19 September 2012

Waders in the ditch – Dhahran Hills

As I have mentioned in the past few weeks, I have found a nice deep ditch with water runoff in that continues to a wet flash at the end near to the disused spray field area. This area has been very good for waders recently and excellent views can be had of them. As the numbers of waders are small it is a great place to find an out of place vagrant, although I have failed to do this so far. Species that are not common in the camp have been seen here in reasonable numbers with the following a minimum number of birds seen over the last two weeks made up of thirteen different species:
Common Ringed Plover (five adults & one juvenile)
Little Ringed Plover (one adult and seven juveniles)
Kentish Plover (two adults and ten juveniles)
Green Sandpiper (fifteen)
Wood Sandpiper (three)
Common Sandpiper (one juvenile)
Common Greenshank (one)
Ruff (two)
Common Redshank (one)
Little Stint (six adults and sixteen juveniles)
Temminck’s Stint (one juvenile)
Dunlin (three adults)
Lesser Sand Plover (one juvenile)

Common Ringed Plover - juvenile
Green Sandpiper
Green Sandpiper
Temminck's Stint (front) & Dunlin (back)