Great & Clamorous Reed Warblers - Ringing at Alba Marshes (Bahrain)

The ringing situation has changed slightly over the summer with Brendan moving back to Ireland from Bahrain. He remains our trainer and is keeping a close watch on what we are doing but, unfortunately for us, he will not physically be present. Luckily Nicole became a qualified C ringer over the summer and now and I can go ringing with her as well as Abdullah who is also a C ringer, although will soon be an A ringer. Brendan kindly left us some of his rings and equipment to use whilst Nicole is getting all her ringing equipment sorted out. It seems like a long time ago I last went ringing as I have not been able to go to Bahrain over the last few weeks as the families passports and Iqamas (residents permit) were away being renewed. I only got them back on 19^th September and as a result arranged at very short notice with Nicole to go ringing at Alba Marshes. We started out very early at 04:30 hrs from Dhahran so we could have most of the nets up early to try to catch the first moving birds. We set four mist nets up which proved to be quite successful although only two of the four nets caught birds. As this was Nicole and my first ringing trip without Brendan it turned out to be quite successful with no issues noted although we certainly missed knowledge and skill. We were obviously a bit slower than when Brendan was about and more searching in Svensson was required for a couple of tricky birds, more of which will be posted later, but it was very enjoyable and worthwhile.


Great Reed Warbler

Great Reed Warbler - head

Great Reed Warbler - wing

Clamorous Reed Warbler - head

Clamorous Reed Warbler - wing

Clamorous Reed Warbler - fault bars on tail

We both needed to be back in Saudi Arabia for the afternoon so closed the nets up by 10:00 hrs, when it was getting too hot anyway, and had a total catch of ten birds including five species of which two were ringing ticks for me and one was a ringing tick for Nicole.

Great Crested Grebe - Dhahran Hills

An evening’s birding at my local ‘patch’ produced a scattering of migrants along with a number of the commoner resident species. Doves are around in good numbers at present as the juvenile birds have joined the adults making quite good sized flocks. The commonest are the Eurasian Collared Doves followed by Laughing Dove but Namaqua Dove is still around in good numbers. I have not seen a Eurasian Turtle Dove for a week or so but the odd straggler may still be around. Collared Doves are mainly adults in moult, as can be seen from the photograph of the flying bird below where wing mount (primaries) can be seen as well as fresh juvenile birds.


Collared Dove in flight

Collared Dove - juvenile

Great Crested Grebe

The pond still has the Great Crested Grebe present and one Little Grebe is still sitting on eggs, which is very late in the year for this to be happening. Little grebes had an excellent breeding season this year with over 100 birds, including young, on the pond at present. Common Moorhen and Eurasian Coot also had good breeding years with most of the birds on the pond being of these three species. An adult and a juvenile Purple Heron were in different parts of the reed beds and a single Squacco Heron was present along the reed edge. The only other notable bird was a single Garganey. The spray fields held very few birds excepting three Isabelline Wheatears.

Waders in the ditch – Dhahran Hills

As I have mentioned in the past few weeks, I have found a nice deep ditch with water runoff in that continues to a wet flash at the end near to the disused spray field area. This area has been very good for waders recently and excellent views can be had of them. As the numbers of waders are small it is a great place to find an out of place vagrant, although I have failed to do this so far. Species that are not common in the camp have been seen here in reasonable numbers with the following a minimum number of birds seen over the last two weeks made up of thirteen different species:
Common Ringed Plover (five adults & one juvenile)
Little Ringed Plover (one adult and seven juveniles)
Kentish Plover (two adults and ten juveniles)
Green Sandpiper (fifteen)
Wood Sandpiper (three)
Common Sandpiper (one juvenile)
Common Greenshank (one)
Ruff (two)
Common Redshank (one)
Little Stint (six adults and sixteen juveniles)
Temminck’s Stint (one juvenile)
Dunlin (three adults)
Lesser Sand Plover (one juvenile)


Common Ringed Plover - juvenile

Green Sandpiper

Green Sandpiper

Temminck's Stint (front) & Dunlin (back)

Great Reed Warbler - Dhahran Hills

There has been a slow trickle of new birds through Dhahran Hills over the last week with the best bird seen yesterday being a Great Reed Warbler in the thick cover of the spray fields. This is easily the best place to see this species in the area I birdwatch which was a surprise to me when I came as I thought they would be in the Phragmites reed bed. Other new migrants included a single Spotted Flycatcher feeding in the trees and from the fence surrounding the percolation pond. Sand Martin numbers are now well over 500 birds feeding over the pond with numbers building as the evening approaches. Waders are still about in reasonable numbers with a juvenile Temminck's Stint the best among them. Cattle Egret numbers are also building up slowly with eleven seen, the first count above ten for the autumn. These numbers should be increasing significantly over the next couple of months. A single Turkestan Shrike has been hunting from the palm trees outside my office window for the last two days.


Western Cattle Egret

Spotted Flycatcher

Temminck's Stint - juvenile

Hundreds of Grey Heron - Sabkhat Al Fasl

Sabkhat Al Fasl was surprising quite on Friday for my early morning visit. There were few birds and thankfully few hunters although a few were still present shooting at the large numbers of herons that were present. I saw over 200 Grey Heron which is a very high count and 110 were in a single group out on the flooded sabkha. There was a scattering of migrants with Southern Grey Shrike, Mauryan Grey Shrike, Turkestan Shrike and Daurian Shrike all presnet on ones and twos with the Daurian Shrike being the first returning bird I have seen this autumn. A single Ortolan Bunting sitting on top on a dead reed stem was a nice surprise with five Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters present in the same area. Three Isabelline Wheatear were on the desert area on the way into the site and Yellow Wagtails were flying over calling all day long. There are still no signs of Greater Spotted Eagles but Western Marsh Harriers are back for the winter with three different birds seen. Most birds that use the site are immature or females. A Western Osprey was seen eating a large fish out on the Sabkha and plenty on Dunlin, Common Ringed Plover, Little Stint and Kentish Plover were feeding on the wet areas. As always good views were had of Purple Swamphen as can be seen from the below photograph.


Purple Swamphen

Daurian Shrike

Western Marsh Harrier

Yellow Wagtail

Large Tern flocks - Abu Ali Island

I went to Abu Ali Island see here for details to look for Sandwich Terns which are meant to spend time moulting on the island in their thousands. I had not see the species in Saudi Arabia and as September is the prime month for terns on the island I thought it was worth a try. As it turned out there were hundreds of Sandwich Terns with many hundreds more Lesser Crested Terns and Little/Saunder's Terns making three thousand birds at least. All of them were at a fair distance and a telescope was required to identify them but it was a good excercise in identifying young and winter plumaged birds. All the terns were on Abu Al Island with most on the large pool at the far end of the island. Other birds were thin on the ground with only a few waders including Lesser Sand Plover and Greater Sand Plover side by side on a small pool allowing good comparison of both species. Bar-tailed Godwit and Dunlin were feeding on the exposed mudflats and a few Eurasian Curlews were with them along with 22 Greater Flamingoes and about the same number of Western Reef Herons. Migrants are meant to occur on the island in good numbers during passage periods but the only migrant I saw apart from Barn Swallow was a single Isabelline Wheatear.


Dunlin

Bar-tailed Godwit

Isabelline Wheatear

Khafrah Marsh - Location Details

Khafrah Marsh (26° 48’N, 49° 34’E) is an extensive reed-swamp of Phragmites australis reed-beds covering an area of approximately 300 hectares, with a permanent water supply that merges into a playa lake fed mainly by winter rainfall. The wetland lies in a dip within the Al Jafurah desert, a northerly extension of the Rub al-Khali. It is at a junction between the high unstable sand dunes of the Al Jufrah proper and the low stable dunes of the hummock and hollow variety, with salt-bushes and some clumps of Panicum grass. These stable low dunes are much over-grazed but in the immediate vicinity of Khafrah Marsh the vegetation is more verdant with a rich ground flora and an abundance of tamarisk shrubs and small palms. There is no reed-mace present at this site but small stunted tamarisk bushes grow along parts of the reed-swamp edge. Water quality is as follows: Nitrate 2 mg/l, Kjeldahl Nitrogen 1.1 mg/l, Phosphorous 0.2 mg/l, toal dissolved solids 4220 mg/l, pH 7.3 and Oxygen 50% of saturation value. The site is easily reached from Dammam / Dhahran / Al Khobar by following the Abu Hadryah Highway towards Kuwait. After about 95 kilometres you will see the extensive marsh on both sides of the road, but mainly on the left as you are driving to Juabil and Kuwait. The site attracts a few good birds but has many less than the nearby Sabkhat Al Fasl.

 

Specialities:

Egyptian Nightjar
Western Marsh Harrier
Glossy Ibis
Great Crested Grebe
Purple Swamphen (breeding)
Little Grebe
Passage Waders & Terns

Purple Swamphens - Khafrah Marsh

A visit to Kafrah Marsh, which is the site where Phil and I found Purple Swamphens breeding last year, produced more Purple Swamphens indicating that the site is still active. This was only the second site in Saudi Arabia where the species breeds and is easily accessible right next to the main Dammam to Kuwait highway (Abu Hadryah highway). The site is a large marsh with extensive phragmites reed beds and looks really good but produces few birds although good ones have been seen including Egyptian Nightjar, Great Crested Grebe and Moustached Warblers. Other birds seen on the marsh were Little Grebe and Great Crested Grebe with a few Namaqua Dove flying around in small groups. I have not really found a good route around this site yet, and I am sure when I do I will see more birds. Clamorous Reed Warblers were in full song in the reed beds.


Purple Swamphen

Little Grebe

Namaqua Dove - male

Woodchat Shrike - Dhahran Hills

The trees at the edge of the percolation pond are proving to be a bit of a magnet for newly arrive migrants. Today a smart male Woodchat Shrike was in the trees although proved very flighty. This is the first one I have seen this autumn in Dhahran although I have seen a couple at Sabkhat Al Fasl in Jubail, 125 kilometres north this autumn. A Spotted Flycatcher was also in the same trees as the shrike. The percolation pond had no duck yesterday but the Western Cattle Egret numbers are slowly building up with nine seen. A single Grey heron and one Squacco Heron were the only other herons seen. Other migrants were thin on the ground with only a few Eurasian Hoopoe and 50+ Sand Martins seen. The wet ditch held three Little Stints, two Common Ringed Plovers and two Green Sandpipers.


Eurasian Hoopoe

Western Cattle Egret

Little Stint

Tree Pipit - Dhahran Hills

One or two migrants are still struggling through Dhahran Hills with the first Tree Pipit of the autumn for me seen in the trees beside the percolation pond. Other good birds on the pond included a Common Greenshank flying over calling, a Gull-billed Tern briefly catching frogs, three Western Cattle Egrets, one Purple Heron hiding in the reeds and 19 Northern Shoveller. A few Clamorous Reed Warblers were in the reeds and two Spotted lycatchers nearby to the Tree Pipit. The spray fields remains quite with just two Isabelline WHeatears and a few Namaqua Doves. The drainage dtch still has the Common Ringed Plover without the foot plus a fully healty one, five Little Stints, two juvenile Kentish Plovers and a three Green Sandpipers. The only bird of interest in the scrubby desert area was a Turkestan Shrike, which are much commoner than Daurian Shrikes at this time of year in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.

Turkestan Shrike



Turkestan Shrike



Kentish Plover



Kentish Plover