First Water Pipit of winter - Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

Nicole and I went ringing again at our regular ringing site of Alba Marsh at the weekend. We set off to be at the site before first light to set the nets up, but due to an unforeseen incident on the way we were delayed and only arrived at about 06:15 hrs. We set four nets, but need to work out where the best place for the fourth net, as well as a fifth net we have not set yet is. We caught 15 birds, which is quite a good return for us and as normal most birds were Clamorous Reed Warblers with seven birds trapped and two re-traps of birds caught in the last few weeks. We caught a very large Clamorous Reed Warbler and a small one during the same net round and both can be seen in the photograph below. We also re-traped a Common Kingfisher which was the first Common Kingfisher we ever caught in Bahrain and was originally caught six weeks ago at the same site. The other re-traped bird was a Bluethroat that we originally caught last weekend. Other birds caught included a Common Chiffchaff, two Graceful Prinias and the first trapped Water Pipit of the winter which was of the race A. s. coutelli

Water Pipit - A.s.couteli

Clamorous Reed Warblers

Clamorous Reed Warbler 

Common Kingfisher

Bluethroat - male

Bluethroat - female

Winter birds starting to appear – Dhahran Hills

Winter bird species are starting to appear in good numbers and will soon be replacing many of the migrant birds that are currently around. Winter species such as Western Cattle Egrets are building up in numbers with birds seen feeding along the grass verges in small groups and larger numbers roosting in the reed beds of the percolation pond. Squacco Heron, although resident in the area, only really appears on the percolation pond in winter when they are often seen in ones and twos feeding along the edge of the pond. Recently two birds have taken to fishing out in the open which is quite unusual for Dhahran. White Wagtails have now arrived with the general pattern for the Eastern Province being birds arriving in mid-September and departing by April. The pattern of shrikes is little understood and it is difficult to work out if Daurian Shrike winters in the area or is a late autumn and early spring migrant? It appears from my previous two winters that a small number of mainly immature birds winter in the Dhahran area. There are still a few shrikes about of both Turkestan and Daurian types presumably migrants. Desert Wheatear is another winter visitor that generally appears in October and stays until March, normally in the scrubby desert areas where Pied Wheatears also occur in reasonable numbers. Good numbers of duck can also been seen occasionally on the percolation pond, mainly in the early morning or late evening, with the pond very occasionally covered with birds.

Western Cattle Egret

Squacco Heron

Gull with Yellow Darvic ring Black lettering PVPS - Busaiteen Beach (Bahrain)

Howard King from Bahrain managed to photograph a gull in Bahrain with a large yellow plastic ring with the code PVPS in black on it. The ringing details are as follows:-

Heuglin’s Gull?

Ring Number: Yellow Darvic with Black lettering PVPS (MOSKWA C_525106)

Ringing date: 18-June-2011

Ringing Place: Selitba lake, Penza oblast, Russia (Co-ords: 53°10’N 46°50'E)

Age: Pullus

Ringer: Larisa Plusnina / Grzegorz Neubauer

Finding date: 30-October-2012
Finding Place: Busaiteen Beach, Muharraq Island, Bahrain (Co-ords: 26°15'N 50°35'E) 

Finding Condition: Alive

Duration: 500 days

Distance: 4093 km

Direction: 175 deg (S)

Finder: Howard King (Bahrain)

The gull looks like a Heuglin’s Gull but was ringed in a colony of Caspian Gulls at Selitba Lake, Penza Oblast, Russia, where it was ringed as a chick in 2011 as belonging to the Larus cachinnans group. Grzegorz who was in charge of the ringing there mentioned there were birds at the colony that looked like Heuglin’s Gulls, but it is very far south for this northerly breeding species and they are not meant to breed there.

Common Kingfisher (Tabuk) - Bird records by Viv Wilson

Viv Wilson has sent me a few photos of his birding exploits around Tabuk. He has been seeing some good birds there but says the birding is quieting down for the winter. His last set of photos included photographs of Western Marsh Harrier, White Wagtail, Common Kestrel, Common Kingfisher, Bluethroat, Isabelline Wheatear & Siberian Stonechat. Viv has kindly allowed me to use some of his photos on my website which are shown below.

Common Kingfisher

Bluethroat

Common Kestrel

Below is an amazing photo of a storm taken by Viv in Tabuk using ISO100, f8, 203 second exposure on bulb setting taken with an 11-16 f2.8 Tokina lens.

Storm in Tabuk

Last Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters? – Dhahran Hills

A group of seven Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters including a bird with no tail were on the overhead power lines and low lying scrub, near the settling pond, which may be the last group that I see this year as it is getting quite late for them now. I checked the drainage ditch which has a bit of water left in it but unfortunately no birds with the exception of a Common Moorhen. The scrubby desert had a female Pied Wheatear and a few Crested Larks and the settling pond had been filled up with water since my previous visit and there were a few muddy edges with only five White Wagtails feeding along the concrete edge. The spray fields only had a single Tawny Pipit and five White Wagtails. I then went to the percolation pond and saw a single female Northern Shoveller, two Mallards, a Grey Heron, a Great Crested Grebe and 37 Cattle Egrets in a tree ready to go to roost for the evening in the reed beds below. The spray fields have now got a few Water Pipits and three Siberian Stonechats, and two Daurian Shrikes and one Turkestan Shrike were also present. The days are really drawing in now and birding time is limited in the evenings and the weather has a feel of winter about it.

Blue-cheeked Bee-eater

Pied Wheatear

Greater Spotted Eagles – Sabkhat Al Fasl

An early morning trip to Sabkhat Al Fasl at the weekend allowed me to see good numbers of Greater Spotted Eagles as numbers are building up for the winter with November the best month for seeing birds of prey in the Eastern Province, either on passage or wintering in the region. Sabkhat Al Fasl is the best place in the Eastern Province for seeing Greater Spotted Eagle and early morning is also the best time. Birds are present in the early morning as some of them appear to spend the night at the site, although more fly in in the early morning from their roost sites elsewhere. As soon as I arrived I saw a single bird sitting on a tree at the edge of the location and another flew over the car as I was making a turn to get to the site. Birds were then seen in numerous places around the location with a minimum of eleven birds seen. In the early morning the birds often rest but normally are very wary and do not allow close approach, but last Thursday was a lucky day for me in being able to approach birds and get photographs. I do not know if this was because it was quite cold (17 degrees Celsius) and the birds were reluctant to fly off or for some other reason. Most birds, as normal, appeared to be first calendar year birds, although at least one adult and a fourth year type were seen. The species is on the IUCN Red List and is classified as vulnerable but many birds winter in the Arabian Peninsula with most records from the better watched areas of the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Winter numbers appear to be increasing throughout Arabia, which is certainly the case in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia with most wintering birds arriving in September and departing by April or early May.

Plenty of birds - Sabkhat Al Fasl

A good mornings birding was had at Sabkhat Al Fasl on Thursday as there were many species to be seen in reasonable numbers. I did not really see anything too unusual, but got the best views of Greater Spotted Eagles I have had at the site (see next post for details). The only other bird of prey that I saw, apart from the Greater Spotted Eagles were Western Marsh Harriers with numbers now in the mid-teens at least. Heron numbers are still quite impressive with plenty of Squacco Herons and three Purple Herons as well as 11 Western Great Egrets and 40+ Grey Herons. The Sabkha area is now flooded again and large numbers of duck were present with 176 Eurasian Teal, seven Mallard and five Northern Pintail. Luckily there were no hunters present and the duck could feed, undisturbed, on the wetland area. 

Greater Spotted Eagle

Bluethroat

Squacco Heron

Mauryan (Steppe) Grey Shrike

Daurian Shrike

Blue-cheeked Bee-eater

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Pied Wheatear

White Wagtail - M. a. dukhunensis

A few late migrants are still passing through with Mauryan (Steppe) Grey Shrike, Daurian Shrike and Turkestan Shrike all present in ones and twos, although whether these birds are winter visitors or migrants is difficult to ascertain. Good numbers of Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters, including adults and juveniles, were sitting on the low bushes around the site and Pied Wheatears were about in small numbers. Birds arriving for the winter included my first Bluethroats of the autumn as well as good number of Water Pipits and plenty of White Wagtails. The adult male birds we tend to get in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia have broad whitish fringes to the greater coverts making an obvious panel in the closed wing and showing similarities to the previously assigned race of White Wagtail Motacilla alba dukhunensis. Many birds of this race, occurring to the east of Saudi Arabia, have even broader white fringes that the photographed bird shown here, making an almost complete white panel. This race has been downgraded to M. a. alba in the latest  Helm Pipits and Wagtails book, but it is a distinctive type even if no longer regarded as a distinct race. Two Siberian Stonechats were colourful additions to the day list and resident birds were also showing well in the form of Purple Gallinule and Clamorous Reed Warbler. Wader numbers were still quite good with three Green Sandpiper, eight Common Snipe, five Sanderling, 100+ Dunlin, three Common Redshank, one Ruff and 200+ Common Ringed Plover.

First Bluethroats of the autumn – Ringing at Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

Nicole and I went ringing again at Alba Marsh on Friday morning.  A 04:30 hrs start allowed us to get to the site just before daylight and set the nets up. Nicole has now got her own nets, three 18 metre and two 12 metre nets and we were going to try to put all five up, however, after setting two nets in the best positions we had already caught a few birds so after setting the third net we began processing the caught ones. As it turned out we caught steadily all morning and ended up with 19 birds so never did set the other two nets. We caught mainly Clamorous Reed Warblers (12 birds including three re-traps all ringed at the same site late last year or this year), but we also caught a flava Yellow Wagtail, two Red-spotted Bluethroats (one race svecica) which were the first returning birds of the autumn and four Common Chiffchaffs. There were quite a few Water Pipits present, but we failed to catch any as we never got the time to set a net in their favourite place. As Nicole has got her own nets now, we returned Brendan’s nets to Abdulla to give back to Brendan when he sees him in a few days’ time in Ireland. It was really great of Brendan to let us borrow some of his nets when he returned to Ireland or we would not have been able to continue ringing until this week. It was also good to see Abdulla again after such a long time and we have arranged to try to meet him on the weeks we go ringing on Friday, as his advice and help are invaluable to us. Abdulla has not been catching a great deal of birds over the autumn but has managed to catch a few good ones for Bahrain including Wryneck, Western Marsh Harrier, Long-legged Buzzard and Hobby.

Red-spotted Bluethroat

Red-spotted Bluethroat

Red-spotted Bluethroat - svecica

Red-spotted Bluethroat - svecica

Common Chiffchaff

Clamorous Reed Warbler

First Siberian Stonechats - Dhahran Hills

Birding the patch over the last few days has produced a few interesting birds with the spray fields having the first returning Siberian Stonechats of the autumn and a female Pied Wheatear was seen in the nearby scrub. A really good flock of waders was on the settling pond with  35 Wood Sandpipers, four Green Sandpipers, two Common Redshanks, four Dunlins, four black-winged Stilts, 21 Little Stints, nine Common Snipes and a Common Sandpiper. The Wood Sandpipers were very flighty and did not remain very long before flying off and not landing again as far as I could tell. There were plenty of White Wagtails are around the edge of the settling pond as normal. The percolation pond  had 22 Eurasian Coots which is a high number for the site, seven Mallards (four adult males and three females), seven Eurasian Teals and the Great Crested Grebe is still present. Three Barn Swallow flew over the pond and 31 Western Cattle Egrets flew in to roost in the late evening. An adult Greater Spotted Eagle was in the trees surrounding the percolation pond in the early morning and was on one of the jebals yesterday evening.

Siberian Stonechat

Abha Dam Lake – Abha

I had a couple of quick looks at Abha Lake as it was easily viewable from the terrace at the fifth floor restaurant of our hotel the Abha Palace Hotel. The lake had a few good birds including one new Saudi Arabian species for me Hammerkop. I also saw six Black-crowned Night Herons and one Grey Heron. Other birds on the lake included Common Moorhen, Eurasian Coot and Little Grebe. Both Pale Crag Martin and Eurasian Crag Martin were seen flying about with one Little Swift and Barn Swallows were also regular over the lake. A single Western Marsh Harrier was also seen flying over the reed beds on one occasion. The lake has been developed on one side to make room for an amusement park but there are still quite extensive water and reed beds, and the area is relatively undisturbed as it is difficult to get to the water edge. 

Hammerkop

The Hammerkop occurs mainly in Africa south of the Sahara & Madagascar but also occurs in south-west Arabia from the lowlands to the top of Mount Soudah at almost 3000 metres above sea level. In Saudi Arabia they occur in wetland habitats including irrigated land, lakes and wadies are of the sub-species Scopus unbretta umbretta. I was unable to get any photographs at the lake so have posted a photo below of a Hammerkop by the Lilac-breasted Roller which is free to reproduce and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.