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

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

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

Humes Whitethroat

Humes Whitethroat

Turkestan Shrike

Turkestan Shrike

Daurian Shrike

Daurian Shrike

House Sparrow - female

House Sparrow - male

Common Chiffchaff

Common Chiffchaff

Ringing site

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.

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Common Kingfisher - female

Common Kingfisher - female

Bluethroat - female

House Sparrow - male

House Sparrow - male

Common Chiffchaff

Common Chiffchaff

Unusually Coloured House Sparrow – Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

Whilst ringing in Bahrain last weekend we caught quite a few House Sparrows. We normally let most of the birds go and do not normally ring too many of this species as they are very common and movements are limited. Whilst Nicole and I were doing the net rounds and releasing a number of House Sparrows that had been trapped in the four panel mist net, Nicole showed me a dark plumaged bird she had just taken out of the net. I suggested we put it in a bag and take it back to the ringing station to have a better look at it. It was an unusually dark example and looked like it had been dust bathing in soot or something similar, although if it had been, it had managed to evenly cover itself on all its feathers, showing how good they are at getting dust to all parts of the feathers.

  House Sparrow (male)

 House Sparrow (male)

House Sparrow (male)

Apart from the dark colouration of the bird, which was a male, all other aspects were normal for a House sparrow including weight. Below is a normally plumaged House Sparrow, caught at the same site last month, to compare the photographs above with.

House Sparrow (male)

House Sparrow (male)

Ringing at Alba Marsh - Bahrain

An early morning ringing session at Alba Marsh, with Brendan, produced fewer birds than normal. This period is relatively quite as wintering birds start to move out and new spring migrants are still yet to arrive in numbers. This couple with a fresh wind that blew up whilst on the way to the site created less than ideal conditions for ringing. We persevered and set up three four panel nets and three smaller nets to see what we could catch. One pleasant finding whilst setting up the nets was the fact that the pollution which has been a problem at the site over the last few months now seemed to be less, or possibly stopped altogether. The first bird trapped was a new Red-spotted Bluethroat which was not in such good plumage as the birds we caught two weeks ago, but was still a nice start to the day.

 Red-spotted Bluethroat

 Red-spotted Bluethroat

As birds were few we ringed some of the House Sparrows that we caught, including three males and a female. They are not very friendly birds in the hand and like to peck unwary hands. We caught a couple of additional House Sparrows but let them go without ringing them. At least they gave me additional ringing practice and allowed me to get a few photographs of them in the hand.

 House Sparrow (male)

 House Sparrow (male)

 House Sparrow (male)

 House Sparrow (male)

 House Sparrow (female)

 House Sparrow (female)

The number of Water Pipits we saw whilst setting up the nest and doing the ringing rounds were fewer than in previous weeks but we still managed to catch five birds making ten birds in total. The Water Pipits are coming into summer plumage with a nice warm buff colouration to the flanks which I have not seen before.

Water Pipit (A. coutelli)

Water Pipit (A. coutelli)

Water Pipit (A. coutelli)

A few good birds were seen at the site whilst ringing included a Little Bittern, one Common Kingfisher, two Jack Snipe and a Western Great Egret. A few Barn Swallows were present and waders included six Common Greenshanks, 15 Little Stint, four Common Redshanks and a Common Ringed Plover.