Kenya day 6 - Song book and Ghost Crabs

Today I started reading about Ghost Crabs. A researcher here has already done some work on them, so I read her report this morning and decided to go and see whether I could tell the difference between the two species she mentioned. That was 10:30, bright and sunny and a great time for a trip to the beach. However, ghost crabs are not fond of warm sunshine - they are creatures of the night, but are also around in the early morning and late afternoon - so only one was around when I got to the beach. It posed nicely for its photo:

Ghost Crab

...and from the back - note the eyes sticking up

There were a couple of Sooty Gulls flying along the beach, and a Pied Kingfisher skimmed past about 30cm above the water near the edge of the sea. There were some gorgeous pink trumpet-shaped flowers on the dunes:

Flowers in the dunes

I was in the office again after lunch, working on a new edition of the Mwamba Song Book, then down to the beach for a swim. Whale Island,  some distance off shore about opposite the entrance to Mida Creek, was very clearly visible, and so was the far shore of the Creek. Thinking of Lytham, and how we always expected bad weather when we could see Southport, I was fairly sure it would rain soon. I wasn't wrong! I'd had quite a nice swim, watching a little dive boat working along the reef, when suddenly the boat turned round and headed for Watamu. At the same time, Peter and Mackenzie - volunteers staying at Mwamba - arrived for their swim, and had just got properly in when the rain started! With the wind behind it, it was like little needles hitting any bit of you that wasn't under the water. We didn't stay in long...

I tried to get the blog working in the evening, sitting in the office. The internet was temperamental - not unusual here at all - and I had a bit of waiting around to do, so carried on with the Song Book on the side. A clatter in the corner announced that a ghost crab had come in. They do that all the time in the evenings, apparently, when the lights are on. It scampered about and tried to climb things, making a lot of scratchy, clattering noises, and was soon joined by several friends who joined in the mayhem. I tried to ignore them for a while, then decided to give up for the night, but getting them out again proved impossible to a novice crab-bouncer, so I shut the door on them, so that the computers were safe, and went to bed. And worried about them all night! When I returned in the morning, they had been evicted by experts, and I was assured that this is quite normal especially when it rains...