COASTAL KENYA

Kenya provides the ultimate African birding adventure and this tour will see us head to the coast, travelling across some of the most famous National Parks in this awesome country. Starting in Nairobi, we will drive to Amboseli National Park for our first taste of the amazing birdlife on offer during this tour. This will be the perfect introduction, as we will see a vast array of bird species from giant Saddle-billed Storks and stunning Lilac-breasted Rollers to Two-banded Coursers and Yellow-throated Sandgrouse. Moving on to Tsavo West National Park, numbers of resident birds such as Crowned Hornbill, Hartlaub’s Bustard, Fischer’s Starling and Steel-blue Whydah will be augmented by winter visitors such as Sooty Falcon, White-throated Robin, Upcher’s Warbler and Thrush Nightingale to keep our pulses racing! We will make stops at the Taita Hills for Taita Thrush, Yellow-throated Woodland Warbler and Taita Apalis and the Shimba Hills for Crested Guineafowl, Green Barbet and Uluguru Violet-backed Sunbird amongst others. Here, we will stay at a delightful lodge where our rooms surround a water hole and we can see a wide variety of birds and mammals appear.  Eventually we will reach Arabuko-Sokoke Forest where we will search for a number of rare and localized species such as Sokoke Scops-Owl,  Red-tailed Ant-Thrush, Four-coloured Bush-Shrike, Amani Sunbird, both Retz’s and Chestnut-fronted Bush-Shrikes and Sokoke Pipit. Along the coast we should find the absolutely stunning Crab Plover, as well as having chances of Dimorphic Egret, Madagascar Pratincole, Sooty Gull, Malindi Pipit and Zanzibar Red Bishop. Heading inland we will travel through Tsavo East National Park for another flurry of birds before reaching Nairobi once again.

This tour is a typical birding safari with much of the time spent in safari vehicles, although there are a number of sites where it will be necessary to walk for up to 3 kms to find our target species. Although birds will be our priority, needless to say, there will be a huge variety of other wildlife to see each day with all the typical African mammals on offer from Lion, Leopard, Cheetah, Giraffe, Plains Zebra and African Elephant to lesser known mammals such as Sable, Fringe-eared Oryx, African Crested Porcupine, Aardwolf, Small-spotted Genet, Honey Badger and even Caracal or African Wild Dogs. Who knows what will appear?  

We will be staying in very good quality lodges throughout this tour where we have ‘built in’ a number of easy birding sessions and some time to relax and enjoy the lodge surroundings. And we can guarantee this will be a thrilling, action-packed, bird-filled ride across one of the most exciting birding destinations in all of Africa.