mvecht`s fifth BY

[mvecht]

@BRACQUENE@Tdgraves@Peter Connan@michael-ibk @TonyQ@PeterHG

Thank you for your best wishes. The last few months have been quite tough waiting for Eye Surgery on my right eye. The combination of shifting to a mirrorless and at the same time shifting from using my left eye rather than my right eye for the camera has been quite a challenge. Hopefully the eye surgery will be succesful and alleviate the problem.

@Galana The Sabaki (Galana) River Estuary seemed quite clean. A lot of sediment in the water but other than that it seemed very clean. The Estuary was a great birding spot especially for Gulls and Terns that were present in great numbers.

All pictures from the Sabaki River Estuary.

Ke 02  Sandwich Tern

 

 

 

 

 

Ke 03 Gull billed Tern 

 

Ke 04 Avocet

 

Ke 05 White-winged Tern

 

 

Ke 06/07 Greater and Lesser Crested Tern

 

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by mvecht

[mvecht]

Some more pictures from Sabaki River

Ke 08 Long-tailed Fiscal

 

 

Ke 09 Whitethroated Bee-eater

 

 

 

 

 

[mvecht]

Last pictures before surgery :-(

Ke 10 10 Sooty Gull, Sabaki River

 

 

[Galana]

Best wishes.

[Zim Girl]

Good luck with the surgery.

[Kitsafari]

All the best with the surgery which you are probably going through very soon. and speedy recovery!

[pedro maia]

All the best for the surgery!

[Dave Williams]

I hope the surgery went well. Looking forward to seeing more of your BY and hopefully you being able to use your camera in a more comfortable way.

[mvecht]

Eye Surgery went reasonably well but the result was not as good as expected. I will have to deal with quite poor vision on my right eye. At least the left eye works as normal and I will just have to get used to using the left eye for operating the camera!

I have just started the trip report in the Kenya forum so please feel free to follow that

At Sabaki river there were plenty of Ke 11 Caspian Plover.

 

[PeterHG]

I’m sorry to hear the results of the eye surgery were not what you had been hoping for. It will undoubtedly take some effort getting used to using your left eye for photography, but I do hope you’ll manage. I am also having to rely on one eye, but at least it’s the right one. 

[Galana]

Sorry to hear your news. Sincerely hope all goes well.

[pedro maia]

Not the best news but you’ll surely adapt to that, best wishes.

[Tdgraves]

Sorry to hear that @mvecht presumably it could still improve over time?

[Kitsafari]

sorry to hear the not so good news, is there an additional treatment or eye drops that the eye surgeon can prescribe to get it to a better stage? 

 

I'm already on your Kenya trip. 

 

[mvecht]

@PeterHG, @Galana, @pedro maia, @Tdgraves, @Kitsafari

Thank you for your best wishes.

The eye may improve slightly over the next year. Only time will tell. Istarted using my left eye for photography earlier this year and that works quite well except for BIF`s where I am struggling to find the subject. This is a combination of shifting from one eye to the other and using a mirrorless instead of DSLR. 

I will get used to it over time and the black eye following the surgery is almost gone 

PS some of you might want to have your eyes checked Last entry was Caspian Tern not Plover!

Still at Sabaki River 

KE 12 and 13 Little Egret and Marsh Sandpiper

 

During both trips to Sabaki River there were Flamingoes.

Normally they would be Lesser Flamingoes to the extent that when on the second visit I asked my guide about some distant Flamingoes, he said they are Lesser Flamingoes. All Flamingoes here are Lesser Flamingoes. As they got closer my pictures showed that they were Greater Flamingoes. I will still stick my neck out and claim the one on the left in the first picture to be a Lesser Flamingo (If you disagree I will blame it on my bad eye )

KE 14 and 15 Greater and Lesser Flamingo.

 

 

[mvecht]

The hotel grounds did not offer much in terms of birding. 

KE 16 House Crow

 

KE 17 House Sparrow

 

[TonyQ]

Best wishes, and hopefully your eye will improve over time

[mvecht]

One afternoon we had arranged a trip to Mida Creek which is known for its waders.

It is an area with expansive mudflats. At high tide all the waders are pushed in and can be seen from a hide. We arrived at low tide and had quite a hike to the waters edge where all the waders were spread out over a large area. Our guide could easily have timed the visit differently so we could have arrived at high tide!

I have posted a lot of the birds earlier in this trip as question marks so I will squeeze most of them into one post again.

KE 18 Black-bellied Plover

 

KE 19 Greenshank

 

KE 20 and 21 Whimbrel and Curlew

 

 

KE 22 Little Stint

 

KE 23 Greater Sandplover

 

 

KE 24 Lesser Sand Plover

 

 

KE 25 and 26 Curlew Sandpiper and Terek Sandpiper

 

 

 

 

 

KE 27 Kentish Plover

 

 

KE 28 Common Ringed Plover

 

 

KE 29 White-fronted Plover

[mvecht]

One of the sought after birds at Mida Creek is 

KE 30 Crab Plover

 

 

Just before leaving we had this Heron. My (not so good) guide assured me it was an Intermediate Egret!

KE 31 Great Egret

[mvecht]

We then headed for a road going along the fence to Arabuko Sokoke forest. The target bird here was Malindi Pipit.

KE 32 Malindi Pipit

 

 

[mvecht]

I forgot this one at Mida Creek

KE 33 Sanderling

[Peter Connan]

Sorry to hear the results of the surgery were not what you had hoped for.

I do hope it improves.

[PeterHG]

That is a great collection of waders! Quite enlightening to see curlew and whimbrel in one photo.

[Galana]

All good IDs. You have both Flamingo and Great Egret.

Even if your 'plovers' terned out differently.

[mvecht]

The next morning I left the hotel at 6am going to Arabuko Sokoke forest with the same "Guide".

We got to the forest at 06.30am and it started well. These were seen 50m form the Ranger House.

KE 34 African Wood Owl

 

 

The guide then asked me which species I would like to see. The forest has some very endemic species like Sokoke Scops Owl, Amani Sunbird, Sokoke Pipit and Clarke`s Weaver so I mentioned those. The guide took me to 3 known spots for the Owl. One spot was fairly easily accesible, the the two others not. At the accesible spot he left me in the middle of the forest alone as he and two other guides were crawling in the dry jungle looking for the Owls without luck. I am not a timid person but standing alone doing nothing in a forest  that does have 4 of the 5 big five was not my cup of tea. Finally he agreed to do something else and we went to a spot where he believed we could see Amani Sunbird. We spent about 5 minutes out of the car and got

KE 35 Crowned Hornbill

 

and a little later

KE 35 Emerald Spotted Wood Dove

 

but no sunbird. We went back to the ranger to pay and did a 30 minute walk to find the Pipit without luck. No pipit and no other birds that wanted to be photographed.

I asked if we could look for the Weaver and got a short reply that it was too dry so the Weaver had not been seen for a while.

Our driver chatted to one of the rangers and he went with us to show some other possible sites for the Owl.Again the guide disappeared for 30 minutes leaving me alone in the forest. Again no Owl. 6 hours in the forest produced pictures of 3 species! I will not name the tour company as I am quite sure that this was a fluke on their side and I know they have had a "conversation" with the guide in question who is a freelancer.