Birds of Saudi Arabia: Bahrain

Showing posts with label Bahrain - Daurian Shrike. Show all posts

11 November 2013

First winter Isabelline Shrikes – Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

Here are two ‘Isabelline Shrikes’ caught and ringed at Alba Marsh Bahrain last weekend, but which type or species are they? There are two types that occur in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, The Daurian Shrike ‘isabellinus’ and the Turkestan Shrike ‘phoenicuroides’. These are treated as separate species by Panov 2009 and the latest IOC update v2.0, due to the spatial separation of breeding areas and the apparent absence of gene flow between them in allopatric/parapatric zones (Panov 2009).
Daurian Shrike is polytypic: in Panov's (2009) view, 3 sspp, isabellinus , (subsuming arenarius ) tsaidamensis, speculigerus . Winters much of South Central Asia, Southeast Iran and Afghanistan some reaching Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Arabian Peninsula as well as perhaps East Africa. Hybridises with Red-backed Shrike L collurio at range overlap.
Turkestan Shrike is monotypic Panov (2009). Winters Central Asia East & South of a line Aral-Southern Caspian including much Iran, Afghanistan,Kazakhstan, Tadzhikistan, Kyrgyzstan L&W 1997; Winters Southeast Iran, Southern Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Arabian Peninsula & East & Weast Africa.

This species pair is difficult to identify in the field as first years unless classic birds are seen. These two birds are far from classic although it looks like both species may be involved. There is still a lot to learn about the true identification features of them and more careful study will hopefully help. DNA has been taken of these birds and will, hopefully allow us to identify them to species. Martin Garner recently put together a brief outline of the difference of the two species on his website:

First winter Daurian Shrike - Overall gingery wash to the brownish upperparts with gingery orange colouring prominent on the flanks but extending from rear flanks all the way up to below ear coverts. The centre of the throat and central breast/ belly are white. The tertials are darker brown but not strongly contrastng with the upper parts. Mask slightly darker brown with gingery wash at some angles- not blackish brown. Rump brighter orange with only very weak dark marks on some feathers tips. Orange centred median coverts
First winter Daurian Shrike - Should have cold earth brown to grey brown upper parts with darker (almost blackish) mask and flight feathers. Upper parts contrasting strongly with mostly clean white underparts marked with blacker bars/chevrons. More often retained juvenile feathers in rump and mantle/scapulars with white or black centres to median coverts (not orange).

19 March 2013

Ringing some migrants – Jasaer (Bahrain)

An early morning ringing trip saw me going to Jasaer rather than our normal site of Alba Marshes. As migration has picked up in Saudi Arabia, I thought it would be a good idea to try for a few migrants as this site is on the coast of Bahrain. It is a site with a few trees and a place where Brendan and Abdulla have ringed in the past. One very nice thing about the site was it was dry and I did not need to wear waders, another was it did not smell like a sewer. We set up all five nets in various places and although the place was not full of migrants there were a few birds about. We caught 12 birds including four House Sparrows, three Common Chiffchaffs, two Daurian Shrikes, one Turkestan Shrike, an eastern Lesser Whitethroat and a Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin. We had one retrap Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin which Abdulla had ringed at the same site three days before. The Eastern Lesser Whitethroat is an interesting bird as it is a dark individual with a long wing and may be of the race althaea sometimes treated as a searate species Humes Whitethroat? although the races of Lesser Whitethroat are very complex and intergrades are common.

Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin

Humes Whitethroat

Turkestan Shrike

Daurian Shrike

House Sparrow - female

House Sparrow - male

Common Chiffchaff

Ringing site

15 October 2012

More Common Kingfishers - Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

Nicole and I went ringing again at Alba Marsh on Friday Morning. A very early start allowed us to reach the site at dawn and we set the nets in a much quicker time than the last time we ringed together. We are learning to do things without the help of Brendan who is now back in Ireland and were certainly more efficient this time. We set four nets, 19 metre, 18 metre, 15 metre and 12 metre double panel. The double panel net is only really good for catching pipits, Bluethroats and warblers and as we saw none of these species it failed to catch anything. We did, however, catch birds in the three other nets including another two Common Kingfishers. The four Common Kingfishers we caught last time we ringed at the site were the first for the ringing project in Bahrain and on Friday we added a further two birds to the total. Other birds we caught were four Clamorous Reed Warblers of which one was a re-trap from two weeks ago, a Savi’s Warbler, a Citrine Wagtail, a Great Reed Warbler, a first year Daurian Shrike, a House Sparrow and a Willow Warbler. A few migrants are passing through but numbers are low. The quality of birds caught makes up for the lack of birds and as winter progress and Water Pipits and Bluethroats arrive we should start catching a few more birds. As can be seen from the photos of Clamorous Reed Warblers the birds are in various stages of moult with some in fresh plumage and others still in wing moult.

Common Kingfisher - female

Daurian Shrike

Willow Warbler

Clamorous Reed Warbler

30 April 2012

Ringing at Alba Marsh – Bahrain

I went ringing again to Bahrain at the weekend and spent the whole day with Brendan and Nicole. We went to Alba Marsh again early in the morning and set up our normal four nets. There did not appear to be so many birds about as the last couple of weeks although a couple of shrikes, one Daurian and one Turkestan were in the bushes by the ringing site. A spotted Crake and Little Bittern were seen whilst erecting the nets and a few Red-throated Pipits and Yellow Wagtails were flushed from the short cut reeds. As it turned out we caught quite a few birds for our standards and Sedge Warbler was a new ringing species for me and Whinchat was a new ringing species for Nicole so we were very happy with our mornings work.

Sedge Warbler

Whinchat

We caught 31 birds of which I ringed 19 and Nicole ringed 12. These include ten different species, 12 Willow Warblers, five House Sparrows, three Calmorous Reed Warblers, two Red-throated Pipits, two Caspian Reed Warblers, one Daurian Shrike, one Chiffchaff, one Whinchat, one Sedge Warbler and one Common Whitethroat. One Clamorous Reed Warbler was a re-trap ringed at the same site the week before. We ringed from 06:00 hrs until 10:30 hrs when the temperature became too hot and the birds stopped moving. This weekend has been the first time the weather has returned to normal temperatures since the summer with daytime highs of 36 degrees Celsius.

Common Whitethroat

Daurian Shrike

15 April 2012

Daurian & Turkestan Shrikes - Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

Whilst ringing at Alba Marsh last weekend we caught two shrikes in the mist nets. Luckily for me I was not around to extract them and my fingures were saved. I was, however, able to ring both birds and Turkestan Shrike was a new ringing species for me. The Daurian shrike was a female type and the Turkestan Shrike a first year male. There are plenty of shrikes around at present in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain so it was not too surprising we caught a couple. The Isabelline Shrike (Lanius isabellinus) was previously treated as conspecific with Red-backed Shrike L collurio (Vaurie, 1959) or with both Red-backed & Brown Shrike L cristatus (Dement’ev & Gladkov, 1954). Until recently, it has generally been treated as a separate species comprising four sub-species: two, phoenicuroides and isabellinus breeding in central Asia and migrating southwest, wintering in Arabia and NE Africa; two other subspecies arenarius & tsaidamensis, breeding in North China and are shorter distance migrants, wintering in Pakistan and NW India west to Iran. Another proposal by Russian authors who have been studying these birds within their breeding ranges for years, is to consider this taxon as two independent species: the Isabelline Shrike Lanius isabellinus and Turkestan Shrike L. phoenicuroides (Korelov 1970, Panov & Kryukov 1973, Kryukov 1995, Panow 1996). This view was adopted in a new checklist of Russian bird species (Koblik et al 2006), which was compiled to improve on previous lists by Stepanyan (1978, 1990). This Russian thinking has recently been adopted by the Dutch committee for systematics (CSNA) who "split" the "isabelline" shrike complex into three species in 1998 (Sangster et al, 1998). This was based on the grounds of "qualitative differences in morphology and analyses of their contact zone" and "vocalizations" (Sangster 1998). They name them as follows: L isabellinus (formerly speculigerus), Daurian Shrike, L phoenicuroides, Turkestan Shrike; L arenarius (formerly isabellinus) and tsaidamensis, Chinese Shrike.

Turkestan Shrike (2nd CY Male)

Daurian Shrike (female)

08 March 2012

Western Osprey - Dhahran Hills

Yesterday at the percolation pond I saw a new species for me on the 'patch'. I had just arrived at the pond and was trying to count the group of duck sitting on the water, some hiding in the reeds and others out in the open. The duck were Garganey and there were 19 of them including some really smart males. I had just confirmed my count of 19 birds when all of them took to the air and on looking up I saw a Western Osprey flying over. The bird circled around a few times and then came right overhead before flying off over the adjacent camp. Western Osprey has been seen on a number of occasions in Dhahran Hills but not in the time I have been here, so it was an excellent start to the evenings birding.

Western Osprey

Garganey

The pond held few birds, excepting the Garganey, although the Western Great Egret was still present. I had a quick look at the wet pools where the crakes had been seen yesterday and saw three Little Crakes and two Spotted Crakes in the same place as the day before. A green Sandpiper was present on its favourite pool and allowed closer than normal approach alongside two Bluethroats. The flock of Red-rumped Swallows and Pallid Swift were still present as was a single Barn Swallow, but numbers had dropped from the day before to about 25+ of each species.

Green Sandpiper

I had arranged to meet Phil at the spray fields to try to locate the Corn Buntings that I had seen a week or so before. On the way there I saw a male Daurian Shrike sitting on top of a bush and four Tawny Pipits in the desert area. A walk through the spray fields did not turn up any Corn Buntings but we did see a flock of 25+ Yellow-wagtails flying over including a number of Black-headed Wagtails and flushed four Common Quail as well as hearing a couple of other birds calling from the long grass. Four Skylarks were still present as were a number of Stonechats of different sub-species. A Caspian Stonechat (variegatus) was showing very well alongside the more usual Siberian Stonechat (maurus) and nearby was a European Stonechat (rubicola). A male, showing plumage characteristics of maurus but the tail pattern of variegatus was an odd bird and caused confusion – something to look into later when I have more time. Other good birds seen included at least two Woodchat Shrikes, six Song Thrushes, two Isabelline Wheatears and 30+ Water Pipits.

Daurian Shrike

03 January 2012

Bahrain - Daurian Shrike at Alba Marshes

Last month we caught a Daurian Shrike in Alba Marshes which I forgot to post. When we arrived at the site we saw the bird sitting in a small Tamarisk Tree and saw it a couple of time s flying around as we set up the nests. It was caught in a mist net near to a dragonfly so may have been chasing the insect and ended up in the net. I ringed the bird and this is the third one I have seen in the hand having ringed on at Durrat Al Bahrain and seeing another one (a re-trap) at Al Ali Farm. They are really excellent birds to see in the hand with this one being a juvenile, but are really feisty and not so easy to take out of the net or ring.

15 December 2011

Bahrain - Morning Ringing Session at Alba Marsh

I went ringing again at Alba Marshes in Bahrain with Brendan in the early morning. I was unable to go over to Bahrain in the afternoon due to family commitments so we went in the early morning. This was the first time we had tried the site in the morning and it proved to be very successful for us. Brendan and I put up three 18 metre mist nets in the normal place in the reed beds and a double panel 14 metre net to the side of one of the 18 metre nets. All nets caught birds and our final count for the morning amounted to 27 birds of nine different species. Abdulla and Mubarak came along just as we finished setting up the nets and Abdulla helped me with the ringing whilst Brendan was keeping an eye on the nets and me as well. I ringed Common Moorhen that I had not ringed before, and all the other birds mentioned with the exception of Little Bittern that Brendan had not ringed before. We had three re-traps including two Clamorous Reed Warblers and a Bluethroat, all of which had been ringed at the same site with one of the Clamorous Reed Warblers ringed in February 2011 as a breeding adult female with a brood patch. The final count was one Daurian Shrike, one Common Moorhen, one Little Bittern, one Graceful Prinia, two Water Pipits, three Common Chiffchaffs, four House Sparrows, five Bluethroats (plus a re-trap) and six Clamorous Reed Warbler (plus two re-traps).