Sabaki River Estuary

Sabaki River Mouth offers sightings of multiple amazing birds, such as the Madagascar Pratincole , Sooty Gull, Saunder’s Tern, and Lesser Crested Tern . African Skimmers may be seen skimming their knife-like lower mandibles through the water snapping up small fish. Sabaki Estuary is famed for its ornithological richness, the area consists of sandbanks, mudflats, saltmarsh, dunes seasonal and permanent freshwater pools, mangroves, and scrub with an area of 250 hectares.

The Sabaki River Mouth birding offers a rich diversity of bird species, including many rarities and spectacular numbers of gulls and terns. They feed far out in the sea and return to roost on the Sandbanks. Sabaki is the name of the last segment of one of the longest rivers in Kenya, the Athi -Galana-Sabaki.

The Sabaki River Mouth drains its waters into the Indian Ocean. There are dunes and beaches in the Sabaki River Estuary, and seasonal and permanent wetlands are found on both sides of the dune. Mangrove forests grow along with parts of the river. Birding in Sabaki Estuary is done while walking. Birds are most diverse and numerous during the migration season from August to April. Sabaki Estuary is the best place in Kenya to see Madagascar Pratincole, a threatened Afro-tropic Malagasy migrant that is infrequently seen (March-September). Wintering Palearctic wader the Broad-billed Sandpiper is found in sloppy, not dry or flooded, mud, far out in the river mouth. Lesser Flamingos also frequent Sabaki Estuary, when it is less flooded and the waters are low in the river. The species count for Sabaki River Mouth is significant and the area itself is beautiful, quiet, and a wonderful place to wander and watch birds.

Notable Birds in Sabaki River Estuary : Greater Flamingo, Lesser Flamingo, African Palm Swift, Lesser Sand Plover, Greater Sand Plover, Sanderling, Terek Sandpiper, Crab Plover, Sooty Gull, Lesser Blacked-backed Gull, Saunders’s Tern, Caspian Tern, Common Tern, Lesser Crested Tern, African Woolly-necked Stork, Coastal Cisticola, Sombre Greenbul, Yellow-bellied Greenbul, Scaly Babbler, Bearded Scrub Robin, Pallid Honeyguide, Eastern Black-headed Batis, Violet-breasted Sunbird, African Skimmer, Brown-breasted Barbet, Fire-fronted Bishop, Senegal Lapwing, Collared Palm Thrush,