks, which was really annoying and elicited some outbursts by other guests that I witnessed. Besides being a bad experience overall and quite difficult to work from because the internet didn't work as promised, it was much more expensive than other hotels on the same road along with only breakfast being included and no beach. The hotels around Turtle Bay all seemed a better choice. I visited Turtle Bay to see the weavers and have a drink and it was much more lively and welcoming.
I arrived on a Friday and on Saturday morning met Jonathan and we went to Arabuko-Sokoke and Mida Creek in the late afternoon. 17 lifers for me this day, including a fly-by of a group of Madagascar Pratincole, Black Sparrowhawk, African Wood Owl, Green Barbet, Greater Honeyguide, Little Yellow Flycatcher, Black-headed Apalis, Sokoke Pipit, and non-birds Golden-rumped Sengi, Zanj Sun Squirrel, and excitingly Rock Monitor, which was a target I never expected to see (though would see two more later in the trip!).
We went to 3 or 4 roosting spots of the Scops Owl but struck out in each case.
The next morning we entered the forest from the Mida gate hoping to check out the owl roosts again. Apparently when they get a visit they don't return to the same roost again the next day, so Jonathan was hoping they had returned after a short absence. Alas, shortly after we entered though, there was a big tree that had fell over the road so we couldn't go any further. Since we had other plans for the day and were only transiting through the forest with the hope for a pit-stop to see the owls, we had to skip out on the owl plan and take the main roads.
We stopped at Jilore Swamp and then continued on to Sala Gate at Tsavo East NP. 16 lifers this day and a magnificent trip up this road! Lifers for me included Saunder's Tern at the swamp and Harlequin Quail, Black-faced Sandgrouse, Jacobin Cuckoo, Eastern Chanting Goshawk, a gorgeous African Pygmy Falcon, D'Arnaud's Barbet, Golden Pipit, East Coast Boubou, Golden-breasted Starling, Magpie Starling, Fischer's Starling, and Long-tailed Paradise Whydah on the road.
On Tuesday Jonathan and I met again and we went back to Arabuko-Sukoke to look for the owls and other species we missed the first time. On Monday Jonathan was in touch with the famous David Ngala. David works with A Rocha now and spinetail safaris is no longer in operation. He tracks the owls for A Rocha and sometimes takes groups to see them. Apparently, he was also in the forest on Saturday with a group and also struck out on the owls. He may have had some luck if he had persevered, but they were chased away by some elephants!
So Monday night David slept in the park, on a tiny little mat and nothing else, and staked out the owls. Tuesday morning Jonathan was in touch and after a couple hours birding we met up with David and began hiking through the forest. It was good I had on my 'safari' type clothes, long pants and sleeves, and even my hat which helped while walking through the tangles and tangles of vines. Saved me from many scratches and cuts. David took us to a pair of brown morph owls. They were beautiful and really hard to see even from quite close! With all of the trees and leaves in the way, you needed to be in a correct spot to see them. Some more hiking through the forest and we came upon a pair of "Orange" morph birds. David was saying a brown and rufous morph result in organge offspring. Next we hiked again and saw a rufous morph pair. We started off to find a 4th pair, but David didn't find them after going off on his own, so we called it a day for the owls. But what a great day! 13 lifers this day, including the owls.
While with Jonathan over the previous days, I had mentioned Taita Hills. So he suggested a short trip there combining it with Tsavo East NP, which was always a goal of mine. I hadn't realized Taita Hills was so close. So Jonathan prepared a nice plan for 3 days and 2 nights to go to both. I appreciated his knowledge and effort to keep costs down. He arranged for a vehicle and driver and on Thursday we set off for Taita Hills. In the afternoon we arrived and had some local lunch then headed to a place called Lumo Conservancy where we had a really nice game drive. 11 lifers this day including Hartlaub's Bustard, African Barred Owlet, Tsavo Sunbird, and Black-throated and Red-and-yellow Barbets.
After spending the night halfway up the hill, we set off the next morning to Ngangao Forest where we met up with a guide from the forest and saw Taita White-eye and Stripe-faced Greenbul. Then it was further up the hill and some really difficult hiking to find the Taita Thrush and Taita Apalis. The thrush was quite shy and very difficult to see in the dark confines of the forest. After some close calls, I finally managed to get a view of one and capture a few terrible photos while on a steep incline. We managed to stay far enough away to not spook it, so spent some minutes there watching it flip the leaves up off the forest floor while feeding. The Apalis wasn't easy to find either, it entailed going back and forth between several openings in the forest while following its calls. Eventually Jonathan and I decided to stay in one opening while the guide walked out a bit and finally, with not much time left to spare before we had to move on, an Apalis came to us for some nice views. We also saw Striped Pipit and Reichenow's Seedeater this morning.
The afternoon and next day were spent in Tsavo East until we left through Sala gate and went back to Watamu. Tsavo East didn't disappoint and I saw another 16 lifers, including Somali Ostrich, Somali Bunting, Black-headed Lapwing, Grey Wren-warbler, Cut-throat Finch, and Straw-tailed Whydah. We missed out on seeing warthog though, which was on the radar to confirm the warthogs we had seen on the Sunday prior were Desert or not.
Saturday night was spent back in Watamu and we said goodby to our driver Masha. Sunday afternoon was my flight out and in the morning, Jonathan picked me up and we went to Sabaki rivermouth. 6 lifers this day making the extremely hot hike out to the beach worth it. White-fronted Plover, Sandwich Tern, Black-chested Snake Eagle, Northern Brownbul, and Kenya (Pale) White-eye being highlights.
Overall a great trip and kudos to Jonathan who make the week special!
