Shaybah - Rub Al Khali

The family travelled on a Saudi Aramco run trip to Shaybah on 4^th October. This is a very special trip as this area is basically out of bounds to most people residing in Saudi Arabia, and when you take into account how few foreigners live in Saudi Arabia the number of foreigners who have visited the area is very limited. We went by bus from Saudi Aramco Dhahran camp to the Saudi Aramco section of Damman Airport. Here we boarded a one hour flight that took us to the small landing strip at Shaybah where we disembarked. We were shown around the Shaybah camp and allowed two hours to enjoy the dunes and allow me a bit of time to see if I could see any bird species. The community uses recycled water to water areas and has a number of green sites including a large grass football field. This field was a haven for birds with over 200 House Sparrows, ten Eurasian Hoopoes, seven Yellow Wagtails and a Steppe Grey Shrike present. Other birds seen flying over included Barn Swallow and House Martin and a few Laughing Doves were around the compound. As the site is in the middle of the largest sand desert in the world it was quite amazing to see such a number of birds and shows that birds must be passing over the entire country during migration and can drop down onto suitable sites if found. I assume all birds were migrants with the exception of the Laughing Does and House Sparrows.


Eurasian Hoopoe

Eurasian Hoopoe



Eurasian Hoopoe




Yellow Wagtail



Yellow Wagtail



Yellow Wagtail

 The Rub Al Khali, is the largest desert in the world and has an area of about 650,000 sq km and it remained virtually unexplored until the 1950’s. Rub Al Khali means "Empty Quarter" in Arabic, reflecting the barren and forbidding nature of the southern Arabian desert with considerably more than half the area of the Eastern Province being covered by desert. The terrain is covered with reddish-orange sand dunes with heights up to 250 metres interspersed with gravel and gypsum plains and contains no oasis. Areas of the desert in the south-east, within the Eastern Province, are a vast, lowland, inwardly draining basin, with immense numbers of relatively stable, longitudinal, wind-driven dunes on a level substrate of sabkhas (salt flats) at 80-100 m above sea level. Some desert areas are covered with shifting sand dunes, while others are more stable flat or rippled expanses of sand. Shaped and moved by winds, sand dunes take the form of long ridges or tall hills. Sand, gravel, or bare rock basins lie between the dunes and few plants grow in these arid desert areas. Most of the area is totally waterless and is one of the driest on earth and is classified as ‘hyper-arid’, with typical annual rainfall of less than 30 millimetres and daily maximum temperatures averaging 47 °C but can reach as maximum of 56 °C. It is uninhabited except for a few wandering Bedouin tribes and some Oil exploration camps with the only settlement being the Saudi Aramco Shaybah camp. Even so 49 bird species were recorded during a survey in 1991 including nine proven or probable breeders (six within the sands proper). The most common species were Hoopoe Lark Alaeman alaudipes and Brown-necked Raven Carvus ruficaIlis (resident) and Desert Wheatear Oenanthe deserti and Desert Warbler Sylvia nana (wintering). A probable breeding site for Moorhen GaIlinula chlarapus was found, and a Crab Plover Dramas ardeala was seen, suggesting an overland passage. Open sandy areas with a good cover of bushes form the habitat used by most species. Extreme aridity and the absence of trees and annual plants are probably the major factors limiting diversity and density of species.

Shaybah - Rub al Khali

At the weekend the family went to Shaybah which is located 800 kilometers southeast of Dhahran, by a Saudi Aramco flight. In 1998 Saudi Aramco completed an accelerated program to produce 500,000 barrels of oil per day of Arabian Extra Light crude oil from the remote Shaybah field in the Rub' al-Khali desert which has since been expanded to handle 750,000 barrels of oil per day. Its remote location, local summer temperatures in excess of 50 degrees Celsius and sand dunes higher than 300 meters presented serious challenges including moving 30 million cubic meters of sand and constructing, four gas-oil separation plants (GOSPs), a 640-kilometer pipeline to transport the crude oil to Abqaiq, a Boeing-737 capable airport, residential and industrial facilities and a 400 kilometer road through the desert. In 2011, Shaybah Producing Facilities won the Gulf Cooperation Council’s Environmental Excellence Stewardship Award for the category of “Best Industrial Establishment Complying with Environmental Standards & Regulations.” Among the initiatives that led to the award was implementation of zero flaring technology, wastewater recycling, emissions recovery and wildlife protection. The award reflects Saudi Aramco’s diligence in adhering to the best environmental standards, applying state-of-the-art technologies, and spreading environmental awareness to the community. The community uses recycled water to water areas and has a number of green sites including a large grass football field. This field was a haven for birds with over 200 House Sparrows, ten Eurasian Hoopoes, seven Yellow Wagtails and a Steppe Grey Shrike present. You can see from the last photo how large the dunes are as my family can be seen in the picture for scale.

Common Snipe & Grey Wagtail – Dhahran Hills

Although the number of birds seen in the autumn is low the number of species seen is quite high with 78 species recorded by me on the ‘patch’ in September. The newest species recorded were a Grey Wagtail feeding about in the drainage ditch wet flash, which was the first record of the species since March 2012 and a Common Snipe also the first record since March. Grey Wagtail is an uncommon but regular passage migrant from February to May & from August to October being more common in the spring with March being the best month to see the species. Birds are almost always seen near water with the drainage ditches the best places to see the species in Dhahran. The Common Snipe was also in the wet flash area with the species being a common passage migrant and winter visitor from August to April with the odd rare summer record.  Other good birds seen included the first year Citrine Wagtail still in the same place and seen feeding together with the Grey Wagtail, three Temminck’s Stints, two Little Stints and two Green Sandpipers. The percolation pond was relatively quiet with the only new birds three adult male Mallards sitting at the very back of the pond. A single juvenile Purple Heron and one juvenile Squacco Heron were also noteworthy.


Common Snipe

Little Stint

Citrine Wagtail - first year

Grey Wagtail

Purple Heron - Dammam / Al Khobar Wader Roost South

Whilst birding the Dammam / Al Khobar Wader Roost South I saw an unusual sight of a juvenile Purple Heron standing with the large waders in the sea some distance from shore. As the tide pushed in, the Purple Heron flew off and came inland and landed on a pile of building rubble dumped in the area by someone. This allowed me to approach the bird in the car but before I could get close to it, it flew, luckily towards me. I took a few flight shots of the bird some of which turned out quite nicely. Other herons seen in the area were three Grey Herons and seven Indian Reef Herons, five white morphs and two grey morphs. I have seen Purple Heron previously at this site, last autumn but the birds were in the sea vegetation at the high tide point and not right out in the water as this bird was.


Purple Heron

Purple Heron

Purple Heron

Purple Heron

Grey Heron

Gulls & Terns - Dammam / Al Khobar Wader Roost south

The Dammam / Al Khobar Wader Roost South is now getting more and more difficult to view due to the continual building work going on at the site. A trip there on Friday produced a few waders but a large build-up of Terns and Gulls has occurred since I was last at the site. Most of the Terns were Lesser Crested Terns with at least 150 birds present most of them in wing moult. A number of Saunders/Little Terns were also present. Slender-billed Gull numbers had increased to 57 birds with everyone an adult. A number of Large White-headed Gulls were present with three Steppe Gulls and a Caspian Gull and a number of other birds too distant to identify. Waders included Terek Sandpiper, Grey Plover, Bar-tailed Godwit, Eurasian Curlew, Whimbrel, Sanderling (three birds), Dunlin, Common Redshanks and Black-winged Stilt. I went to the Dhahran Expro high tide wader roost, but the sun was in the wrong direction making viewing almost impossible. There were a lot of birds present but the only interesting one I could identify was a Temminck’s Stint.


Lesser Crested Tern

Lesser Crested Tern

Lesser Crested Terns

Slender-billed Gull

Eurasian Curlew

Dunlin

Black-winged Stilt

Black-eared Kite - Sabkhat Al Fasl

Whilst birding at Sabkhat Al Fasl I found a juvenile Black Kite sitting on the mud on one of the dry concrete settling pools. The bird never allowed close approach and soon flew off into the reedy area. I later saw the same bird in flight in a similar area where it circled up into the sky and few off inland. The Black Kite is a medium-sized bird of prey that is a widespread species throughout the temperate and tropical parts of Eurasia and parts of Australasia with two sub-species, European Black Kite & Black-eared Kite being uncommon to rare migrants and rare winter visitors to the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Black-eared Kite M. m. lineatus not sufficiently distinctive to justify specific status and there is a large interbreeding zone between these two sub-species in Central Asia, Siberia & Mongolia and these intergrades may well occur in Saudi Arabia. This bird appears to be a Black-eared Kite type due to the pale vent, well streaked under-parts excepting vent and prominently marked primaries with larger white under-wing patch. Black-eared Kites have only been sub-specifically identified in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia this year and all records are from the Jubail area from June onwards.

 

Little Crake - Sabkhat Al Fasl

Whilst at Sabkhat Al Fasl on Thursday I found a juvenile Little Crake feeding along the edge of the reeds. Eventually after waiting some time the bird came out into the open and gave good views before returning to the reeds and disappearing. The species is seldom recorded in the Eastern Province although I suspect it is an uncommon migrant through the region. This year has been exceptional for the species with up to five present daily in Dhahran Hills during the spring. I have only seen one at Sabkaht Al Fasl before and it was also an immature in autumn, but I am sure records are more common at the site but the extensive reed beds makes it very difficult to locate the species.

Little Crake is a scarce but regularly recorded passage migrant in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, mainly in marshy areas or pools overhung by vegetation. Birds generally occur during spring migration from February to end of April with peak numbers in March where up to five birds were present in Dhahran Saudi Aramco Camp in the wet areas by the percolation pond in February and March 2012. Birds occur during autumn migration from September to October with the grassy irrigated areas of Haradh being the best place to locate the species where surprisingly high numbers have been located. A few birds have wintered at Abqaiq and Al-Uyan and an immature was at Sabkhat Al Fasl (Jubail) on 24^th November 2011.

Pied Avocets - Sabkhat Al Fasl

An early morning trip to Sabkhat Al Fasl on Thursday produced a few good birds including a nice juvenile Little Crake and a juvenile Black-eared Kite, details of which I will post later in the week. Typical birds were 100+ Grey Heron and 50+ Squacco Heron and a single Balck-crowned Night Heron. Terns were about in good numberswith 20+ Little/Saunder's Terns, seven White-winged Terns and 125 Caspian Terns. At least ten Western Marsh Harriers were flying about over the reeds and 25+ Yellow Wagtails were flying over calling. Waders were still about in good numbers including 400+ Dunlins, 200+ Kentish Plovers, 25 Common Ringed Plovers, 50+ Leser Sand Plovers, 15 Pied Avocets, one Greater Sand Plover and a Marsh Sandpiper. Twelve Greater Flamingos and six Northern Shoveller were out on the Sabkhat. Other migrants included a Blue-cheeked Bee-eater, one Great Reed Warbler, two Daurian Shrikes and a Red-backed Shrike.


White-winged Tern

White-winged Tern

Caspian Tern

Caspian Tern

Caspian Tern

Pied Avocet

Pied Avocet

Squacco Heron

Squacco Heron

Western Marsh Harrier

Spotted Crake again - Dhahran Hills

A quick trip to the Dhahran Hills drainage ditch and surrounding scrubby desert produced a couple of interesting birds. The first Common Kestrel of the autumn, a female, was seen flying over and perching in the tallest tree in the area where it stayed until I left. Two grey shrikes were seen, the first was a juvenile Lesser Grey Shrike and the other a Southern Grey Shrike. Two Spotted Flycatchers were also present catching insects from the small scrubby bushes and a couple of Eurasian Hoopoes were feeding in the same area. The ditch had a single Green Sandpiper, one juvenile Common Moorhen and the same Spotted Crake as seen a few days before. Spotted Crake is a scarce passage migrant with a few birds overwintering in some years. It is probably an overlooked species, due to its skulking nature with birds in autumn occurring from September to December but mainly in October and November.