New Trip Reports: Kenya
Seems like Kenya is the new hot mammalwatching destination. Here are two more very recent reports.
Kenya, October 2021: Andreas Jonsson, 12 days & 58 species including Hirola, Golden-rumped Elephant Shrew and Kenya Coastal Galago.
Kenya Rare Mammals, November 2021: Martin Royle, 8 days & 100 species including Naked Mole Rat, Tana River Mangabey and Serval.
jon
11 Comments
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Martin Royle
Thank you for noticing that! When I did my initial count on the way back to Nairobi I thought I counted 101 species, then when I was typing up the report it was 100 and I couldn’t figure out how I had miscounted. I must have missed lion off by mistake.
So it was a total of 101, thanks for catching that
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Venkat Sankar
Andreas – your “Suni” photograph from Arabuko actually shows a Blue Duiker! Quite a nice find, as they are much less common than Suni regionally. On my trip, over 5 nights in 3 coastal sites in Kenya I reckon we had 40+ Suni but only 1 Blue Duiker.
Very easy to mix up the two in the coastal forests of E Africa, as the local Blue Duiker ssp. sundevalli looks rather similar to Suni. Note the more grayish coloration, smaller ears (relative to Suni), and more wrinkled face (vs. a male Suni).
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Michael Johnson
You saw an orange-bellied parrot? Extraordinary, given they are confined to the coast of south-east Australia and Tasmania. Perhaps a transcription mistake?
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Zarek Cockar
For the longest time, we’ve always just known them as Orange-bellied Parrots, as that’s what’s written in our primary field guides here in East Africa. I think now they are known either as AFRICAN Orange-bellied Parrots, or Red-bellied Parrots, but you’ll find most casual birders will continue to refer to them just as Orange-bellied Parrots for years to come. Same goes for Black-shouldered Kites. Apparently we’re supposed to call them AFRICAN Black-shouldered Kites or Black-winged Kites now, because Australia also has an Elanus sp. ‘Black-shouldered Kite’. Most birders I know still just call ours Black-shouldered Kites in the field, though in official publications, they may be more careful to write the correct, updated name.
Anyway, all this to say, I think Martin probably wrote down “Orange-bellied Parrot” because that’s what I told him, and if we checked one of the older field guides, it would have confirmed it – so not his fault, but mine.
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Antee
Thanx everybody!
For me it was also a Blue duiker but my guide insisted it was a light morph of Suni.
It was seen quite close to the entrance office and are probably a regular visitor and thus well known, therefore I accepted it as a light morph Suni.Thanx for the correction.
I have seen both Suni and Blue duiker before so none was a lifer anyway 🙂
Why do you think it´s a Southern Tree hyrax and not a Rock hyrax?
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Charles Foley
Hi Andreas,
The Rock hyrax is quite a stocky animal and in that part of the world tends to have creamy coloured underparts. They are also grass eaters, and therefore seldom climb trees. They are also almost exclusively diurnal. Southern tree hyraxes are a lot more woolly and have white underparts and have distinctive white patches stretching from the lower and upper lips to the cheeks.
Pretty much any hyrax you see in a tree at night will be a Tree hyrax. Bush hyrax are browsers and do climb trees – though typically not very tall trees – but they have much more slender features than the Tree and Rock hyrax. Hope that helps.
Charles
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Tim Meschke
I noticed two misidentifications in Andreas Jonsson’s Trip Report:
No. 20 must be a blue duiker, not a Suni and No. 32 is a bush hyrax, not a rock hyrax.