Birds of Saudi Arabia: Bahrain

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

02 August 2013

Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin sub-species in Saudi Arabia & Bahrain

The Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin has two marked subspecies groups with Cercotrichas galactotes galactotes forming one group and C. g. syriacus & C. g. familiaris the other.
Cercotrichas galactotes galactotes (Temminck, 1820) - south & east Iberia (possibly also southern France), N Africa (south to southern Algeria), Israel and SW Syria; non-breeding Sahel zone of W Africa, has upper-parts pale rufous with very little contrast in tone between crown/mantle and rump/upper-tail. The breast and flanks are buffish or pinkish-cream.
C. g. syriacus (Hemprich & Ehrenberg, 1833) - Balkans east to west & south Turkey, western Syria and Lebanon; non-breeding North-east & East Africa, is darker and colder brown above than nominate with some contrast to brighter rufous rump/upper-tail. More contrasting head pattern with whiter supercilium and patch below eye, darker eye-stripe and lateral crown stripe. Greyer tinge on breast and flanks. More black and less white on tips of outer tail feathers.
C. g. familiaris (Ménétriés, 1832) - Transcaucasia, south-east Turkey, Iraq and North-east & East Arabia east to southern Kazakhstan, eastern Iran, eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan; non-breeding North-east Africa, is similar to syriacus but is paler and greyer with marked contrast between greyish crown/mantle and brighter rufous rump/upper tail. The underparts are an off white. Wing coverts and tertials diffusely edged lighter even in adult. Size and wing-formula much as in syriacus. In the west of its range it intergrades into syriacus in western Transcaucasia, south-east Turkey, and probably north-east Turkey and northern Syria.

The birds we catch in Bahrain (all photos of birds caught at Jasaer in Bahrain) and see in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia differ markedly from nominate galactotes in having grey-brown upperparts and less warmly suffused underparts, with fully rufous and more contrasting rump and tail indicating they are syriacus or familiaris. These birds also show a stronger contrast between whiter eye-ring and supercilium and dark stripe on edge of crown and darker eye-stripe and more obviously a deeper black sub-terminal band on the tail.

The birds we see and catch have the crown, mantle, and scapulars a slightly paler colour than typical syriacus but appear to be browner rather than grey of typical familiaris. The rufous of the rump and tail are slightly paler than typical syriacus, and the underparts vary in the amount of white from the off-white of syricus to the clean white typical of familiaris. Riply (1951) stated that birds from Bahrain were richer and darker brown than familiaris (nearer syriacus) and smaller with my data showing the birds appear to be intermediate between the two subspecies. We do get birds that appear more typical of one or other subspecies with warmer brown syriacus type birds and colder grey familiaris like birds – see photographs below taken in Saudi Arabia.

syriacus type bird - Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

familiaris type bird - Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Intermediate type bird - Sabkhat Al Fasl, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia probably has both eastern races migrating through the country with syriacus likely to be seen more often in the western parts of the country and familiaris more often in the eastern parts. The breeding birds of the east of Saudi Arabia are thought more likely to be familiaris (Jennings 2010 – Atlas of breeding birds of Arabia) but as mentioned above the breeding birds we have caught in Bahrain appear to be intermediate between the two races.

16 April 2013

A good catch – Jasaer (Bahrain)

An early trip to Jasaer in Bahrain meant we had our five nets up by 06:00 hrs. We caught steadily all morning and ended up with 31 birds of eleven species. These included two Common Chiffchaffs, 10 Willow Warblers, three Common Redstarts, Upcher’s Warbler, four House Sparrows, two Rufous-tailed Scrub Robins, two Desert Lesser Whitethroats, Laughing Dove, three Turkestan Shrikes, two Common Whitethroats and a Menetries’s Warbler. Willow Warblers have now replaced Common Chiffchaff as the most common species caught. The Lesser Whitethroats appear to be Desert Whitethroat from measurements and tail pattern and I will try to get some DNA work done on loose feathers from the birds to try to ascertain if this is a correct identification.

Common Redstart - immature male

Common Redstart - female

Common Whitethroat

Desert Whitethroat

Desert Whitethroat - tail pattern

Menetries's Warbler - female

Willow Warbler

Willow Warbler - wing

Turkestan Shrike - adult male

Turkestan Shrike

13 April 2013

Two new ringing ‘ticks’ – Jasaer (Bahrain)

An early morning trip over the causeway to Bahrain with Nicole and our new helper Clem produced a good bag of birds for us including two new ringing species for me. I was hopeful of catching a few good birds as I had a great days birding full of migrants the day before in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. The first new bird for me was an Upcher’s Warbler and the second was a Laughing Dove. I have now ringed 55 different species of bird in Bahrain, which is not too bad I would have thought? Upcher’s Warbler is an uncommon passage migrant and Laughing Dove a common resident breeder.

Upcher's Warbler

Laughing Dove

31 March 2013

Catching Good Migrants - Ringing at Jasaer (Bahrain)

We arrived at Jasear at 05:45 hrs and set up four of our five nets in their normal places. We moved one net to a location inside some bushes rather than on the edge of them to see if it would yield more results. Migration had been a bit slow in Saudi Arabia over the preceding week so I was not too confident we would have a good catch. As it turned out we caught 36 birds of various species including a number of good birds. Initially we caught quite a few Common Chiffchaffs all of which appeared to be of the sub-species abientinus. A few shrikes were also caught with Daurian, Turkestan and Woodchat Shrikes all being caught including a nice adult male Turkestan Shrike.

Common Chiffchaff

Turkestan Shrike

Woodchat Shrike

The best bird was a female Semi-collared Flycatcher which is an uncommon species in the region with most birds seen being males. Neither of us had ringed this species before so Nicole ringed the bird as she is the most experienced ringer. The typical wing pattern was quite obvious on this bird and rules out the very similar Collared Flycatcher. Other good migrants included two female Menetries’s Warblers and a blythi type Lesser Whitethroat very different to the Hume’s type caught the week before in the same site.

Semi-collared Flycatcher - female

Menetries's Warbler - female

Lesser Whitethroat

We also caught two female Common Redstarts but failed to catch the really smart male samamisicus bird that was seen near the nets all morning. The remainder of the catch was made up of House Sparrows but we had a really good day with a few really good birds.

Common Redstart

30 March 2013

White-throated Robin – Ringing at Jasaer (Bahrain)

Another very early morning trip to Jasaer to try to ring some migrants turned out to be very profitable. We had one of our best days ever catching birds and ended up with 36 in total although a number were House Sparrows with most females with brood patches indicating breeding has begun. One bird caught was a ringing ‘tick’ for me and was a male White-throated Robin. It was caught with a worm in a spring trap and was a fine male. These birds are not uncommon on passage through the region but are not caught too regularly and fortunately for me Nicole had ringed one before so I got the chance to ring this bird. They appear quite large in the hand and are really beautiful birds and are the sort of birds we were hoping for when setting out to ring at the site. Abdulla came to visit us at the site and his skill with the spring trap is what allowed the bird to be caught. He caught it in his spring trap but I gave him one of my spring traps to see if he could catch anything with it as he is an expert and we are too busy trying to process birds from the mist nets to allow us to try to catch anything with the spring traps. I am looking forward to seeing his results over the next week or so and to see if my trap will work or not. I know one thing for sure, and that is if Abdulla cannot catch anything with it, I certainly will not be able to.

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.