A scattering of Shrikes – Sabkhat Al Fasl

Last weekend there were a few more signs of migration occurring and one of the signs were the few shrikes that had started to appear. A nice male Woodchat Shrike was my first one of the autumn and I also saw a Lesser Grey Shrike, a male Red-backed Shrike and a Daurian Shrike. Great Reed Warblers were seen in a few places, as were the resident Indian Reed Warblers but apart from this the only other warbler seen was a Common Whitethroat. Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters, Yellow Wagtails, Greater Short-toed Larks, Spotted Flycatchers, Barn Swallows, Sand Martins were also seen as was my first Western Marsh Harrier of the year, with both males and females seen and a total of at least five birds. A dark raptor flew over and away but my views were poor, although it may have been a Booted Eagle, but I am not claiming it. A Tree Pipit was also seen along the edge of the reed-beds and was my first one of the autumn. Wader numbers were still quite high with good numbers of Common Ringed Plover, Little Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Ruff and Lesser Sand Plover and lesser numbers of Pied Avocet, Greater Sand Plover, Ruddy Turnstones, Common Redshank and Marsh Sandpiper. Good numbers of herons were also about with lots of Squacco Herons instead of the one or two the week before and plenty of Purple Herons and Grey Herons. There were hundreds of Indian Reef Herons on the sabkha and good numbers of Greater Flamingo have returned for the winter.

Lesser Grey Shrike

Indian Reed Warbler

Yellow Wagtail

Little Grebes

Common Ringed Plover

Ruff

Indian Reef Herons

Squacco Heron

Western Marsh Harriers return to Tabuk – Bird records by Viv Wilson

Viv Wilson has been out birding his local area of Tabuk and sent me a number of good photos of Western Marsh Harrier taken at the weekend. This species is a common winter visitor to marshes and wetlands throughout Saudi Arabia and can also be seen elsewhere on migration in September and October and April and May. Viv’s local wetland area in Tabuk is an excellent location for seeing the species, as is Sabkhat Al Fasl in the Eastern Province. Even though birds are common in winter they are not easy to take photos of due to their cautious nature so viv has done well to capture so many good photos.

A good afternoons birding on the ‘patch’ – Dhahran Hills

On Friday I took my girls out for an afternoons birding and we had a great time and saw a few good birds. We have started taking out the new Collins bird guide on the I-Pad, which is great as the girls can find and see the birds that we are looking at. We went to the percolation pond as this is a good area for seeing birds through the telescope but before we got there a group of noisy motocross bikes scared all the birds into flight. This included an amazing 19 Purple Herons, easily the highest count I have had on the ‘patch’ for this species with the previous highest being 13. Also flushed were a few ducks including at least six Ferruginous Ducks, two Garganey and ten Northern Shovellers. Whilst walking around the pond we found four Ortolan Buntings including a really smart male and a 1^st year (Eastern) Black-eared Wheatear, that allowed very close approach and full frame photos. This species is seen each year on the camp but in very small numbers so this was  a good experience. Other migrants included a Squacco Heron and a juvenile white morph Indian Reef Heron along with a large group of 30+ Sand Martins. A Blue-cheeked Bee-eater added some colour and a Southern Grey Shrike eating some sort of prey in a thorn bush was educational for the girls. Waders included a few Ruff, Kentish Plovers, Common Ringed Plovers, Little Ringed Plovers, Little Stints, Wood Sandpipers and Black-winged Stilts and a single Temminck’s Stint and Green Sandpiper.

Eastern Black-eared Wheatear - 1st Year

Eastern Black-eared Wheatear - 1st Year

Eastern Black-eared Wheatear - 1st Year

Southern Grey Shrike

Ortolan Bunting

Green Sandpiper

Spotted Redshank and Common Redshank on wet ditch – Dhahran Hills

Both Spotted Redshank and Common Redshank are uncommon on the ‘patch’ with Spotted Redshank scarce. I had only seen the species a couple of times before and Phil only saw his first for Dhahran a few weeks ago. Most birds seen have been on the Percolation Pond where they are often quite distant so finding one on the wet ditch was a very pleasant surprise. This happened yesterday the day after I had seen a Common Redshank on the same wet ditch. This was the first time I had seen either species on the ditch showing wader passage is still in full swing. In the Eastern Province Common Redshank is a common passage migrant and winter visitor along the coast from August until March but is generally scarce from mid-march to mid-June. From July to October they are also common on pools away from the coast presumable concerning birds on migration. Spotted Redshank is an uncommon passage migrant and winter visitor, seen on migration from March to May and again from August to November. They are normally seen on pools away from the coast but are never common.

Spotted Redshank

Spotted Redshank

Spotted Redshank

Spotted Redshank

Common Redshank

Common Redshank

Arabian Grey Shrike - Dhahran Hills

Whilst birding the ‘patch’ last week I found a Shrike on top of a dead date palm in the disused spray fields. The Grey shrikes in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia are very confusing and there is often healthy debate between the birders of the region over what species, and subspecies, individual birds are. This is partly caused by most of the sub-species being clinal in nature and more than one subspecies occurring in Arabia, but I think the bird below is an Arabian (Southern) Grey Shrike Lanius m. aucheri. This is due to the bill being deeper based than a typical Mauryan (Steppe) Grey Shrike Lanius m. pallidirostris. The dark lores appear too dark for pallidirostris, which normally show a slightly paler mask, the bill, however, is not really jet black like typical aucheri. The mask of this bird extends over the bill a typical character of aucheri and although it can be seen on occasional palidirostris it is not normally this obvious. The grey mantle colour is difficult to judge on this bird. The wings are sooty black which is a character of aucheri rather than pallidirostris.
The amount of white in the closed secondaries is less on the Arabian Grey Shrike compared to the Mauryan Grey Shrike and this bird, although only seen flying once appeared to have the white almost entirely restricted to the primaries.

Increasing numbers of ducks – Dhahran Hills

Small numbers of ducks have been using the percolation pond for the last few weeks with the majority being Garganey. On 10 September there was an increase in numbers with the count of Ferruginous Ducks being the highest number seen together on the pond since I have been in Saudi Arabi. A few days ago there were three birds but on 10^th September this had increased to 11. They remained mainly on their own, in a group, but were occasionally seen associating with one or two Northern Shovellers, whose total number was 13. Apart from the ducks already mentioned two Garganey were also seen on the pond. Again these birds were all very flighty and would not allow close approach at all, but always flew around and landed back on the pond allowing a few flight photographs to be taken. Other interesting birds seen on the pond included 10+ Sand Martins, several Yellow Wagtails and three Common Sandpipers. The only other migrant of note seen was a couple of Isabelline Wheatears and one Northern Wheatear.

Ferruginous Ducks

Ferruginous Ducks

Ferruginous Ducks

Ferruginous Ducks

Garganey

Garganey

Northern Shoveller

New born Arabian Spiny-tailed Lizard – Record by Mansur Al-Fahad

The below photograph of a new born Arabian Spiny-tailed Lizard was sent to me by Mansur Al Fahad who has kindly allowed me to use it on my website. The 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 north-western 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. When cold they are a blue colour and when warm from sunbathing they turn a yellow colour  The Arabian Spiny-tailed Lizard (Uromastyx aegyptia microlepis) is common in Saudi Arabia 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').

A few migrants on the ‘patch’ – Dhahran Hills

The last few days on the ‘patch’ have turned up a few migrants but not very many. Bee-eaters have been passing over in small numbers with most being European Bee-eaters but one or two Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters also noted. One bird gave very good views and allowed close photos to be taken which is quite unusual for the species. Other migrants seen included two Spotted Flycatchers and a Common Whitethroat seen from my office window and the first Daurian Shrike of the autumn on the fence around the percolation pond. The pond itself has more water now and the muddy edges are not so attractive to waders but one Black-tailed Godwit still remains along with a few Little Stints and the number of Garganey has increased from two to 14 with the three Ferruginous Ducks also associating with them in a loose way. Two Grey Herons were flying over the pond one evening the first time I have seen the species on the patch for some months and two Western Cattle Egrets were the first returning birds of the autumn in Dhahran, although I did see one at Sabkhat Al Fasl the previous weekend. Three Greater Short-toed Larks were by the edge of the pond along with three Common Sandpipers and a Green Sandpiper has been spending some time on the wet ditch.

Blue-cheeked Bee-eater

Garganey

Garganey

Green Sandpiper

At last some migrants – Sabkhat Al Fasl

Last weekends birding at Sabkhat Al Fasl at last produced some migrants. Normally by the end of August good numbers of birds are already passing through the Eastern Province but this years migration appears to have been delayed for some unknown reason.  Up until last weekend we had only seen a handful of Yellow Wagtails and not much else but this weekend although numbers were low a few migrant species were seen. These included a couple of Spotted Flycatchers, 20+ Yellow Wagtails, two Common Whitethroats, Great Reed Warbler, ten Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters and plenty of Barn Swallows and Sand Martins. No shrikes were seen though which was a surprise. The majority of bids seen as normal were herons, waders and terns with plenty of all. An increasing number of Grey Herons were seen with over 30 birds and a single Purple Heron was the first of the autumn for me. Three Lesser Short-toed Larks were an unusual sight for the location seen in the same area where the Egyptian Nightjars have been all summer. There were still a minimum of six birds present on Friday, meaning birds have been seen from June to September this year at this location. Other interesting birds seen included a Common Kestrel, a juvenile Ruddy Turnstone, several Common Mynas, one Western Cattle Egret the first of the autumn and a good showing of purple Swamphens.

Spotted Flycatcher

Yellow Wagtail

Terek Sandpipe 

Ruddy Turnstone - juvenile

Purple Swamphen

Common Kestrel

Blue-cheeked Bee-eater

Egyptian Nightjar

Egyptian Nightjar