30th November 2007
Saturday, December 1, 2007 at 10:03PM
New birds for the list! We saw an African Green Pigeon in the ‘old campsite’, high up in one of the giant Tamarind trees. It looked quite fabulous in the evening light with its yellow-olive green feathers, orange bill and beady eyes. These birds are meant to congregate in big flocks but as far as we could tell, this one was on its own. There was a Tinkerbird in the now-green scrub on the way into the ‘old campsite’ – a Red-fronted Tinkerbird, with its small barbet-like body, streaked with black and white and hints of yellow, and a scarlet patch on its forehead - and a Collared Sunbird, which is also new to the list with its lemon yellow breast and iridescent green head. A couple of Black-bellied Sunbirds – male and female were sitting high atop a bush, looking gorgeous in the evening light.
combretum aculeatum
The Combretum aculeatum bushes are in full flower and looking quite staggering with their thousands of white and red flowers. Other flowers are coming out too, many of which I cannot identify with my current resources (a trip to the Herbarium at the Museum in Nairobi will be on the cards before too long), and some of the familiar blossoms, like the ‘Cups and Saucers’ white trumpet flower with its star-shaped blossom, are now flowering in droves.
carphalea glaucescens
Some of these white trumpet flowers have greeny-purple “saucers”, some have a pink tinge, while others are pure white. They all send out a clean white “trumpet” from the centre of their “saucer”, at the end of which grows a perfect white star. It’s difficult to stop photographing each and every bush for they all look so spectacular, but there is a limit to how many photographs of the same flower species you can take…or maybe there’s not – but who’s going to look at them all?
More drizzle and patchy rain, but the river is still extremely low.
barleria acanthoides
White bouquet
Upstream in the afternoon - note the new mudflats!
Rain downstream over much-altered river
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