Western Marsh Harrier - Sabkhat Al Fasl

There are plenty of Western Marsh Harrier at Sabkhat Al Fasl at the moment with more than ten birds being seen on all my recent visits to the site. The large reed beds and extensive hunting areas make the site ideal for the birds and they spend quite a lot of time sitting on the Sabkhat (salt flats) or flattened reed areas. I have seen up to fifteen birds in the air at the same time on a couple of occasions and luckily they do not seem to be popular with the hunters in the area. The largest concentration of birds is where the large reed beds are  but they can be seen all over the site and are often encountered early in the morning in the scrub areas where they have presumably spent the night roosting.