Shimba Hills NP Dragonflies 5 Dec 12 (1 Viewer)

[AlexJPemberton]

Five unidentified dragonflies from Shimba Hills NP on the Kenyan coast.

From the coast:


From the pools/seepages from Sheldrick Falls within the park:

 

[Steve G]

Did you see any Sable whilst at Shimba Hills?

 

[AlexJPemberton]

We saw three female Sable clearly though at a bit of a distance. More, including a male, were seen in the afternoon but we were then focusing on finding the elephants and so weren't in the right area for Sable. Our guide has said he'd seen Sable on every visit (about 9/10) so there seems to be a pretty high chance of success. Aside from that I was fairly disappointed with Shimba largely as I didn't see may birds though I think we didn't visit the best areas and arrived too late partly because of a puncture; far more of it was pine plantation and open grassland/bush than I imagined. Aside from the Sable the best thing we saw was Harvey's Red Duiker.

 

[RoyW]

Try the following:

1). Voyaging Glider, Tramea limbata.
2). Portia Widow, Palpopleura portia.
3). Red-veined Dropwing, Tithemis arteriosa.
4). An Orthetrum species (several very similar species - I'm not even going to try!).
5). Black-splashed Elf, Tetrathemis polleni.

 

[Steve G]

Alex, we stayed at Shimba Hills Lodge for two nights in July 2012. We saw no Sable at all despite 2 dawn and 2 afternoon game drives. They hadn't been seen for about 2 weeks by anyone at that time.

Did much better with birds. Got good views of African Crowned Eagle on an afternoon visit (though these birds need good quality forest that holds monkeys and Tree Hyrax, they prefer to roost in small plantations of exotic non-native trees). We saw our bird in a small mixed Cedar/Eucalyptus plantation and later saw a pair above a similar patch of exotics -not at all what I expected!

At Shimba Hills Lodge both Trumpeter and Silvery-cheeked Hornbills come in close. A pair of Wood Owls roost in the car park and we had a "sit and wait" Southern Banded Snake Eagle hunting on the driveway on three separate occasions. The area adjacent to the kitchen is good for up-close Kenya Crested Guineafowl and at night African Civet, Marsh Mongoose, Large-spotted Genet and Greater Galago all visit the lodge looking for scraps.

 

[AlexJPemberton]

Steve, perhaps later in the year is better for viewing the Sable or you were just unlucky? It was amazing how quickly they disappeared into the long grass. Also, given the alleged number of 'forest' elephants found in Shimba we had great difficulty finding one.

Ours was only a day trip from Diani and the guide was a generalist who claimed to know nothing about birds. Apparently he has a young colleague who is a specialist so we should have really made our interests clear when making the booking; other than the Sable the other large mammals weren't particularly interesting as we'd just done a week safari in Tanzania. Despite that we did see the Hornbills and a few fairly common coastal specialities like Green Barbet, Black-bellied Starling and Black Saw-wing but nothing as exciting as the owls or two eagle species; I guess that's where having a good guide helps. Having heard about the night time mammals I wish we'd attempted to stay; we saw Greater Galago in Diani but I'm not sure which particular species. We did have lunch at the lodge and saw nile monitors, red-bellied coast squirrel and a hunting fish eagle but little else though the duiker was on the road back to the park. If I do return to the region I'm holding out for a trip to Arabuko Sokoke!

 

[Steve G]

Arabuko-Sokoke Forest is well worth a visit. David Ngala is the man to get for the A-S forest. I did a couple of brief relaxing trips with him in July of last year for some casual birding but on my first trip to the A-S forest in 2007 the man was on fire! As a result of his expertise I managed to get images of a number of the A-S specials which included the first photographs of Amani Sunbird in the wild and images of Clarke's Weaver: http://www.pbase.com/rainbirder/the_birds
David also knows a number of other excellent birding sites around Watamu such as the Sabaki Rivermouth and Gongoni (reliable site for Malindi Pipit amongst others).

If you have non-birding family to cater for then the Turtle Bay Beach Club at Watamu is a good relaxing base with a dive centre & offshore reef (further out there are seasonal movements of Manta Rays and Whale Sharks), it's also very handy for a dawn raid on the A-S forest.

 

[AlexJPemberton]

Thanks for the tips Steve, especially that Watamu has good non birding options. Great photos website also, I've had a good browse of your Kenya galleries and I've some catching up to do.....

 

[Alan Manson]

Dragons are a new challenge for me, and I have no experience outside South Africa, but here goes:
1. Tramea limbata FERRUGINOUS GLIDER
2. Palpopleura portia PORTIA WIDOW
3. Trithemis arteriosa RED-VEINED DROPWING
4. Orthetrum sp. - There are several Skimmers that look similar
5. Tetrathemis polleni BLACK-SPLASH

For a better chance of accurate ID, you could submit to http://www.africa-dragonfly.net