Birds of Saudi Arabia: Bahrain

Showing posts with label Bahrain - Sedge Warbler. Show all posts

27 October 2013

Some good birds ringing at Alba Marsh – Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

An early morning ringing trip to Alba Marsh in Bahrain produced a few good birds for us. We caught slowly but steadily and ended up with 15 species of bird which is quite good for us. I know this is a laughably small amount for most ringers but we have limited places with permission to ring so beggers cannot be choosers as they say. We do catch good number of species, however, and out of the 15 birds we caught ten different species. Birds included Common Kingfisher, which was a new ringing species for Bahrain last autumn but which we have caught ten birds now. We re-caught a Clamorous Reed Warbler from two years ago (25/11/2011), ringed at the same site, and the Eurasian Wryneck ringed on 28 September. The Wryneck was caught in exactly the same net and had increased in weight from 36.2 grams to 45.1 grams an encouraging sign for the bird.

Common Kingfisher

Eurasian Wryneck

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Great Reed Warbler

Other birds caught included several more Clamorous Reed Warblers, Eurasian Reed Warbler, two Bluethroats including one Red-spotted male and a first year female, Great Reed Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Savi’s Warbler and two Turkestan Shrikes the first shrikes we have caught this autumn. The shrikes were side by side in the same net so I suspect they had been chasing each other and both ended up in the net at the same time.

European Reed Warbler

Red-spotted Bluethroat

Sedge Warbler

30 April 2012

Ringing at Alba Marsh – Bahrain

I went ringing again to Bahrain at the weekend and spent the whole day with Brendan and Nicole. We went to Alba Marsh again early in the morning and set up our normal four nets. There did not appear to be so many birds about as the last couple of weeks although a couple of shrikes, one Daurian and one Turkestan were in the bushes by the ringing site. A spotted Crake and Little Bittern were seen whilst erecting the nets and a few Red-throated Pipits and Yellow Wagtails were flushed from the short cut reeds. As it turned out we caught quite a few birds for our standards and Sedge Warbler was a new ringing species for me and Whinchat was a new ringing species for Nicole so we were very happy with our mornings work.

Sedge Warbler

Whinchat

We caught 31 birds of which I ringed 19 and Nicole ringed 12. These include ten different species, 12 Willow Warblers, five House Sparrows, three Calmorous Reed Warblers, two Red-throated Pipits, two Caspian Reed Warblers, one Daurian Shrike, one Chiffchaff, one Whinchat, one Sedge Warbler and one Common Whitethroat. One Clamorous Reed Warbler was a re-trap ringed at the same site the week before. We ringed from 06:00 hrs until 10:30 hrs when the temperature became too hot and the birds stopped moving. This weekend has been the first time the weather has returned to normal temperatures since the summer with daytime highs of 36 degrees Celsius.