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.

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

Ringing at Al Ali Farm – Bahrain

We went ringing at Al Ali Farm in the afternoon last weekend. I had only been ringing at this site once before and it looks like a great site. There are plenty of tall trees, shrubs and open fields and a lot of birds where about. In the trees we set three nets hoping to catch Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin and Common Redstart which were seen in good numbers as we were setting up the nets. We also hoped we could catch a few Ortolan buntings in the grass field as Brendan and Nicole had caught 21 birds there the weekend before in one attempt. As it turned out most of the Ortolan Buntings had moved on and plenty of House Sparrows were in the fields along with a number of Daurian Shrikes and Turkestan Shrikes. Abdulla came for an hour and hoped to catch a Lesser Grey Shrike that he had seen but it evaded the trap and was not caught. We did manage to catch a few Daurian and Turkestan Shrikes in the mist nets, where they were mostly caught chasing other birds.

Common Redstart - male



Common Redstart - male (left) & female (right)



Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin - tail pattern



Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin


We caught a number of species that I had not ringed before and Nicole also ringed a few new species. The new ones for me were Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin, Common Redstart, Thrush Nightingale, Whinchat, Great Reed Warbler and Crested Lark. Nicoles new species were Great Reed Warbler, Upher’s Warbler and Red-backed Shrike. It was a really good afternoons ringing and there were plenty of birds to extract from the nets, with me getting almost all the shrikes to extract one of which was particularly aggressive, but no blood was drawn. We only caught two Ortolan Buntings but managed about 100 House Sparrows all of which we released without ringing.

Red-backed Shrike - male



Red-backed Shrike - male



Thrush Nightingale



Ortolan Bunting


We caught 41 birds of which I ringed 21 and Nicole ringed 20. These include fifteen different species, 18 Willow Warblers, four Common Redstarts, three Turkestan Shrikes, two Great Reed Warblers, two Chiffchaffs, two Ortolan Buntings, two Rufous-tailed Scrub Robins, one Graceful Prinia, one Upcher’s Warbler, one Daurian Shrike, one Whinchat, one Red-backed Shrike, one Thrush Nightingale, one Crested Lark and one Barred Warbler. We ringed from 14:15 hrs until 19:30 hrs when it was completely dark.