Ethiopia September - October 2012 - Awassa

For a big city, Awassa offers some very fine birding with days that yielded more than 100 species just within the city boundaries. We did most of the birding at the shore of lake Awassa which provides a nice stroll for a couple of hours. Many water birds can be found easily along the shore like Black Crake, African Jacana, Pied, Woodland and Malachite Kingfisher, Hottentot Teal, African Pygmy Goose, Blue-headed Coucal, Allen's Gallinule (can be tricky to find this one), Purple Swamphen, Little Bittern and the ever present African Fish Eagles.

Little Bittern (Ixobrychus minutus)

African Jacana (Actophilornis africanus)

Red-throated Wryneck (Jynx ruficollis)

Hamerkop (Scopus umbretta)

Malachite Kingfisher (Alcedo cristata)

Woodland Kingfisher (Halcyon senegalensis)

We strolled the lake side for three days as we noted that the palearctic migration had started with many waders at the shore, dozens of European Bee-eaters flying over and many passerines in the scrubs near the lake like Spotted Flycatcher, Yellow Wagtail (beema and flava) and Northern Weathers. However the numerous (West-)palaearctic Acro's present next to the resident species proved to be a difficult identification challenge. In the end I noted African (cinnamomeus) and Eurasian Reed Warbler, Little Rush Warbler and Lesser Swamp Warbler. However the best Palaearctic migrant I found was a Basra Reed Warbler, although I wasn't sure about the identification right away, but with a little help of Nils van Duivendijk it got all sorted out.

Basra Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus griseldis)

Local species could be ruled out due to the short P1 and only two primairy emarginations which leaves the West-Palaearctic migrants. An aberrant Marsh Warbler could be ruled out, for the bird did not call like a Marsh Warbler, but more like a harsh Eurasian Reed Warbler. Besides the bird was slightly larger than Marsh and Eurasian Reed Warbler. The bird was identified as a Basra Reed Warbler because of the short supercilium, colour of the legs, longish bill, rather "cold" mantle coloration, dark tail feathers and very white underparts. The primairy projection appears to be rather short on the picture which is not a feature of Basra Reed Warbler, but this seems to be more a photographic effect. Combining these charactaristics the bird was identified as a Basra Reed Warbler. (any comments on this bird are more than welcome)

Lake Awassa is also a good site for some more scarce Afro-tropical species like Spotted Creeper, Lesser Jacana and Black-crowned Crane. the first species is easy to find south of the United Africa Hotel, which proved good voor several other Woodland Species. For the second species the lake side in the back of the United Africa Hotel was a good site but we did not find it here during three days. This might be due to a concrete "jetty" that has been build into the well-vegetated lake side, which is always busy with  fishermen and other locals. Perhaps this is not such a reliable site for Lesser Jacana anymore...

For the Black-crowned Crane you have to head a couple of kilometers out of the town to the village of Wondo Washa. We went there by Bajaj and walked the entire distance back along the lake side, but we did not find this species. This was also very probably due to increased human disturbance as many people were washing, fishing, playing etc. here and a lot of cattle came here to drink as well. However the Hippo's don't seem to mind... The walk was still nice  and produced some good species like White-faced Whistling-duck, Many Herons, Storks and Ibisses, a lot of Palaearctic waders including Marsh Sandpiper,  some Senegal Thick-knees, Red-collared Widowbirds and Abyssinian Waxbills (near-endemic).

Senegal Thick-knee (Burhinus senegalensis)

Senegal Thick-knee (Burhinus senegalensis) in flight

Awassa was a nice and easy-going town to finish our trip to Ethiopia and prepare for a month birding and travelling in Tanzania. We left Ethiopia with a total of more than 330 species. I highly recommend this country to any birder, for it offers a lot of endemics and local specialities, many Afro-tropical species which can seen next to Palearctic species as this post has shown. This makes the birding very varied and highly enjoyable.