A big ‘fall’ of migrants - Sabkhat Al Fasl

I was able to go birding to Sabkhat Al Fasl for the first time in a month on Friday 16 May as I was unable to ring this weekend. An early morning start got me to the site at first light and it was obvious there had been a significant ‘fall’ of birds. There where Whinchats and Willow Warblers everywhere with birds flying out from underfoot at almost every step. Red-backed Shrike numbers were similarly high and I must have seen 75-100 birds of each species which is easily the highest number of Whinchats I have seen, in fact I probably saw more Whinchats in a day than I have seen in the previous four years in the Kingdom. The other very common species seen were Common Whitethroats and Spotted Flycatchers with over 30 birds seen, again mainly in the scrubby desert area. Plenty of other migrants were also seen in good numbers with Tree Pipits and up to ten Yellow Wagtails, mainly of the subspecies thunbergi present. This is getting late for this species as most pass early in the spring. Apart from Willow Warblers the reeds were alive with the song of Caspian Reed Warblers and Clamorous Reed Warblers and I had good views of a couple of Great Reed Warblers as well. Apart from the Red-backed Shrikes I also saw a single Lesser Grey Shrike and one Masked Shrike the first time I have seen this species at the location. Out on the flooded sabkha were plenty of terns, waders and herons but I will post about these later.

Whinchat

Willow Warbler

Red-backed Shrike

Red-backed Shrike

Common Whitethroat

Yellow Wagtail - thunbergi

Great Reed Warbler

Masked Shrike

Little Egret

Phil Roberts birded the site the weekend before and had a few good birds including a Golden Oriole in the trees along the road and a Corncrake. He also saw White-cheeked Terns and more than 10 Red-backed Shrike.  Other migrants included a couple of Barred Warblers, Spotted Flycatchers, two Whinchats and five or so European Bee-eaters.  There were also Little Bitterns in evidence and of course plenty of Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warblers and Caspian Reed Warblers.

Eurasian Golden Oriole Al Khobar Corniche – Bird record by Tyrone B. Diesca

I received an e-mail recently from Tyrone B. Diesca a filipino nature enthusiast who is living and working here in Al Khobar. He said “I and my friends loves to do some wildlife photography and started taking photos of birds here in Al Khobar particularly at the Corniche because we don’t know any birding sites yet” Tyrone kindly sent me a photo he took of a Eurasian Golden Oriole he took on 16 May 2014 taken near the construction of a mushroom like tower on Al Khobar Corniche which is shown below. There has obviously been an influx of this species into the Eastern Province this year, although they are not rare with a status here as an uncommon passage migrant mainly in spring. Records this year have come from various places in the province including a very large flock at KFUPM in Dhahran, Al Khobar and Sabkhat Al Fasl, Jubail.

Sooty & White-eyed Gulls - Jizan Fish Market

As I am very interested in gulls we stopped at the fish market in Jizan as well as the nearby fishing harbour. The harbour has been partially filled in but plenty of gulls were still using it as a resting area. The fish market is an excellent place to see both Sooty and White-eyed Gulls with plenty of birds normally resting on the roofs and feeding on scraps on the ground. You need to get to the market in the early morning when the fish are being landed and processed to see the largest number of birds. Early April proved to be good at the fish market with hundreds of gulls present with almost all Sooty and White-eyed but a few Steppe Gulls were also present. Below are a few photos of these two species whose range in Saudi Arabia spreads mainly up the Red Sea coast to north of Jeddah.

Sooty Gull

Sooty Gull

Sooty Gull

Sooty Gull

White-eyed Gull - adult

White-eyed Gull - adult

White-eyed Gull - immature

White-eyed Gull - immature

Shrikes, Warblers & Waders – Dhahran Hills

The number of arriving migrants has been steady throughout the last few days with many Shrikes, Warblers and Waders seen. The most common species, as has been the case for the last two weeks, are Red-backed Shrikes, but now plenty of females and immature birds have joined the adult males that comprised the first wave of this species when they arrived at the end of April. Other common birds seen were Willow Warblers and Common Whitethroats, but a few Sedge Warblers, Caspian Reed Warblers and Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warblers were in the reeds of the percolation pond along with a bird looking like a Basra Reed Warbler. This bird appeared to have a relatively long tail for the species, so as a result I am leaving it unidentified. Indian Reed Warblers are now singing from three different patches of reeds indicating breeding is again occurring on the camp. The breeding resident Graceful Prinias are active at the moment sitting in obvious places singing, most of them in the scrub surrounding the percolation pond. The other noticeable group of birds seen were Wood Sandpipers with a group of over 20 on the percolation pond and three on the settling pond. Small numbers of Kentish Plover are breeding in various areas of the camp some with well grown young. One or two other migrants were seen including a Northern Wheatear and a Whinchat but variety and numbers are certainly down this year when compared to previous years.

Red-backed Shrike

Red-backed Shrike

Red-backed Shrike

Red-backed Shrike

Sedge Warbler

Graceful Prinia

Whinchat

Wood Sandpiper

Pharaoh Eagle Owl nest with young near Zulfi – Bird records by Mansur Al Fahad & Mahammed Al Farhood

Mansur Al Fahad has just sent me an e-mail saying that when he was in Zulfi in late March 2014, his cousin Mohammed Al Farhood called him and said he had seen a Pharaoh Eagle owl nest close to his camp north of our village which is located about 40 km northwest of Zulfi in the depth of Nfud  Althwairat.
The next day Mansur went there and after lunch he left the camp in Muhammad's car (4x4) and went to the nest. The nest was in a very rugged area with extensive, very similar looking sand dunes a so the location will be difficult to refind. To get there you need a skilled driver who knows the area and fortunately for Mansur his neighbour had these skills. When they arrived near the place they approached very slowly and saw a pair of adult birds. Mansur could barely shoot two Images from a distance, and then they flew off some distance. The nest was at the bottom of a shrub called locally Ather and known scientifically as Artemisia monosperma. It is a common shrub in deep sand in Dahna, central and northern Saudi Arabia. There were three chicks in the nest keeping very quiet, and around there were droppings that contain the bones of some rodents. I would like to thank Mansur for the details and kindly allowing me to use his excellent photos and Mansur would like to thank Mohammed for this assistance.

Arabian Spiny-tailed Lizard sunning itself – Dhahran Hills

A few days ago I was walking around the jebals when I cam across an Arabian Spiny-tailed Lizard sunning itself on a rock. As I can from behind it I managed to get reasonably close before it noticed me and bolted down its hole. These lizards are relatively common in the camp and are widespread across Saudi Arabia preferring hard stony ground to excavate their holes. Spiny-tailed Lizard (Uromastyx spp.) is a medium to large sized, heavily built lizard with a spiny club like tail, which has been likened to a small living dinosaur. They are ground dwelling and live in some of the most arid regions of the planet including northern Africa, the Middle East, Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwestern India. The generic name (Uromastyx) is derived from the Ancient Greek words ourá (οὐρά) meaning "tail" and mastigo (Μαστίχα) meaning "whip" or "scourge", after the thick-spiked tail characteristic of the species. The Arabian Spiny-tailed Lizard Uromastyx aegyptia microlepis is most common in Saudi Arabia and is the one that occurs in the Eastern Province and is generally regarded as a subspecies of the Egyptian Spiny-tailed Lizard (Uromastyx aegyptia). It is locally known to the Arabs as 'Dhub' (Arabic:'‫ضب‬').

Dusty weather brings some birds – Dhahran Hills

The recent run of relatively poor weather has continued this week with some strong wind and plenty of dust in the air making photography quite difficult at times and restricting the views of birds in the field. Despite the poor weather I have still been out and about each evening and have been rewarded with a few interesting sightings. The first Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters were busy catching small insects in a worst of the dust on 11 May but the dust made it impossible to photograph the birds in flight. I did manage to get close to one bird that was reluctant to fly with the best photograph shown below. Spotted Flycatchers and Red-backed Shrikes remain the commonest birds on the camp with up to 15 of each species seen on single days. On one poor day the Spotted Flycatchers were all sitting around on the ground rather than on their preferred perches looking a bit sad for themselves. One Lesser Grey Shrike remained all week in the scrub desert area and a few European Turtle Doves were also seen in various places. A few warblers were also grounded by the weather with Willow Warblers and Common Whitethroats seen in various small patches of grass and scrub all over the camp. Other than the migrants a few Namaqua Doves are now paired up and getting ready for the breeding season with up to ten birds seen each day mainly in the spray fields area of the camp.

Blue-cheeked Bee-eater

Spotted Flycatcher

European Turtle Dove

Red-backed Shrike

Lesser Grey Shrike

Corncrakes – Bird records by Dave Kilmister

I received an e-mail from Dave Kilmister on 10 May saying “We had what was to me a surprising arrival on-site this week – at least six Corncrakes who have been feeding on the lawns in front of our main administration building all week. This is adjacent to our main entrance gate so the area sees a lot of vehicle and pedestrian traffic. The birds are nicely accustomed to cars, so it is possible to drive up next to them and get the bird filling the whole frame. But, because they are so tame, it is difficult to get them in the typical alert, upright pose. The gardens are thriving with Red-backed Shrikes, Rufous-tailed Scrub-robins, Lesser Grey Shrikes, and Tree Pipits also. I saw my first Golden Oriole today – it was at our water treatment ponds; a magnificent bird”. Dave also sent me a couple of great photographs of the Corncrakes he took and has kindly allowed me to use them on my website. Copyright of these photos remains with Dave. Dave’s camp is on the Gulf coast north of Jubail towards the Kuwait boarder.

The Corncrake is regarded as a scarce spring and autumn passage migrant, possibly largely overlooked due to its secretive behaviour. They normally pass between April and May and again in September and October with the majority of records from the Eastern Province in recent years being from the month of May like Dave’s birds. An indication that they pass regularly and are not seen is a paper on birds killed by overhead power lines in western Saudi Arabia where the most birds picked up dead under the power lines were Corncrakes with hundreds of birds found.

Golden Orioles at KFUPM – Bird records by Lorna Mackenzie

Lorna Mackenzie updated me the other day on the fact that the Eurasian Golden Orioles were still about and she had been watching them every day. The morning after she saw the big flock she located them from their song. “They are so strangely reminiscent of home as their song is like an echo of part of a Blackbird's song, and in flight they look very like Thrushes. Anyway, I think there may be at least a few dozen of them still present 10 May 2014 and there can easily be ten to twenty at a time feeding on one tree on the little figs”. Lorna has seen them flying to-and-fro a bit between KFUPM and Dhahran Saudi Aramco Camp but unfortunately as I do not bird this part of the camp I have yet to see them.  Lorna took her husband's camera out and tried to get a few shots of them. It's a good camera for his use, mainly architectural features and landscape shots, but although it has a decent zoom lens it has a terrible viewfinder so for something like birding it's generally a case of point-at-the-blob-of-colour and shoot. Lorna sent me a few photos of the birds and has kindly allowed me to use them here and which are shown below.

Apart for the Eurasian Golden Orioles Lorna has mentioned she is “very much enjoying the multitude of delicate little Warblers, the grey one I asked about is Upcher's, thanks for the tip, have been seeing them regularly. Having relaxed a bit about identifying each one I have been lucky to see a couple of those easier to identify among the many not, namely Blackcap, a lovely rufous female first and then male, and I saw Barred Warblers this morning, again a female first and then the male with his startlingly bright yellow eye; both firsts for me. Still lots of Spotted Flycatchers and a good few Red-backed Shrike around, waves of Barn Swallows passing through some days, quite a few Swifts - I think both Common and Pallid, and another first for me in Whinchat”.

Bird numbers increasing – Dhahran Hills

I have not been out as much as I would have liked the last week due to family commitments but managed a couple of evenings birding the ‘patch’. These proved very rewarding with plenty of birds even if the weather remained a little unsettled and overcast. The best bird seen was a Basra Reed Warbler in the long grass of the spray fields on 7 May along with a Great Reed Warbler, only the third time I have seen the species in Dhahran and the first time in the spring with the two other records in September. The most obvious and common birds were Red-backed Shrikes with well over twenty seen on the evening of 7 May. A flooded area of the spray fields had two Little Stints and a Wood Sandpiper with two Lesser Grey Shrike in the small bushes nearby, my first sightings of this species this year, although both Phil and Lorna who bird nearby had recorded them previously. Another bird that has become very common in recent days is the Spotted Flycatcher with more then 15 birds seen each evening. Other signs of migration were small numbers of both Sand Martin and Barn Swallow, a single Whinchat sitting exhausted on the ground and two Northern Wheatears. At least three Common Redstarts were flitting around in various places with 10+ Willow Warblers were doing likewise and a single calling Eastern Olivaceous Warbler was in the tress by the percolation pond. The pond had nothing of note except a Kentish Plover, Wood Sandpiper and Black-winged Stilt. The only other notable bird seen was a single Ortolan Bunting near to a pool left by one of the spray heads on the edge of the spray fields.

Lesser Grey Shrike

Red-backed Shrike

Red-backed Shrike

Red-backed Shrike

Whinchat

Spotted Flycatcher

Common Redstart - female

Ortolan Bunting