Birds of Saudi Arabia

Showing posts with label Bahrain - Clamorous Reed Warbler. Show all posts

11 December 2014

Ringing again in Bahrain – Alba Marsh

Nicole and I went ringing at Alba Marsh in Bahrain for the first time in almost a year. We have stopped ringing there since we now have permission to ring at Sabkhat Al Fasl in Saudi Arabia, where we catch more birds and don’t have the inconvenience of travelling across the Bahrain causeway and passing through passport control and customs. We went to Alba Marsh as our ringing trainer, Brendan Kavanagh was visiting from Ireland and we wanted to meet up and do some ringing together. We arrived well before first light but as we had not been to the site for ten months we had to do some work clearing the net rides. We set six 18 metre nets in the red beds and along the edge of the reeds and all were set up by 07:00 hrs. We caught few good birds including a couple of nice re-traps, both of which had originally been ringed at the same site in previous years. A Water Pipit was re-trapped that was originally ringed 9 March 2012 and an Indian (Clamourous) Reed Warbler re-trapped that was originally ringed 8 February 2011 the first time Nicole had ringed at the site. The Indian Reed Warbler is resident but the Water Pipit is a migrant meaning it has returned to its breeding grounds three times since it was originally trapped and is obviously faithful to this small marsh as a wintering area. We caught 22 birds in total, which is a good catch for the location, including Water Pipits, Bluethroats, Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warblers, Little Bittern, Eastern Stonechat, Paddyfield Warbler and House Sparrow. By 11:00 it started to rain very heavily and curtailed our ringing but not until we had caught and ringed a few good birds. It was very nice to ring back at Alba and maybe I will come back a couple of times a year in the spring and autumn to see what is happening there.

Bluethroat - male

House Sparrow

Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warbler

Little Bittern - female

Water Pipit

19 January 2014

A few re-traps – Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

An early morning visit to Alba Marsh saw us arrive well before first light to set up the nets. It was a very cold but windless day, with almost perfect conditions for catching birds. We never catch very many birds in Bahrain and I am very envious of the numbers caught and ringed in a day in Israel and Turkey for example but we still continue to see what we can catch and learn. Last weekend saw us re-trap a number of birds including three Clamorous Reed Warblers (20/4/2012, 25/10/2013 & 03/01/2014), Common Kingfisher (25/10/2013), Graceful Prinia (20/01/2012) and Water Pipit (09/08/2012). A couple of these were interesting for us and although all birds had been ringed by us at the same site we had not had a re-trap of a Water Pipit from a previous year before. This shows that Water Pipit, along with Bluethroat are site faithful over the years to this small marsh where they return in the winter. The Graceful Prinia is also the oldest re-trap we have on record for this site and was re-trapped almost two years to the day it was first ringed.

Common Kingfisher

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Graceful Prinia

Other birds caught included an adult Common Moorhen, a common bird at the site but one we do not often catch as we keep the nets well above the water level so birds can not get caught in the bottom shelves and fall into the water. As a result crakes & rails can walk under the nets without getting caught. We also caught an Isabelline Shrike, which looks like a Daurian Shrike, which was a surprise as we had not seen the bird prior to capture and we do not often catch them in the middle of winter. Other birds caught included two male Little Bitterns and a male House Sparrow.

09 January 2014

Little Bittern, Common Kingfisher & more – Ringing at Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

Nicole and I went to Alba Marsh for our first ringing trip of the year. Mid-winter is not a peak time at the marsh but we have caught a few good birds in the past in January. We set up our nets in the normal areas although the reeds had been cut back since our last visit making the nets quite open and the wind was stronger than we had hoped. Very few birds were noticeable whilst setting up the nets even though we were there before first light and after two hours we had not caught a bird and thought it may be a waste of time. We stuck at it and caught 11 birds of seven species including re-trapped Common Kingfisher, Water Pipit and Graceful Prinia all ringed at the same site in late winter 2013. The best bird we caught was an adult female Little Bittern that was only the fourth caught at the site. Other birds caught included Bluethroat, Clamorous Reed Warbler and House Sparrow.

Little Bittern - adult female

Common Kingfisher - female

Bluethroat

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Graceful Prinia

House Sparrow - male (left) & female (right)

Water Pipit

02 January 2014

Eye colour of juvenile and adult Clamorous Reed Warblers – Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

Whilst ringing at Alba Marsh Bahrain we have caught and ringed over 50 Clamorous Reed Warblers. As the species is mainly sedentary, and the marsh is a small size, we re-trap quite a number of birds each year. This allows us to confidently age them as adults if the re-trap date is more than one year after original trapping. Although we have not done a scientific study of the birds it has become apparent that the eye colour of Clamorous Reed Warblers alters with age from a dull grey brown to a rich brownish. This has been noted before in European Reed Warblers (Karlsson K, Persson K & Walinder G 1988: Var Fagelvard 47 : 141-146) although we were unaware of this paper when we first thought the eye colour may change in adult birds. We have little data on Clamorous Reed Warblers and so this appears it may to be a good way to age birds. We will continue monitoring this as well as checking tongue spots and tarsus colour as this is also mentioned in the paper for European Reed Warblers as ways to help with ageing.

Clamorous Reed Warbler - Juvenile

Clamorous Reed Warbler - adult

18 October 2013

Great Reed Warbler & Clamorous Reed Warbler - Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

Whilst ringing at Alba Marsh (Bahrain) in the early morning of last weekend we caught four Great Reed Warblers Acrocephalus arundinaceus and a single Clamorous Reed Warbler Acrocephalus stentoreus. We caught a Clamorous Reed Warbler and a Great Reed Warbler in the same net on the same net round allowing me to take a few photographs of both species in the hand together, something that has probably not happened too often. The Clamorous Reed Warbler is mainly sedentary, although some perform short distance migrations, and the Great Reed Warbler is a long-distance migrant throughout its range. The Clamorous Reed Warbler is largely a breeding resident in Arabia with the only positively identified race occurring in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia as Bahrain is A. s. brunnescens which has a longer primary projection and shorter thicker bill than A. s. stentoreus making it look more like a Great Reed Warbler than many people think. We do trap birds on passage in autumn with much narrower and longer bills with shorter wings, such as the one shown below. These birds may be from the northern form A. s. stentoreus? Although currently this subspecies is only recorded as occurring in Egypt, including Sinai and Levant. They are darker/warmer and more buff coloured over most of the under-parts with a very restricted whitish area on the mid-belly, throat and chin, which is sometimes absent. Breeding birds in the region prefer phragmites reed beds rather than mangroves which is their preferred habitat in the United Arab Emirates.

Great Reed Warbler (left) & Clamorous Reed Warbler (right)

Clamorous Reed Warbler (left) & Great Reed Warbler (right)

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Great Reed Warbler

Above are a few photographs of both Great Reed Warbler and Clamorous Reed Warbler with side by side birds in a couple. All photographs were taken in Bahrain in October 2013. A good way to identify the two species are the wing shape and primary length with Clamorous Reed Warbler A. s. brunnescens having a short primary projection about two thirds the tertial length (half the tertial length on A. s. stentoreus) and Great Reed Warbler A. a. arundinaceus having a longer primary projection as long as the exposed tertail length. The longest primary is normally p3 for Great Reed Warbler and P3/4 for Clamorous Reed Warbler.

11 March 2013

Very windy weather – Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

An early morning ringing trip to Alba Marsh was met with very windy weather when we arrived. Having spent time and money crossing the Causeway between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain Nicole and I decided to set up our nets anyway in the hope of catching one or two birds. After the first hour we still had not caught a single bird and were contemplating leaving the site to try to catch some beetle larve to use in the spring traps next weekend. We took down a couple of the really exposed nets and then finally caught a few birds. We only managed six birds in total, four Clamorous Reed Warblers, one Graceful Prinia and one Red-spotted Bluethroat. The Graceful Prinia and three of the four Clamorous Reed Warblers were re-traps all having been ringed at the same site previously and the Graceful Prinia had a brood patch indicating breeding was taking place. After taking down the nets we went in search of beetle larvae which we catch by placing a long thin palm frond down the hole and wait for the insect to grab the frond and very fast, pull the frond out with the beetle larvae attached. This is not easy and takes a while to get used to it and as the beetles are up to 45 centimetres below the ground you need a long palm frond. The beetle larvae are then use to try to catch Shrikes and Wheatears in spring traps which we will attempt to do next week.

Graceful Prinia

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Red-spotted Bluethroat

25 February 2013

A good catch – Ringing at Alba Marsh

A very early trip to Alba Marsh in Bahrain to ring with Nicole proved to be very productive with plenty of birds caught. It was one of our best catches at the site and although the birds species were all typical winter visitors / residents a few Common Chiffchaffs were a sign of spring. We set up four nets including one in a new place across a semi open area with tamarisk and this net proved quite successful and caught a good number of birds. We will be using this new net ride again over the next few weeks. Overall we caught 31 birds with plenty of re-trapped Clamorous Reed Warblers along with four new un-ringed birds. Two new Common Kingfishers were a surprise as we had not caught Common Kingfisher at this site until earlier in the winter and we have now caught eight different birds. Other birds caught included a Graceful Prinia that was the first bird of this species we have caught for a few months even though they are common at the site. A coutelli race Water Pipit and three female Bluethroats were also caught along with two adult male House Sparrows which typically had aggressive natures when in the hand.