Birds of Saudi Arabia

Showing posts with label Bahrain - Ringing at Busaiteen. Show all posts

23 October 2011

Bahrain - Ringing Wheatears at Busaiteen

On Friday I went ringing with Brendan and Abdulla at Busaiteen, with the spring traps, in search of Wheatears. We had plenty of worms this time but the weather was against us with a strong Shamal wind (north-westerly) blowing. As a result most of the birds were sheltering from the wind or where absent and we did not see too many Wheatears or many other birds. We managed to catch two Pied Wheatears, and adult male and a first year female, as well as two Isabelline Wheatears all in the spring traps. We had two other Pied Wheatears positioned right above two traps but they would not go for the bait unfortunately. I had not seen a female Pied Wheatear in the hand before and it was a valuable experience as a few pointers to the unidentified Wheatear from Sabkhat Al Fasl last weekend were noted showing this bird was almost certainly a Pied Wheatear rather than a Finsch’s Wheatear.

Isabelline Wheatear (adult)

Isabelline Wheatear - Tail (adult)

Isabelline Wheatear (1st year)

Isabelline Wheatear - Tail (1st year)

Pied Wheatear (adult male)

Pied Wheatear - Tail (adult male)

04 October 2011

Bahrain - Ringing Pied Wheatear at Busaiteen

As I mentioned in the previous post I went ringing with Abdulla at Busaiteen on Friday, which is a good place to see Wheatears. We caught a fist year male Pied Wheatear which is shown in the photographs here. The bird was caught in a spring trap that had an insect grub as bait and as the bird pulls the bait it triggers the trap and the bird is caught. The hard part about this trapping is getting the birds into a position where they can see the trap and when this is done, hopefully, the bird is interested in the grub. The success rate of catching the birds once they had seen the bait was almost 100%.

Pied Wheatear (1st Year Male)

02 October 2011

Bahrain - Ringing Isabelline Wheatear at Busaiteen

On Friday I went ringing with Abdulla at Busaiteen. The site is a good place to see Wheatears that have just arrived off the sea as there are a few small bushes, piles of stones and pieces of wood for the birds to sit on or hide under. We had two spring traps and Abdulla had managed to catch eight grubs to set the traps with. Abdulla is an expert at catching the Wheatears and has caught 40 already this year of various species including Pied, Desert, Black-eared and Isabelline. He has caught even more in previous years and has the art of catching them well honed. We caught five Isabelline Wheatear including one well fed and heavy individual that had probably been in Bahrain for a few days and a very large adult male? bird. We also caught a single 1^st year male Pied Wheatear and saw a female Northern Wheatear and a 1^st Year Black-eared Wheatear along with a couple more Pied and up to ten more Isabelline. Other birds of interest included a Desert Warbler and a Tawny Pipit.

Birds ringed:
Isabelline Wheatear – 5
Pied Wheatear - 1