Flight to Kenya (via Dubai) and First Afternoon in Nairobi

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I left Warsaw in the early afternoon of the 6th and flew to Nairobi via Dubai. As my transit would suggest, my flight was with Emirates which I was quite pleased about since Emirates is by far my favourite airline. Anyone who has been on Emirates will appreciate the wonders of ‘ICE’ particularly as I was on one of the new 777s with the extra-large TV screens.

The flight was slightly delayed, so we got to Dubai a bit late, but this wasn’t a huge problem due to the fact that we had a 12 hour layover in Dubai. There were flights with shorter layovers, but these were a few hundred PLN extra each which adds up into the thousands (1000 PLN is about $250 US) with the family of four, so we took the slightly cheaper option. To prevent us from being exhausted when we got to Nairobi, we decided to book a night in the Premier Inn next to Dubai International Airport, which we got to by about 1:30 AM (Dubai time). This gave us about five hours sleeping time after having something to eat, which is better than nothing.

The next morning while waiting in the garden of the hotel for the airport shuttle bus to pick us up, I did manage to get some birding done, and spotted a couple of White-eared Bulbuls a few Collared Doves, a single Laughing Dove and some House Sparrows and Feral pigeons. I also saw a group of Common Mynafrom the shuttle bus on a grass verge by the side of the road – four year birds to start the trip isn’t too bad.

The onward flight to Nairobi was pretty good too. It was a slightly older aircraft with smaller, low-quality screens, but it did have wifi access which is supposed to be limited to 10 MB free per person and $1 for 500MB after that, but if you keep putting in new email addresses you can have another 10MB each time.

During the descent into Nairobi airport, the pilot announced that we would be flying over Nairobi National Park and we should look out for animals! I was sitting by the window, but the only thing I saw were cows around the edge of the National Park. Never mind, I would see plenty of stuff soon afterwards. The airport itself was fairly large compared to places like Kilimanjaro Airport in Tanzania which I visited about 11 months previously, and is apparently the largest airport in East Africa, though it was very small and old fashioned compared to places like Dubai (though the same could be said for most airports). The bus that took us from the plane to the terminal was extremely hot and sweaty, but I did get my first Kenyan bird of the year from the bus, a White-browed Sparrow-weaver. Getting through the airport itself was easy and quick since I had already got evisas, and we met a driver from the hotel outside the airport who picked us up. While he went to get the car, I saw several more Kenyan birds whilst standing outside the airport. These were Yellow-billed Kites, Pied Crows, Marabou Storks, and some Swallows and Swifts that I couldn’t identify with my binoculars still being in my bag, though they turned out to be Barn Swallows and Little Swifts (and there may have been some Red-rumped around as well). By this point it was four in the afternoon and the drive to the hotel (Hotel Troy) was about half an hour, but I was still super excited by all the birds that I was seeing, and in addition to loads more Marabous and Kites, during the drive I saw quite a few Superb Starlings, Sacred Ibis, and Cattle Egrets and while we were driving past Nairobi National Park, I even saw a few Maasai Giraffe.

We soon reached the hotel, checked in, and went to the (quite nice) room for a short while, but I had seen a few exciting birds on the grounds so I went out to bird.

The first thing I saw, was a lovely African Pied Wagtail and a few other nice things around the lawn at the same time were Rufous Sparrows and Common Bulbuls, but on the drive into the hotel (the hotel is down a long driveway with dense vegetation on the sides) I had seen some Bee-eaters so I wanted to go back and check those out. They turned out to be Cinnamon-chested Bee-eaters– success – my first lifers of the trip and they were nesting in an area by the side of the road which was cool to see.

I really wanted to get a picture of one as it was going into or coming out of a hole, but sadly they were too quick and I didn’t manage. I may have if I had more time, but there were loads of other birds to see and they were all starting to get active since it was around 5 PM.

I continued to bird for the rest of the evening – the grounds turned out to be really great for birding – and I had seen 19 species by sunset a few hours later. The main highlight after the Bee Eaters was my second lifer of the trip, a lovely pair of Bronze Sunbirds that were mating and nesting in a big tree in the restaurant (which wasn’t bad) of the hotel.



After dark I did look around the grounds with my torch before going to bed, but I only saw a few frogs and toads of which I am unsure of the IDs and I’m sure I heard a Nightjar…

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