Hinde’s Babblers Breeding in Kabete, Nairobi

Following the initial sightings of Hinde’s Babblers at the University of Nairobi’s Upper Kabete Field Station on 26th February (Simon Carter and David Guarnieri) and 8th March 2017 (Nature Kenya Wednesday Morning Bird Walk), marking the first official records of the species in Nairobi, I have been monitoring the birds as I am a student at UoN Upper Kabete Campus. On one occasion while observing the birds with Allan Kipruto (a schoolmate), we got a brief glimpse of what seemed to be a very orange-looking individual in the bushes where the rest of the Babblers (4 adults) were noisily moving around. We suspected it was a juvenile but couldn’t confirm since it quickly went deep into the bush and did not re-emerge.

About 2 weeks later on June 12th, this time on my own, I once again saw this orange-ish babbler in amongst the more regular-looking babblers. Luckily this time I had a camera and quickly snapped a couple of photos before the strange bird dove back into the bush. On taking a closer look at the photos, I was amazed to see that it was indeed a juvenile Hinde’s Babbler! Its head and tail had the same dark grey colour of the adults but it lacked the typical ‘scaling’ patterns and it was orange/rufous on nearly the rest of its body. Its eyes were dark (unlike the red of the adults) and it had a clear yellow gape, a sure sign of its youth. This marks the first ever breeding record of Hinde’s Babbler in Nairobi and the first ever record of a Kenyan endemic bird species breeding in Nairobi. Birds continue to surprise us every day and this unpredictability is what to me keeps bird watching so interesting.