Birds of Saudi Arabia

Showing posts with label Bahrain - Ringing at Al Jarrim Island (South). Show all posts

21 August 2016

Ringing terns - Al Jarrim Island south (Bahrain)

On Friday 15 July I set off at 02:45 hrs to go to Bahrain to ring terns. I met up with Phil, Nicole, Brendan, Ali, Mahmood, Ahmed and Abdulqader to go out to the island at 04:00 to ring tern chicks. We went a few weeks later than normal due to Ramadan so the terns were larger than we normally handle but we had no problems with this. This is one of the best days ringing of the year for me and it is amazing to be on an island full of breeding terns. We arrived at the island at 06:00 hrs and set about first ringing Bridled Tern chicks. They nest under cover of the vegetation and are incredibly well camouflaged and sit tight so good eyesight and a lot of help are required. We do these first as it is extremely hard work and want to do it in the coolest part of the day before temperatures rise into the 40’s Celsius. There were four ringers and we ringed well over a hundred Bridled Tern chicks that was slightly less than normal. After this we set up our corral to catch Lesser Crested Tern Chicks that are all gathered together in large crèches of baby terns with hundreds of adults looking after them. As they are all in large groups we walk the birds down into our corral and transfer them to large baskets for processing. We catch lots of birds in a short time and process them as quickly as possible so they can return to their normal activities. We keep the birds in covered baskets with a wet towel on top to keep them cool. We ringed 1000 Lesser Crested Tern chicks and ran out of rings, this being the biggest number of birds we have ringed in a single day since we started going to the islands. We finished earlier than normal due to the good number of ringers present and were back in Bahrain by 14:00 hrs. There were quite a few dead terns on the island with many young and some adults of both Bridled and Lesser Crested Terns. This indicates that the breeding season has not been as good as normal and although there were several hundred Bridled Terns and four to five thousand Lesser Crested Terns the numbers were down on previous years. We are uncertain as to why there were so many dead birds.

Bridled Tern

Lesser Crested Tern

24 June 2014

Ringing terns - Al Jarrim Island south (Bahrain)

On Friday 20 June I set off at 02:30 hrs to go to Bahrain to ring terns. I met up with Jason, Nicole, Ali, Mahmood, Ahmed and a couple of others to go out to the island at 04:00 to ring tern chicks. This is one of the best days ringing of the year for me and it is amazing to be on an island full of breeding terns. Ali has a new more powerful boat now that he also uses to take people diving in Bahrain and it has two 250 HP engines and a covered roof, so is very fast. We arrived at the island at 06:00 hrs and set about first ringing Bridled Tern chicks. They nest under cover of the vegetation and are incredibly well camouflaged and sit tight so good eyesight and a lot of help are required. We do these first as it is extremely hard work and want to do it in the coolest part of the day before temperatures rise into the 40’s Celsius. There were three ringers and we ringed a total of 143 Bridled Tern chicks that is slightly less than normal. After this we set up our corral to catch Lesser Crested Tern Chicks that are all gathered together in large crèches of baby terns with hundreds of adults looking after them. As they are all in large groups we walk the birds down into our corral and transfer them to large baskets for processing. Since this capture technique was devised we have become much more proficient and we catch lots of birds in a short time and process them as quickly as possible so they can return to their parents for shade. We keep the birds in covered baskets with a wet towel on top to keep them cool and we have not lost a single bird doing this. We ringed 997 Lesser Crested Tern chicks and ran out of rings, this being the biggest number of birds we have singed in a single day since we started going to the islands. We also ringed three White-cheeked Tern chicks a species that has not bred on this island in the previous three breeding seasons I have visited. They do breed on the middle island but we have only been here once and it was a nice surprise to see the adults feeding young on the south island. Another nice surprise was to see an adult Bridled Tern I photographed with a ring on, indicating it is one of our birds. We have ringed hundreds of young birds and a single adult that Nicole rescued from a fishing net so it is impossible to tell if this is a young bird returning to breed or not. We also found at least ten Indian Reef Heron nests with large young in them. Normally there are only one of two nests but this year the numbers are much higher so some reason. An interesting fact was that under every Indian Reef Heron nest a Bridled Tern chick was hiding. I would like to thank Ali and all the helpers for this excellent days ringing.

Al Jarrim Island South

Lesser Crested Terns

Ringing Corral

Bridled Tern egg

Bridled Tern chick

Ringed adult Bridled Tern

Indian Reef Heron

Ali's Diving boat

Ringing Team

16 July 2012

Tern Ringing – Al Jarrim Island (South)

A 02:45 hrs start from Saudi Arabia for a day’s ringing on Al Jarrim Island meant we were able to board Ali’s boat just after 04:00 hrs for the one hour journey to the islands. You need Coast Guard permission to go to the islands so after calling into the Coast Guard boat and getting permission we set off and arrived at 05:00 hrs on the island. This is ideal timing as it is just getting light and the temperatures are significantly down (32 Degrees Celsius compared to 42 Degrees Celsius at 12:00 hrs). Ali’s boat is a very fast fishing boat with two 200 HP two stroke engines so although thirsty on fuel is quick. The aim of the day was to ring Bridled Tern Chicks and then when it got a little warmer round up some Lesser Crested Tern Chicks and ring them.

Bridled Tern

It proved very successful as although we only had three ringers, Brendan, Nicole and I, we had three helpers in Ali, Hussain and Ahmad (two nephews of Ali). As a result when we went looking for Bridled Tern chicks we had a helper each, Ali with Nicole, Hussain with Brendan & Ahmed with me. This was very advantageous as the birds hide under the low vegetation having a preference for the thickest and thorniest bushes. We managed to ring 278 Bridled tern chicks which are about half the total on the island as we estimate there are 600 pairs breeding. Most have a single chick although a few have two and some fail to raise any young. The last few pairs are still sitting on eggs but some of the terns were large enough to start flying in the next couple of days. We left the islands at 12:30 hrs when the temperature had risen after a very enjoyable but tiring day in the field.

Lesser Crested Tern chick roundup

Lesser Crested Tern (juvenile)

Lesser Crested Tern (adult)

At the end we ringed about 978 birds, with 278 Bridled Tern chicks and 700 Lesser Crested Tern chicks and I ringed 100 Bridled Terns and 264 Lesser Crested Terns. The way we catch the birds has evolved over the last couple of years and we are now much more proficient and catching and ringing them. The early start also helps as we do not get too hot and this weekend the birds were at a very good stage for ringing so we will try this weekend next year. The only issue with this being that it will be in Ramadan and although Ali said he will still, he will not be able to help so much due to the restriction on eating and drinking in daylight hours that occurs during the Holy month.

29 June 2012

Bahrain – Ringing at Al Jarrim Island (South)

After ringing on Al Jarrim (middle) we went by Ali’s boat to Al Jarrim (south) to try to ring Lesser Crested Tern chicks. As we were setting up camp Nicole caught an adult Bridled Tern that had become caught up in a discarded fishing net. She managed to release the bird before it died and I ringed it and released it. Luckily it was completely healthy and flew off happily to join the many thousands of other birds. This was one lucky bird as if Nicole had not found it; it would have died in the net.

Bridled Tern (adult)

When we got to the island we could not see many Lesser Crested Terns but after disembarking the boat and setting up camp we should see a couple of reasonably large crèches of Tern chicks. We employed our method of herding the tern chicks onto the beach and walking them down the beach to our corral. This corral was made out of bamboo sticks and garden netting, with the netting being covered with sand at the bottom. Here would could take them out and place them in baskets and move them up to the ringing station for ringing. This proved very easy this year as we had the experience of doing this last year. We managed to ring about 871 Lesser Crested Tern chicks with four ringers, of which I ringed 285 birds. We collected three large discarded, or lost, nets, and took them back to Bahrain for disposal so they would not catch and kill any more terns. We had a great day out, with a good team, and managed to catch and ring almost 1000 birds in the day ending on 977 birds. We are coming back on 6th July, weather permitting, for another attempt and ringing terns but will be concentrating more on Bridled Terns next time.

Ali's boat

Tern Corral

Lesser Crested Tern chicks in the Tern Corral

The days ringing totals

09 July 2011

Bahrain - Ringing at Al Jarrim Island (South)

I am just starting to learn, as a trainee, to ring birds in Bahrain with the help of trainer Brendan Kavanagh who is a very experienced 'A' Ringer. Brendan is licensed to ring under the British Trust for Ornithology scheme which operates in Britain and Ireland and has permission to use their rings in Bahrain. It will take me many months / years to move from a 'Trainee' under supervision to a 'C Ringer' where I will be able to ring on my own unsupervised.

Today I went over to Bahrain to go and help Brendan ring tern chicks. Nicole Proven and I set off early from Dhahran (04:00 hrs) and went to the Bahrain Yacht Club in Sitra. Here we caught Ali's 400 HP boat (05:30 hrs) to Al Jarrim Island where we spent most of the day rounding up and ringing Tern chicks. Paul Watts a 'C' Ringer and Robert Whitcombe an excellent helper, who were visiting Bahrain also joined the group.

We ringed 222 Bridled tern Chicks which we had to find by looking under small bushes where they were hiding. Ali was particularly good at finding and catching them from their bushes and helped me tremendously with the job. We estimated that about 450 - 500 pairs of Bridled tern were nesting on the island. We also ringed 753 Lesser Crested Tern Chicks. These were all in large creches and we just herded them onto the beach and down to our catching pen (designed by Howard King and made by Brendan) which we had erected in advance on the sand. From here we collected them and took them to the ringing station for processing. We estimated about 6000 pairs of Lesser Crested Tern were breeding on the island and about 5500 young were seen on a final scout around the island by boat. A single Indian (Western) Reef Heron was also ringed as it was found in a nest whilst looking for Bridled Tern Chicks.

The total number of birds ringed was 976 which are listed below:-