Plenty of Terns – Sabkhat Al Fasl

Although very few birds are currently about at Sabkhat Al Fasl there are plenty of terns. Some of them have bred at the site such as Little Terns, with 50+ adults and 10+ juveniles. Others have bred nearby with White-cheeked Terns using the Arabian Gulf offshore islands as their main breeding sites. They are late breeders and will only now be having very small chicks that will be unable to fly. In a month or so they flying juveniles will also be seen at Sabkhat but now is too early.

Little Tern

Little Tern

White-cheeked Tern

Other terns such as White-winged Terns are passing back though on migration? Or are very late spring migrants. Both Adults in full breeding plumage and non-breeding adults were present with five birds seen in total. Caspian Tern and Gull-billed Tern were also present in very small numbers, both of which breed in the local area, but where I am not too sure.

White-winged Terns - adult summer

White-winged Tern - adult summer

White-winged Tern - adult summer

Mainly Herons and Waders – Sabkhat Al Fasl

The weekend trip to Sabkhat Al Fasl started later than normal as my family came along to see if we could get good views of the Greater Flamingo flock that has been around since winter. Bird numbers were very low and very few migrants seen although two late Spotted Flycatchers and a late adult male Red-backed Shrike added some flavour to the proceedings. The only other migrants seen, excluding waders, was five Barn Swallows and a large group of 30+ Sand Martins. Basically the only other birds seen were water birds with plenty of terns including White-winged Tern, Caspian Tern, Gull-billed Tern, Little Tern and White-cheeked Tern. Five Purple Swamphens and plenty of Common Moorhen were seen along with several species of heron including Little Egret, Indian Reef Heron, Little Bittern and Sqaucco Heron.

Indian Reef Heron - white morph

Indian Reef Heron - white morph

The flooded sabkha still held 300+ Greater Flamingos but they were distant and several waders including several hundred Black-winged Stilts including many juveniles indicating another good breeding year. Kentish Plover have also had a good breeding season with plenty of adults and chicks running around various parts of the site. The only other waders seen were 7 Little Stints, five Little Ringed Plovers and one Greater Sand Plover.

Black-winged Stilt - juvenile

Kentish Plover

Kentish Plover - chick

Little Stint

Greater Sand Plover

Breeding Black-winged Stilts – Dhahran Hills

Black-winged Stilts have bred again on the percolation pond with a pair of birds successfully rearing four young from a nest built on one of the floating platforms. This is the second year in a row birds have used the floating platform for breeding on but this time it was the platform further out in the pond whereas last year it was the closer in platform. The young jump into the water when they are old enough and walk on the submerged weeds to the edge of the pond where they hide in the reeds until they grow bigger. Last year another pair of birds, breed on the muddy edge of the pond in a scrape made of mud, but this year the water levels have been higher and I have not noticed any breeding behaviour on the edge of the pond. They may still be nesting in this area, as it is very overgrown with reeds this year and difficult to see much inside. Other larger juvenile birds are still present on the pond but they have almost certainly bred elsewhere.

Black-winged Stilts are fantastic parents and make huge amounts of noise if anyone or anything gets too close to their offspring. Last year Phil Roberts took a fantastic photograph of an adult birds attacking a Western Osprey that was sitting in a dead tree too close to the waters edge of the percolation pond for the adult Black-winged Stilts liking, which he kindly allowed me to use on my website previously.

Breeding Kentish Plovers - Dhahran Expro Wader Roost

Whilst looking along the coast recently I found numerous Kentish Plovers with young in various stages of development. They have obviously had a good breeding season this year as quite a few have bred, on Saudi Aramco Dhahran camp this year as well. Birds breed along the whole coast of the Eastern Province, using saline wetlands as well as a few inland freshwater areas. The breeding birds appear to be resident although the species occurs as a passage migrant as well as numbers increase during the migration season. The breeding season is very extended in the Dammam area with young seen from February until late July at least and many pairs have more than one brood. As can be seen from the photographs below with birds at various stages of development towards adulthood breeding is not timed to occur during one tight breeding cycle. Kentish Plovers are good parents with adults regularly using distraction displays to distract attention of stray dogs or people form their nearby young. I saw a stray dog almost step on a hiding young Kentish Plover as it tried to chase what it thought was an injured adult bird pretending to have a damaged wing.

Extremely worn Large White-headed Gull – Sabkhat Al Fasl

Large White-headed Gulls (LWG) are winter visitors to the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia where we get mainly Steppe Gulls (75%), Caspian Gulls (15%), Heuglin’s Gulls (8%), Armenian Gulls (1%) and Baltic Gulls. Almost all summer records of LWG are immature birds but last weekend I found and extremely unusual looking LWG that was in adult plumage. The problem was it was difficult to work out what species was involved as it had features that fitted both Caspian Gull and Steppe Gull. To me at least, it looks more like a Steppe Gull but this can not be claimed positively. The lack of head feathers makes the bill look very long a feature of Caspian Gull and the upper-wing pattern could also fit either type but looks better for Steppe Gull. This is the first adult LWG I have seen in the summer months and made an interesting interlude to a day of mainly seeing the common summer breeding birds of the site. I would like to thank Jan Jorgensen for discussion on this bird.

Little water and few birds Dhahran Expro Wader Roost – Dammam

All the wader sites in the Dammam / Al Khobar are slowly being destroyed by land reclaim or building work. The Dhahran Expro Wader Roost has very little water now as there is building work where a high wall has been placed across the nearby water and it is stopping water seeping into the wader roost site. The small amount of water left still has a few birds with most of them being Greater Sand Plovers with about 100 birds present some in summer plumage. Other waders there included a single Grey Plover, one Little Stint, 20+ Black-winged Stilts and 50+ Kentish Plovers. It will be interesting to see if the larger waders still use this site when they start returning in a months time as this was the best place for seeing Bar-tailed Godwits and Eurasian Curlews.

Greater Sand Plover

Kentish Plover

Very few other birds were about but there were two white morph Indian Reef Herons and a Grey morph bird and three Little Terns resting on the mud. Otherwise just about the only other birds I saw were a few House Sparrows.

Indian Reef Herons - white & grey morphs

Crab Plover – Dammam Al Khobar Wader Roost south

A trip to the Dammam Al Khobar Wader Roost south was undertaken as the weather had been so windy I was hoping for a few displaced birds to be seen. Activity on the wader roost was very low although I did see the first returning Crab Plover of the summer, which is slightly earlier than normal. Birds should now be seen until late October with luck and this site is easily the best in the Dammam / Al Khobar area. Crab Plovers are common on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia but are uncommon on the Arabian Gulf coast of the Eastern Province. They are seen much more commonly to the north with records from Kuwait being very common in the summer.

Crab Plover

Other waders included 50+ Eurasian Curlews, 10+ Greater Sand Plovers, five Black-winged Stilts and 20+ Kentish Plovers. A few Indian Reef Herons were feeding in the salt grass area. The only other birds seen were some terns with 23 Caspian Terns, one Gull-billed Tern, five Little Terns and six Lesser Crested Terns.

Black-winged Stilt

Kentish Plover

Little Tern

Breeding Little Grebes – Dhahran Hills

There are a lot of Little Grebes breeding on the percolation pond this year. I counted 15 nests in the floating reeds of the pond which is an increase on last year where there were 12 nests found. All the birds are sitting on eggs at the moment, which is surprising as there are some quite well grown young at Sabkhat Al Fasl at present. Most of the nests are well away from the edge of the pond but one is in a quiet corner where I could take photographs through the wire surrounding-fence. The photographs below show two different birds on two different nests. The pond appears to be a very safe place this year as the predatory Grey Heron that killed and ate a number of young birds last year including European Coot and Little Grebe is not present at the moment.

The species has only become a widespread breeding species since the 1970’s and it is thought that about 500 pairs breed in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. It has increased its range in Arabia as well as its numbers due to the increase in wetland areas created by treated waste water sites and water runoff areas.

Only a couple of waders – Dhahran Hills

Birding the ‘patch’ has become a little less interesting recently and there are virtually no migrants about now. The last few days have been extremely windy with large amounts of dust in the air making birding difficult but I have still been struggling along. The only migrants about have been a single Spotted Flycathcer and several Sand Martins near the spray fields with a Little Tern on the percolation pond. The best place recently has been the settling pond where a few waders have been seen each day with six Black-winged Stilts and four Kentish Plovers. There are several signs of breeding activity in the camp now with several birds breeding so I am busy collecting data for mike Jenning’s Arabian Breeding Birds Atlas project which keeps my interest alive during the slow birding months of June and July.

Black-winged Stilt

Kentish Plover

A good summers day birding – Sabkhat Al Fasl

An early morning trip to Sabkhat Al Fasl was conducted with not too much hope of seeing anything good as the birds had almost completely dried up in Dhahran. I was to be pleasantly surprised by the birds I saw at Sabkhat. Nothing was seen on the way into the site and not much around the concrete bunded area with the exception of a few Little Terns and White-cheeked Terns. At the far end of the site there was a nice gathering of Barn Swallows and Sand Martins but little else. A very scruffy Turkestan Shrike was seen on the way back to the main reed bed showing that at least some migrants were still about. A very late Western Marsh Harrier was over the reed beds, this being my latest record for the species at the site. The wet scrape had a number of Little Terns including adults feeding juveniles on freshly caught fish and an adult male Little Bittern flew across and landed in the reeds on the far side.

Little Tern - adult

Little Tern - juvenile

Little Tern - adult & juvenile

Little Bittern - adult male

The wet area by the water pumping station had a beautiful adult female Red-necked Phalarope along with 50+ Black-winged Stilts. A few Purple Swamphens were walking about as if they owned the place, which they possibly do as they are the largest birds there. Clamorous Reed Warblers and European Reed Warblers were singing from the reed beds with the Clamorous in the newly growing reeds and the European Reed Warblers in the more established reed beds. Nearby a few Squacco Herons in full breeding plumage were seen feeding and flying about in the very strong wind.

Purple Swamphen

Squacco Heron - adult summer

Squacco Heron - adult summer

The flooded Sabkha area has dried out a little but still has plenty of water and several hundred Greater Flamingos are still present although spending the entire time right in the middle of the water well away from the shore. Only a few waders were seen but one surprise was a Greater Sand Plover feeding with a group of Kentish Plovers and a single Little Stint. Indian Reef Herons of both colour morphs were plentiful although white birds outnumbered black ones by ten to one. Caspian Terns, Little Terns and White-cheeked Terns were plentiful here and I also found one adult summer plumaged White-winged Tern.

Greater Sand Plover

Little Stint

White-winged Tern - adult summer

White-winged Tern - adult summer

White-winged Tern - adult summer

Indian Reef Heron