NCT Caspian & Common Stonechats – Sabkhat Al Fasl

Whilst birding at Sabkhat Al Fasl last weekend I saw a good number of wintering Stonechats. Most were NCT Caspian Stonechats (Eastern Siberian Stonechat) but I also saw a single male Common Stonechat. Both these species winter in Saudi Arabia with Common Stonechat much scarcer in the Eastern Province than Caspian Stonechat. The male Stonechats add a splash of colour to the drab winter scenery of many of the areas I bird and trying to work out what species or sub-species you are looking at adds a challenge to birding. The status of Common Stonechat is not very well know as all old data includes Siberian Stonechat with Common Stonechat under one species as they were previously regarded as the same species. Since I have been in Saudi Arabia, at least in the Eastern Province it is clear then Siberian Stonechat maura is an uncommon passage migrant and uncommon winter visitor, varigatus also has the same status but is less common on passage migrant and more common in winter. Common Stonechat appears to be a scarce passage and winter visitor but more data needs collecting on its status.

Common Stonechat - male

Common Stonechat - male

Common Stonechat - male

North Caspian Taxon Stonechat - male

North Caspian Taxon Stonechat - male

North Caspian Taxon Stonechat - male

Little Bittern, Common Kingfisher & more – Ringing at Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

Nicole and I went to Alba Marsh for our first ringing trip of the year. Mid-winter is not a peak time at the marsh but we have caught a few good birds in the past in January. We set up our nets in the normal areas although the reeds had been cut back since our last visit making the nets quite open and the wind was stronger than we had hoped. Very few birds were noticeable whilst setting up the nets even though we were there before first light and after two hours we had not caught a bird and thought it may be a waste of time. We stuck at it and caught 11 birds of seven species including re-trapped Common Kingfisher, Water Pipit and Graceful Prinia all ringed at the same site in late winter 2013. The best bird we caught was an adult female Little Bittern that was only the fourth caught at the site. Other birds caught included Bluethroat, Clamorous Reed Warbler and House Sparrow.

Little Bittern - adult female

Common Kingfisher - female

Bluethroat

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Graceful Prinia

House Sparrow - male (left) & female (right)

Water Pipit

Laura the satellite tagged Baltic Gull update – Bird records by Per Hansson

This is the latest update from Laura from 1 January 2014 where it is evident Laura has not left the Al Sehi area of Saudi-Arabia. The two first maps show the exact morning positions (9 o'clock) and the third shows a less accurate (but still possible) satellite positions (small squares) as well as the GPS positions (larger circle). Laura has been present for four months in Saudi Arabia now and it will be interesting to see how long she stays before moving back north to Sweden. If anyone is planning on visiting Jizan in the near future please can you contact me as we are still trying to obtain a photo of the bird in Saudi Arabia. The best days to go at present are Friday afternoon or Saturday since the fresh locations will arrive 13:00 hours each Friday until March 01. After that we will get report once a day (and positions from 00:00, 08:00 and 16:00 local time).

The usual suspects - Sabkhat Al Fasl

I went to Sabkhat Al Fasl on 4 January 2014 for my first visit of the year. This is a relatively quiet period in Saudi Arabia and the weather is very winter like with morning temperatures just reaching ten degrees Celsius. It was a relatively slow mornings birding but some interesting birds were seen. Up to six Daurian Shrikes were seen and a singe Turkestan Shrike which is similar to the species wintering status with Daurian Shrike being much commoner than Turkestan Shrike. Hundreds of Great Cormorants were flying over and fishing in the large wet areas with thousands of Large White-headed Gulls, mainly Steppe and Caspian Gulls. Quite a few Common Chiffchaffs were seen in the reed beds and plenty of Clamorous Reed Warblers and Graceful Prinia’s were seen in the reeds as well with several Bluethroats skulking around in the bottom of the reeds. At least fifty Water Pipits were on the sandy areas and tracks through the scrubby desert areas.

Daurian Shrike

Great Cormorant

Graceful Prinia

As always Purple Swamphens were seen in good numbers with both Grey-headed and Purple Headed varieties in about equal numbers. One Western Great Egret, hundreds of Indian Reef Herons and three Little Egrets were seen along with about ten Squacco Herons. Birds of prey included five Greater Spotted Eagles, two Western Ospreys, twenty Western Marsh Harriers and a single Eurasian Sparrowhawk. Three Common Kingfishers were seen flying around but there was no sign of last weeks White-throated Kingfisher.

Purple Swamphen

Indian Reef Heron

Greater Spotted Eagle

A bird that is relatively common at Sabkhat Al Fasl in winter but is difficult to see and photograph is the Common Starling. They form small flocks at the site but are normally only seen flying over of perched in the reed beds at great distance. Today I managed to find one below the power lines and when it flew and landed on the main pylons I took a few photographs of it, the first ones I have managed of the species since I have been in Saudi Arabia.

Common Starling

Waders were on the flooded sabkha area in reasonable numbers with most being Little Stints, Dunlin, Black-winged Stilts, Common Redshank and Common Greenshanks. Other waders seen included a single Grey Plover and one Marsh Sandpiper. Eleven Common Shelducks and about a thousand Greater Flamingo were out on the Flooded Sabkha with three Gadwall and five Eurasian Teal. Only two species of tern were seen, Caspian Tern and Gull-billed Tern and several hundred Slender-billed Gulls were also present.

Caspian Tern

White-throated Kingfisher (Sabkhat Al Fasl) – Bird records by Dave Kilmister

Dave Kilmister saw a White-throated Kingfisher at Sabkhat Al-Fasl on 27 December 2013. He was in excellent condition, but timid as always and was perched on a reed in a pond under some power-lines; all I could see was the red bill. He flew off before I could get a photo, but then perched on the power lines overhead for me where I took a photo (see below). Dave has kindly allowed me permission to use his photo on my website. There were also a flock of six Common Shelducks on the first, recently filled, evaporation ponds under the power-lines, which are a regular winter visitor to this site but rare elsewhere in Saudi Arabia.

This is the third sighting of White-throated Kingfisher at this site with the first on 31 August and the second in November. As the species is rare in the Eastern Province these sightings may all refer to the same bird wintering at the site which has happened in previous years. Dave also saw one at Qaryat Al-Oraya on 27 September 2013.

North Caspian Taxon Caspian Stonechat – Dhahran Hills

Whilst birding the ‘patch’ the last few days I have seen a very smart male variegatus sub-species of Eastern (Siberian) Stonechat now know as NCT or Northern Caspian Taxon. As mentioned previously the Stonechat complex is as its name suggests very complex and a new paper written by Lars Svensson, Hadoram Shirihai, Sylke Frahnert & Edward C. Dickinson on the Taxonomy and nomenclature of the Stonechat complex Saxicola torquatus sensu lato in the Caspian region. This paper suggests variegatus (S. G. Gmelin, 1774) from eastern Ukraine on the lower Don, east Crimea, the Kalmykiya plains north-east to the Volga Delta area, in the south on the northern slopes of Caucasus, apparently reaching north Azerbaijan (should be named as ‘NCT’ for ‘North Caspian Taxon’). The bird has been in the spray fields and may be the same bird as seen there a month ago? Other birds seen in recent days include a Greater Spotted Eagle, Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Common Greenshank, Common Redshank, Song Thrush, two Great Cormorants and 78 Western Cattle Egrets.

Northern Caspian Taxon - Eastern Stonechat

Northern Caspian Taxon - Eastern Stonechat

Northern Caspian Taxon - Eastern Stonechat

Cinereous Vulture (between Zulfi & Hafr Al Batin) – Bird records by Mansur Al Fahad

Three weeks ago, Mansur’s birder friend Mohammed Al Mohatresh watched a Cinereous Vulture Aegypius monachus with a group of Eagles between Zulfi and Hafr Al Batin close to the road. Mansur went to try to see it a few days later but did not find it. Two weeks ago he called Mansur and told him there was another bird 75 kilometres north of Zulfi that Mansur was able to see and take photographs of (see below pictures). Mansur has kindly allowed me to use his photographs on my website the copyright of which remains with Mansur. Last week Mohammed saw a picture of a bird on a Twitter account on the internet and immediately contacted the owner of the picture. He made a great effort to try to save the bird as the man told him it was wounded and could not fly. Mohammed went directly from Zulfi to northern Qassim to take the bird and contacted Dr. Mohammed Shobraq and Abdullah Alsuhaibani (working at the Center for Wildlife) to see if they could look after the bird and try to rehabilitate it. Muhammad went to Riyadh in the morning after taking a day off work and gave the bird to Mansur who delivered it to the Center for Wildlife for treatment. This is an excellent example of local birdwatchers making a difference in a positive way to the birds in the Kingdom and I congratulate them both on their effort and hard work.

Cinereous Vulture Aegypius monachus is a rare winter visitor to the northern Hejaz and Central Arabia that has been recorded once in Jeddah and once in the Eastern Province on the Dibdibah 18 & 19 December 1986. As a result of the status of the species it is possible/probable the birds all refer to a single individual, as the distance between the first and second sightings was about 100 kilometres to the west, and the distance from the second to the third sighting was about 80 kilometres to the north.

Camel in a Pivot irrigation field – Qarryat Al Ulya

Camels are, as you would imagine, quite a common sight in the deserts of Saudi Arabia and they come in all sorts of different colours. I have taken numerous photos of them over the years against their desert backgrounds but last month I found a group feeding on a stubble field adjacent to a large pivot irrigation field. This gave me the chance to take a photo of a white camel against a green rather than whitish background and the result came out reasonable well, I think. No matter how many times I see camels I am always happy to see more. They are really beautiful creatures from a distance, although they can be a bit temperamental if you get too close to them.

Eye colour of juvenile and adult Clamorous Reed Warblers – Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

Whilst ringing at Alba Marsh Bahrain we have caught and ringed over 50 Clamorous Reed Warblers. As the species is mainly sedentary, and the marsh is a small size, we re-trap quite a number of birds each year. This allows us to confidently age them as adults if the re-trap date is more than one year after original trapping. Although we have not done a scientific study of the birds it has become apparent that the eye colour of Clamorous Reed Warblers alters with age from a dull grey brown to a rich brownish. This has been noted before in European Reed Warblers (Karlsson K, Persson K & Walinder G 1988: Var Fagelvard 47 : 141-146) although we were unaware of this paper when we first thought the eye colour may change in adult birds. We have little data on Clamorous Reed Warblers and so this appears it may to be a good way to age birds. We will continue monitoring this as well as checking tongue spots and tarsus colour as this is also mentioned in the paper for European Reed Warblers as ways to help with ageing.

Clamorous Reed Warbler - Juvenile

Clamorous Reed Warbler - Juvenile

Clamorous Reed Warbler - Juvenile

Clamorous Reed Warbler - adult

Clamorous Reed Warbler - adult

Clamorous Reed Warbler - adult

Clamorous Reed Warbler - adult

Clamorous Reed Warbler - adult

Arabian Spiny-tailed Lizard – Dhahran Hills

Whilst out birding the ‘patch’ with my daughters last weekend we came across an Arabian Spiny-tailed Lizard sitting summing itself at the entrance to its burrow. The animals never move far from their holes so they can dart down them at any sign of trouble. This Arabian Spiny-tailed Lizard or Dub as the locals call it has been living in the same burrow for almost the whole year although I have not seen it for the last couple of months at least. The colour of this one is quite yellow as it has warmed up in the sun as when the day starts and they first come out of their holes they are a blue-grey colour changing to yellow as the heat up.