tschutshensis type or hybrid Yellow Wagtail – Sabkhat Al Fasl

I found a slightly unusual Yellow Wagtail at Sabkaht Al Fasl, Jubail on 16 May 2014 that had me scratching my head as to what exactly it was. It looked like a tschutshensis type? But the supercillium was yellow instead of the white I had expected, and was also not as obvious as I would have thought. As a result I started having thoughts it may be some sort of hybrid rather than a genuine tschutshensis and contacted Andrea Corso an expert in many things including Yellow Wagtails and received the following reply “The problem is that many hybrids of Western Palearctic flava ssp. produce offspring that are almost (or even totally) identical to this far eastern taxon. I have seen myself birds like it in Sicily, Israel, Sinai, Egypt and without sound recordings for sonograms or DNA I would not suggest to ever ID positively tschutshensis unless they are very typical fenotype with bright yellow supericlium, very dark ear-coverts and they sound like one also with sonograms etc. So, sure your bird is worthwhile studying and is very interesting but I am sorry I could not suggest to you any firm ID. To be honest I would prefer to think that it is an hybrid or one of those eastern populations of flava flava or a cinereocapilla x flava or other sort of hybrid”. I, like Andrea, prefer to leave these odd looking Yellow Wagtails unasigned but it is good fun trying to think what parentage they may have.

Eastern Cinereous Bunting – Deffi Park (Jubail)

An early morning trip to Jubail was executed with a visit to Deffi Park the first stop on the agenda. We thought it might be good for passage migrants as the habitat there is open grassy areas surrounded by large mature trees of various species and although known as a good site in winter, little information is available on the place in spring. We got to the site just after first light as bird activity does not really start here until the sun is up. It was obvious a few migrants were about as we saw 50+ Tree Pipits feeding on the wet grassy areas all over the park in small groups. This is the largest number of Tree Pipits I have seen in Saudi Arabia since I have been here and although they are present in the Eastern Province they are never common. Also whilst walking around we saw six Common Redstarts including two fine male samamisicus birds. Whilst looking at the Meadow Pipits we came across a greenish looking bird facing towards us that turned out to be an Eastern Cinereous Bunting. This is sometimes split from Western Cinereous Bunting but as I have never seen either type of Cinereous Bunting in Saudi Arabia, or anywhere else for that matter, I was very pleased. Phil had seen two birds two days previous to this sighting at nearby Sabkhat Al Fasl, so birds are obviously on the move through the Jubail area. The only other birds of note were four very grey tritris type Common Chiffchaffs looking very different to our normal yellow abientinus types and a smart male Eastern Yellow Wagtail type.

Eastern Cinereous Bunting

Eastern Cinereous Bunting

Eastern Cinereous Bunting

Eastern Cinereous Bunting

Eastern Cinereous Bunting

Tree Pipit

Tree Pipit

Eastern Yellow Wagtail - tschutschensis