Birds of Saudi Arabia: Three new ringing species for the project

19 April 2015

Three new ringing species for the project – Sabkhat Al Fasl

Whilst ringing on 10 April Nicole and I trapped and ringed three new species for our Sabkhat Al Fasl ringing project. These were Tree Pipit, Eurasian Wryneck and European Bee-eater. Tree Pipits were very common at the location but they are clever birds with good eyesight and see the nets and avoid them. We caught four birds in total and all were gently walked into the nets in the very early morning. As it became lighter the birds easily avoided the nets and no further birds of this species were trapped. For most of the morning large numbers of European Bee-eaters were flying over calling all the time and I mentioned it would be great to catch one. We did not have any real expectations as catching high flying bee-eaters in mist nets is not so easy, but luckily one flew into a net and was trapped and ringed. They are very gentle birds in the hand and extremely beautiful, so was a very welcome addition to our ringed species for the site. The last new species was a Eurasian Wryneck that was caught, ringed and released and then was caught in a different net later in the day and released again. All three of these species are regular passage migrants through the region with Tree Pipit and European Bee-eater being common passage migrants and Eurasian Wryneck an uncommon passage migrant. It is a little surprising that we had not caught Tree Pipit before as they are common at the location in April and May but as mentioned they can see the nets easily and avoid them. We now go much earlier to have the nets set before it is really light and this accounted for all the birds we caught so this fact alone was probably the reason for catching them this time.