Kenya continued

Every safari has its highlights and lowlights. For me there were a few real highlights. The group of Montagu’s harriers on the ground at Samburu was quite exceptional. We spotted one, then two and finally we found 5 sitting amongst the wispy grass. There were 3 females and 2 males. With the sunlight softening and falling they looked quite beautiful and as they allowed us to approach reasonably close and flew barely 50m when we crossed the invisible line of tolerance, I suspect they were on migration and simply too tired to care. I have seen Monties before. My first was in Spain about 15 years ago and I had even seen an occasional bird in the UK but never at such close quarters. If you look at the images at the bottom of the previous post you can see just how good they look with the yellow eye gleaming. The male is a particularly smart bird and I have an image of one flying away from us.



There is a real chance of confusion for the inexperienced birdwatcher. Male Montagu’s and Pallid harriers are easily confused if you don’t get a good view of the wing markings. The shape of the black marking on the outer primaries / secondaries is less extensive on the Pallid and comes to a point. The Montagu’s has a black bar on the inner secondaries and underneath has beautiful chestnut streaking. The Pallid is a clean bird, often described as ethereal. It does have a ghostly pallor as it quarters across the grassland. My photo above shows the shape of the Montagu’s black wing tip markings and the secondary bar.

Females are more cryptic and my previous post showed a female Montagu's. Here are 2 female Pallids (or actually the same bird in different poses). Look very carefully at the facial markings.






Particularly noteworthy is the pale necklace that shows from above the ear coverts to the neck.

Just to reassure you that Kenya has bugs and indeed larger beasts, here are 2 more pictures from the trip. The moth is Bunaeopsis oubie of the family Saturniidae and the other is a cat.