Some spring migrants in northwest Saudi Arabia – Bird record by Euan Ferguson

Euan Ferguson was in Saudi Arabia with a couple of other birdwatchers in spring 2017, conducting an environmental survey and found a number of good birds and many migrants in the northwest if the Kingdom at Sharma on the Red Sea coast and further inland at Dumat. The survey team added a lot of knowledge to the birds seen in the area showing how valuable environmental surveys can be. Euan sent me a number of his photos and has kindly allowed me to use them on my website some of which are shown below.

Bluethroat

Little Bittern

Green Bee-eater

Ortolan Bunting

Common Quail 

Savi's Warbler

Spotted Flycatcher 

Turkestan Shrike

Wryneck

Black-headed Wagtail

Bluethroats returning in numbers – Sabkhat Al Fasl

My last ringing trip to Sabkhat Al Fasl was almost cancelled due to the wind. The forecast all week had been strong winds continuing until Friday, the only day I could go ringing. I was very kken to go ringing though as I can only go once a week and due to the lack of ringers sometimes the weekends are not possible if Nicole or I are away or busy. As a result we set off the 135 kilometres to our ringing site (where the Saudi Wildlife Authority have given me permission to ring) and got there before first light. We had an extra pair of hands in form of the Harald the son of a birdwatcher on camp who was visiting for the school holidays. It was quit windy as expected but we set all our nets as usual with the exception of the most exposed one as this would have been to windy. One net set in a thick reed bed was the least exposed and as suspected caught the most birds most of which were Bluethroats. Bluethroat is an uncommon passage migrant and winter visitor to Saudi Arabia where they prefer damp areas. Both Red-spotted and White-spotted birds occur with Red-spotted being much the commoner of the two forms. In winter it is difficult to differentiate between the forms as only adult summer males can be told apart in the field. We do catch these sometimes but more often in spring than autumn. The first Bluethroats were seen almost a month ago but this ringing trip we managed to catch four birds and see and hear many others indicating they are back on their wintering grounds in good numbers. It will be interesting to see if we re-trap any of these birds over the winter months at the site. Apart from the Bluethroats ringing was quite difficult but we did manage to catch both Great Reed Warblers and Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warblers as well as Graceful Prinia. All in all it was a worthwhile exercise going ringing and we all returned home happy.

Bluethroat

Bluethroat

Bluethroat

Great Reed Warbler

Great Reed Warbler

Indian Reed Warbler

Graceful Prinia

A reasonable ringing catch – Sabkhat Al Fasl

Last weekend we caught twenty birds in our regular morning ringing session that was a slight improvement on previous weeks. Most birds were warblers but we also caught five Little Bitterns, the highest number of this species we have caught in a single session. We caught a male, female and three juveniles in two different distant nets. We also caught a surprise in the form of a Barn Swallow. Although a few birds were flying around they very rarely come low enough to be caught in the net without playing calls and I do not have permission to do this so this was the first time we have caught the species in Saudi Arabia. We also caught another Common Kingfisher, a species that we are now starting to catch quite regularly. Other birds trapped included a Graceful Prinia, a single Bluethroat and a couple of House Sparrows. We ring all the House Sparrows we catch as they are not that common at the site and we would like to know where they go and how long they stay at the location before moving off.

Little Bittern 

Barn Swallow - juvenile

Barn Swallow - juvenile

Bluethroat

Common Kingfisher

Graceful Prinia 

Graceful Prinia

House Sparrow - female

House Sparrow - male

A few warblers – Sabkhat Al Fasl

Whilst ringing on 17 October we caught a two Great Reed Warblers and three Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warblers as well as a few other birds including Common Kingfisher, Little Bittern, Graceful Prinia and Bluethroat. It was a little windy and we were limited on time so set out at 03:30 to allow us to reach the site and set the nets before first light. We put up five nets in our usual positions although the wind made moving one to a less windy position necessary after about one hour. All the nets caught birds but it was quite slow. Sabkhat Al Fasl is proving to be a much better ringing location than Alba Marsh, and although we do not catch too many birds the numbers are significantly higher than Alba. On the 17 October we caught eleven birds of six species whilst at a similar time of year last year at Alba we caught three birds all of which were Great Reed Warblers. The subspecies of Great Reed Warbler we get is zarudnyii which is the eastern breeding race and is generally lighter in colour with more olive, less rufous brown upperparts than nominate arundinaceus. Acrocephalus arundinaceus zarudnyiis sometimes treated as an eastern subspecies of Great Reed Warbler Acrocephalus arundinaceus and sometimes as conspecific with A. a. arundinaceus. A. a. arundinaceus occurs from Europe east to the Volga River and A. a. zarudnyi occurs from the Volga River east to southern central Siberia, although birds resembling zarudnyi occur in western European populations of arundinaceus. It has thus been suggested that they are actually colour morphs with darker birds in the west and paler ones in the east.

Great Reed Warbler

Great Reed Warbler

Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warbler

Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warbler

Common Kingfisher

Bluethroat

Bluethroat

A smart male svecica Red-spotted Bluethroat – Ringing at Sabkhat Al Fasl

Nicole and I went ringing again at Sabkhat Al Fasl. This was our second visit after obtaining permission to ring in the Kingdom and we were hoping for a good catch. We have never caught many birds in our ringing trips in Bahrain, but this site looks like it will produce more birds than our regular site of Alba Marsh in Bahrain. We set five nets and although things were quite slow we ended up with fifteen birds caught although two Common Kingfishers and a Graceful Prinia could not be ringed, as we do not currently have the correct ring sizes for these two species. We did take all measurements before releasing them as these add to the knowledge of the birds of the site. As with last week the most commonly caught species was Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warblers although we also caught Common Chiffchaff, House Sparrow, Pied Wagtail and Red-spotted Bluethroats. Two Indian Reed Warblers and a Bluethroat were trapped that had been ringed last week otherwise all the birds were new. A really smart Lucinia svecica svecica Red-spotted Bluethroat was trapped which is the subspecies from northern Eurasia and can only be identified from male birds in full breeding plumage as this one. They are common passage migrants and winter visitors to reed beds and humid thickets and are more often herd than seen. Plenty of White Wagtails and Water Pipits were around the nets but their amazing eyesight meant that hey could see the nets and flew over or around them.

Red-spotted Bluethroat - svecica

Red-spotted Bluethroat - svecica

Common Kingfisher

White Wagtail

House sparrow - male

Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warbler

Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warbler

Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warbler

Ringing in Saudi Arabia - Sabkhat Al Fasl

After many years trying, I have finally managed to obtain permission to ring in Saudi Arabia from the Saudi Wildlife Authority. This will allow me to stay in the country that I am really interested in birding, rather than having to go to Bahrain to ring as previously. The main issue with Bahrain, apart from it not being my country of residence, and thus less interesting to me bird wise, is the trouble trying to get across the causeway. The customs and passport control can take anything from a few minutes to several hours and you are never really sure which one it will be. With my skill of always choosing the slowest moving queue, it was never a pleasant experience. I am very grateful to the Saudi Wildlife Authority, especially Ammar from Jubail for granting me permission as well as Mohammad Shobrak for putting me in contact with the correct people. I now have the Saudi Arabian bird rings in my possession and a signed letter from the Saudi Wildlife Authority for me to ring at Sabkhat Al Fasl as well as Dhahran and I am a very happy man. All the data gathered on the birds we ring will be passed on the Saudi Wildlife Authority for processing and safekeeping. Hopefully this will be a long a fruitful experience for both me as well as the Authority.

Common Kingfisher

Common Kingfisher

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Bluethroat

Bluethroat

Red-spotted Bluethroat

Red-spotted Bluethroat

Nicole and I went to Sabkhat Al Fasl on Friday 7 February for our first outing using Saudi Arabian rings and as such we were not sure where to set the nets. As I know this area very well I choose a place I thought would be good and quiet. We only set three nets as we started catching birds as soon as the first net was up. Unfortunately the wind got up and stopped ringing a bit early but we managed to catch a few good birds. Some of the birds caught we could not ring as we did not have the correct rings from Saudi Arabia, such as two female Common Kingfishers and a Graceful Prinia. We did ring nine Clamorous Reed Warblers, two Red-spotted Bluethroats and a new ringing species for me that I will post about later.