Morning in Nairobi and Into the Great Rift Valley with Hell's Gate National Park

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I set my alarm for just after sunrise on the morning of the 8th so that I could get out early and do some more birding on the grounds of my hotel before the safari vehicle came that was due to pick us up at 11.
I decided to head down the front driveway of the hotel, which was surrounded by thick vegetation, and is where I had seen quite a few birds already. I saw many interesting year birds, and I soon got quite a few lifers, including two species of ‘Warbler’ which turned out to be a whole new family for me – Cisticolidae – of which I saw six species by the end of the trip, and my first African Paradise Flycatcher (which ended up being fairly common). I also spent some time watching the aerial acrobatics of the Cinnamon-chested Bee-eaters that were nesting around here, and it was also nice to watch a Red-billed Firefinch that seemed to be building a nest

I was watching some small birds in a field next to the driveway when I suddenly saw a fairly large and rather odd bird fly out of a bush that was being cut by some men working in the field. It landed on a lump of mud in the middle of the field and sat there perfectly still. I immediately thought, and later confirmed, that this rather odd bird was a Nightjar, my first ever sighting of any species in that family. Two new families of birds within about an hour isn’t bad!

Unfortunately, I don’t think it will be possible to be sure of what species of nightjar due to there being several very similar looking species native to Kenya, though I think it’s either a female Pennant-winged or a Dusky Nightjar due to that distinctive collar-like pattern.

I continued to bird around this area for a couple more hours, and I did see two particularly nice lifers – a Baglafecht Weaver, and an Olive Thrush – and there were a few White-eyed Slaty-flycatchers around which were also lifers, and really cute little birds.
At about 11, when we were due to be picked up, I headed back to the restaurant at the main building of the hotel to wait, where I saw a dead White-toothed Shrew species that I think had sadly been killed by the hotel cat. Unfortunately due to traffic in Nairobi, the minibus (one of those safari minibuses with the pop-up roofs that allows you to stand up and see out) was about two hours late, so it didn’t arrive until gone 1 o’clock. However I did get one particularly nice lifer in the large tree by the restaurant, a Brown-and-white Barbet which (depending on taxonomy) is a Kenyan endemic, and my only one of the trip.

I also got some more views of the resident pair of Bronze Sunbirds, and I got some better pictures of the male.
Eventually, the minibus did arrive, and we set off (my family of four people, as well as another couple who was also on the group safari with us. It would have been an extra $100 US per person to have a private safari).

Luckily, the traffic going out of Nairobi wasn’t so bad (though the same can’t be said for the quality of the roads) so we were soon out of Nairobi and heading into the Great Rift Valley. The common species seen while driving were loads of Pied Crows, as well as Yellow-billed Kites and Marabou Storks soaring overhead, though sadly (but not unexpectedly) there were no vultures, and I didn’t see any vultures outside of the national parks. As we entered the Great Rift Valley, we stopped at a viewpoint, which was really spectacular and also at the viewpoint were some Village Weavers and a single Hyrax lying in the sun.

We stopped again a few hours later for lunch, which wasn’t so fantastic but was what I expected from a very budget safari that included all meals, and there were swifts nesting in the roof of the building. While we were eating it started to rain, but afterwards as we were going back into the minibus, I spotted a lovely Variable Sunbird sitting out on a hibiscus in the rain.
It continued to rain for the rest of the drive, but I did get a nice view of Mt Longonot and there were quite a few animals that I spotted along the sides of the roads including Zebra, Impala, Giraffe, and Wildebeest.

When we got to Hell’s Gate National Park it was still raining, unfortunately. However, it was very interesting to watch a group of baboons sheltering from the rain in some rocky crevices. Luckily, after 20 minutes or so, it did stop raining so we were able to pop the roof up and look out. The landscape in the national park was spectacular, with lots of huge rock formations with clumps of trees dotted around, as well as some open plains along the sides of the roads.

There were also lots of interesting birds and mammals, such as Grey-crowned Cranes, Schalow’s Wheatears, Northern Anteater Chats, and loads more, with mammal species such as Grant’s and Thomson’s Gazelles, Impalas, Eland, Defassa Waterbuck, loads of Warthogs and plenty more. I also saw a pair of Black-backed Jackals soon after the rain stopped, and in Hell’s Gate National Park people are allowed to get out and walk around, though soon after getting out of the car they ran away. But in the same area was a Greater Blue-eared Glossy-starling, and perched on a tree a bit further away were my first vultures of the trip – African White-backed Vultures.

We soon got back into the car and drove along a bit, then came upon a spectacular sight. There were huge cliffs covered in nesting vultures. They were fairly far away, but I was able to get a good look with my binoculars, and get some reasonably close-up pictures with the zoom on my camera.

A bit further on, we got to a picnic site where there is a walk that can be done down into a gorge. Unfortunately, due to our late arrival, we were unable to do the full walk and be back before sunset, but we did do a short walk of about 20 minutes just in the nearby area, and I saw three particularly interesting birds: a single Common Drongo, a single Black-headed Oriole, and a very active and entertaining group of Grey-crested Helmetshrikes.





The latter two species of which were lifers, and in the case of the helmetshrikes – a whole new family. Three new families of birds in one day! (Prionopidae, Cisticolidae, and Caprimulgidae). I didn’t quite keep up with that rate of family-level lifeticks over the rest of the trip; however I did get two further new bird families later on). A couple of other particularly interesting things that I saw at this stop was a table covered in the bones of various animals (which I hope died from natural causes) and a volcanic plug formation which was pretty spectacular.

Soon afterwards, we had to head out to be out of the park for sunset, and I saw many more interesting birds and mammals on the way out with some particular highlights being a large group of Cape Buffalo (I thought it was large at the time, but it was tiny compared to the ones in the Maasai Mara), a Kori Bustard which was a subspecies-level lifer, and a fairly large group of Eland along with a lone giraffe that I saw near to the gate just as the sun was about to set.

After leaving the national park, we went to the accommodation in the town of Naivasha, had dinner, and then went to bed fairly early so that we were ready for quite a busy day that awaited us the next day…

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