Birds of Saudi Arabia: Common Blackcap

Showing posts with label Common Blackcap. Show all posts

29 April 2015

Last couple of weeks near Tabuk – Bird records by Viv Wilson

Viv has been out birding the Tabuk area the last couple of Weekends and has sent a few photos of his trips. This area is in the northwest of the Kingdom and is very good for both migrants as well as resident species. Viv normally either goes to the desert areas where there are plenty of rock formations or to the large Tabuk wetlands. He takes photos of quite a number of species that are either absent or extremely difficult to see in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia where I live and bird so the photos are always interesting to look at. This selection include Scrub Warbler and Tristram’s Starling that do not occur in the Eastern Province and Pale Crag martin that does occur but is only seen near the escarpments in the desert in areas like Shedgum. The main passage migrants seen by Viv cross the country in broad fronts so are seen throughout the Kingdom at the right time of year and these include Barn Swallows, Eurasian Blackcaps, Eurasian Hoopoes, Northern Wheatears and Ortolan Buntings with Common Kestrel being a resident in the area. Viv has kindly allowed me to use some of his photos on my website that are shown below.

Tristram's Starling

Scrub Warbler

Barn Swallow

Common Blackcap

Eurasian Hoopoe

Northern Wheatear

Ortolan Bunting

Common Kestrel

Pale Crag Martin

26 April 2015

A good catch on a windy day – Sabkhat Al Fasl

Ringing at the weekend provided a good catch of birds, particularly taking into account the relatively strong wind that was blowing. We set all our nets before first light and were rewarded for our persistence with 42 birds of 13 species caught that included the following:

1 Bluethroat L. s. magna

1 European Bee-eater

4 Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warblers

15 Caspian Reed Warblers

5 Sedge Warblers

1 Common Blackcap

4 Willow Warblers

1 Eurasian Wryneck

5 Tree Pipits

1 Barn Swallow

1 Turkestan Shrike

2 Great Reed Warblers

1 Common Redstart

Most birds, totaling 19, were caught on the first net round just after first light and showed the value of putting the nets up early. We then caught steadily until around lunchtime when the wind became too strong and we had to take all the nets down. We now have set places for our nets and are subsequently catching more birds each trip as we have, hopefully, identified the best locations for them. The weather has not been good for ringing this year with unusually strong winds preventing setting nets on quite a few days already this year. Soon the temperatures will be getting too hot to ring as well so ringing will stop for the summer by the end of next month.