12-Day Eastern & Coastal Birding Tour

Our Kenya Coastal Birding Tour begins with a transfer to Tsavo West National Park with an en-route birding where habitat is relatively denser thicket of savanna dominated by acacia-Commiphora bush land with Baobab, grassy plains, riverine woodland. The park is also famous for the autumn bird ringing at the Ngulia Safari Lodge with thousands of European and Asian Palearctic migrants on their way south.

Overnight at Ngulia Safari Lodge.

Depending on the time of your visit Tsavo West National Park may be the site for the enigmatic Friedmann’s Lark, Red-naped Bush Shrike, Scaly Chatter which would be some of the star birds of this Kenya Birding Tour. Other birds may include Singing Bush Lark, Bare-eyed Thrush, Rufous Chatterer, Black-headed Plover, Quail-Plover, Somali Courser, African Scops Owl, Pringle’s Puffback, Olive-tree, Basra Reed Warbler, Violet Wood-hoopoe, Southern Black, Spot-flanked, Red & Yellow, D’Arnaud’s, Black-throated, White-headed Barbet, Greater, Scaly-throated, Yellow-billed Oxpecker, Vulturine Guineafowl, Northern Brownbul, Desert, Zitting, Ashy, Rattling, Tiny Cisticola, Tsavo Sunbird, Hunter’s Sunbird, Jameson’s Firefinch, Green-winged Pytilia & Fire-fronted Bishop.

Overnight at Ngulia Safari Lodge.

We will bird in the Ngulia area enroute to Lake Jipe in search of Taveta Golden Weaver and Hartlaub’s Bustard retiring on the Taita Hills late in the evening.

Overnight at Taita Hills

Today we drive to Taita Hills Forests and spend most of the day birding up the hills. If lucky enough these hills and patches of bits of forest, rising abruptly to 2200m are home to 3 Kenyan endemic “The Taita Three” namely the Taita Apalis, Taita Thrush and Taita White-eye. It’s the only site on our Kenya Birding Tour that gives us a chance to see 3 kenya endemic birds. Also look for are Striped-cheeked Greenbul, Yellow-throated Woodland Warbler and Striped Pipit. Hopefully after locating them we will drive back making several stops for other birds.

In the late afternoon birding in Rukinga Wildlife Sanctuary bordering Tsavo East National Park. Here we have (though very limited) walking space in search of birds unlike in the park and we will take a nocturnal birding drive. Birds may include Friedmann’s Lark in case it were still wet. Bare-eyed Thrush, Scaly & Rufous Chatterers, Black-headed Plover, Quail-Plover, Somali Courser, Hartlaub’s, Bustard, African Scops Owl, Pringle’s Puffback, Southern Black Flycather, Red-winged Lark, Tiny Cisticola, Tsavo & Hunter’s Sunbird, Orange-bellied Parrot, Jameson’s Firefinch, Dolnaldson Smith Nightjar and Spotted Eagle-Owl and Red-naped Bush-Shrike

Overnight at Rukinga.

Today Kenya Coastal Birding Tour takes us to Shimba Hills National Reserve, it’s the only site in kenya for the Green-headed Oriole and Uluguru Violet-backed Sunbird also we may see Fischer’s Turaco, Green, Brown-breasted, Black-breasted & White-eared Barbets. Lunch at the lodge and afternoon birding in the Reserve.

Overnight at Shimba Hills Lodge

Morning birding in Shimba Hills National Reserve before transfer to Malindi. On arrival, our Kenya Birding Tours staright away visit the Arabuko Sokoke Forest and with the help of the local guides we will track down Africa’s smallest owl the Sokoke Scops Owl.

Overnight at Turtle Bay Beach Hotel

Our Kenya Coastal Birding Tour takes into the famous Arabuko Sokoke Forest, which is the largest remnant of the East African Coastal Forest. We hope to see the rarely seen Kenyan endemic Clarke’s Weaver among the rich diversity of other bird species. These may include near endemic Amani Sunbird, Sokoke Pipit & Malindi Pipit, East Coast Akalat, Scaly Babbler, Mombasa Woodpecker. Other birds may include Little Yellow Flycatcher, a localized Collared Palm Thrush, Four-coulored Bushshrike, Fischer’s Turaco, Mangrove Kingfisher, Scaly-throated & Pallid Honeyguides, Eastern Green Tinkerbird & Green Barbet, Mombasa & Green-backed Woodpecker amongst many others.  This is also the home to near endemic Golden-rumped Elephant Shrew.

Depending on the tide we will either visit Mida Creek or the forest fringed by mangrove forest, the creek has a large area that fills with the saline water during high tides. Watching and identifying wading birds here is superb, fun and hard. They may include the “the special one” Crab-Plover, Greater & Lesser Sandplovers, Black-tailed Godwit, Sanderling, Dunlin, Grey Plover, Curlew & Terek Sandpipers, Whimbrel & Eurasian Curlew, Oystercatcher, Dimorphic Egret, Yellow-billed & Wooly-necked Storks, Mangrove Kingfisher.

Birding tour in Arabuko and later or in between squeeze some time to visit Sabaki River Estuary an area characterized by sandbanks, mudflats, mud banks, sanddunes, fresh pools and marshes. The site is important for both intra-African and Palearctic migrants for roosting, resting and feeding ground for gulls and terns.

A good site for Madagascar Pratincole, African Skimmer. Also Dimorphic & Little Egrets, Great & Lesser Flamingos, Water Thick-knee, Ruddy Turnstone, Heuglin’s, Sooty and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Gull-billed, Caspian, Greater-crested, Lesser-crested & Common Terns, also the Southern Carmine Bee-eater, Ethiopian Swallow, Zanzibar Red Bishop also nearby Malindi Pipit.

Overnight at Turtle Bay Beach Club

Birding in Arabuko Sokoke Forest and later in the afternoon our Kenya Bird Tour will finally take us to Lamu Island and particularly birding on the Manda Island in search of a near endemic the Manda Boubou. Also Mouse-coloured Sunbird, Purple-banded Sunbird etc

Overnight at Lamu Island

Morning birding in search of the bird we may have missed in the forest and later transfer to Tsavo East National Park.  Afternoon birding en-route to our lodge arriving in the dusk.

Overnight at Ashnil Aruba Lodge

More birding in Tsavo East National Park and later transfer to Nairobi.

Overnight at Swara Acacia Lodge

Our Kenya Coastal Birding Tour ends with a day in Nairobi National Park, only 10km off the cosmopolitan city has one of the greatest avifauna with a record of over 520 species in an area of only 117km².

Birds may includes the newly-almost-described Nairobi Pipit, Common Ostrich, Saddle-billed Stork, African Spoonbill, Saddle-billed Stork, African Spoonbill, Secretary Bird, Black-shouldered Kite, Lappet-faced Vulture, Black-chested Snake-Eagle, Martial Eagle, Shelly’s & Yellow-necked Spurfowls, African Finfoot, Black-bellied, Hartlaub’s Bustards, Emerald Spotted Wood, Laughing Doves, Hartlaub’s Turaco, White-bellied Go-away-bird, White-browed Coucal, African Palm Swift, Blue-napped Mousebird, Little & Cinnamon-chested Bee-eaters, Lesser, Greater Honeyguides, Eastern Honeybird, Nubian Woodpecker, White-tailed, Rufous-naped Larks, Wire-tailed, Lesser-Striped Swallows, Rock Martin, Yellow-throated, Pangani, Rosy-breasted Longclaws, Pale, African Grey, Southern Black Flycatchers, Lesser Swamp Warbler, 9 species of Cistocolas, Abyssinian white-eye, Red-throated Tit, Jackson’s Widowbird, Red & Yellow-billed Oxpecker among others.

The park has big game such as the Cape Buffalo, Burchell’s Zebra, Hippo, Masai Giraffe, Coke’s Hartebeest, Vervet and the Syke’s Monkey, both Black and White Rhino, Lion, Cheetah, Leopard, Eastern White-bearded Gnu, Black-backed Jackal, Hyena, Grant’s & Eastern Thomson’s Gazelles, Bohor Reedbuck and Southern Bushbuck, Common Warthog among others.

In the evening, if time allows, we visit a Nairobi restaurant for dinner before transferring to the Nairobi airport for your outbound flight