Nicole and I went ringing to Sabkhat Al Fasl on
Saturday rather than our normal Friday as the wind was forecast to be a little
less strong on the Saturday. We set off from Dhahran at 03:30 hrs and had all
the nets set up by first light of 06:15 hrs. The wind was a little stronger
than we would have liked but we caught a reasonable number of birds for us
ending the morning with 25 birds. Most were the normal suspects for this time
of year with wintering birds including Bluethroat, Common Chiffchaff, Common
Kingfisher, Moustached Warbler and Water Pipit, resident species including
Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warblers and Purple Swamphen. The Purple Swamphen was
caught in a mist net as it flew across an open area of water to a reed bed and
is the second one we have caught in two weeks after not catching any up to that
point. They are really smart birds and I have collected a couple of loose
feathers from both birds and will, hopefully, be sending them off for DNA work
to be conducted on them to try to work out exactly which subspecies occurs here
as currently we are uncertain. They are certainly a Grey-headed type but which
of the several grey-headed subspecies are involved we do not know. The other stand
out bird was the second Moustached Warbler in two weeks which is only the third
record since we started ringing.
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| Moustached Warbler |
_Swamphen.jpg "Grey-headed (Purple) Swamphen") |
| Grey-headed (Purple) Swamphen |
 |
| Common Chiffchaff |
 |
| Common Kingfisher - female |
_Reed_Warbler.jpg "Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warbler") |
| Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warbler |
 |
| Red-spotted Bluethroat |
 |
| Water Pipit - coutelli |
