Relatively few birds - Dammam / Al Khobar Wader Roosts

A trip to Dammam – Al Khobar Wader Roost at high tide produced relatively few birds. There were two House crows flying around disturbing the waders, which is the first time I have seen them at this site. The wader roost is only about five kilometres from Dammam Port Mangroves which is the best site for the House Crow that I know so they have probably spread from there? Wader numbers were low even though the tide was good with the most common species, apart from Black-winged Stilt being Ruddy Turnstone. The first returning birds were only seen three weeks ago but now numbers have built up to 50+ birds. Greater and Lesser Sand Plovers were present in very small numbers and five Common Greenshanks were feeding in the rising water.


Ruddy Turnstone



Greater Sand Plover



Greater Sand Plover



Greater Hoopoe-Lark

As numbers were so low I went to Dammam – Al Khobar Wader Roost south and here numbers were slightly higher. Larger waders use this site and Eurasian Curlew and Whimbrel numbers were both over 25 birds. A minimum of 40 Bar-tailed Godwits with a couple in full breeding plumage were present but this species always stays far from the shore. In amongst the Bar-tailed Godwits were three adult Crab Plovers and a single Eurasian Oystercatcher. Lesser Sand Plover numbers are building up with 100+ seen and 300+ Greater Sand Plovers with a very high count of 108 Terek Sandpipers. Numbers are building up slowly but, hopefully, over the next couple of weeks things should pick up. The only non-wader I saw, that was of any interest, was a Greater Hoopoe lark that was catching insects on the mud flats by running after them which was quite comical.

Spur-winged Lapwing - Dhahran Hills

Even though things have been quiet on the 'patch' in recent weeks I have still been going out every day and today it paid off nicely with a Spur-winged Lapwing on the Percolation Pond. This is a vagrant to the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, although it is recorded regularly from Riyadh to the west of the country. There are only two previous record in Dhahran a far as I know, including a bird I found on the same pond at the end of May 2011. The Birds of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia by Bundy, Connor & Harrison (published in August 1989) only has two records and only a couple of other sightings are known to me for this area. Unfortunately the bird was scared off by a mountain biker and flew off over the airbase. I was looking at the bird through the telescope at the time so only managed to grab a very poor flight shot. Not much else was seen with the exception of two European Turtle Doves, a number of Barn Swallows, one Little Stint and a Ruff. The settling pond had two Little Ringed Plovers and two Marsh Sandpipers which are the first birds of the autumn in Dhahran for me.

Spur-winged Lapwing

European Turtle Dove

 

European Turtle Dove

Migration still slow - Dhahran Hills

Migration has still not really picked up yet in Dhahran although a few migrants are very slowly making their way through. Autumn migration is always slower and more drawn out than spring migration, but normally there are a few more birds about that at present. Migrants seen in the last few days on the ‘patch’ include up to 20 Barn Swallows & five Eurasian Hoopoes, although it is difficult to know if birds are migrants or residents in the camp as a few birds breed here and stay all year. The percolation pond still has the juvenile Little Bittern present and a single Gull-billed tern was still catching frogs but apart from the breeding birds here very little else of note was seen. The main settling pond has one small area of water on it and this held five Little Ringed Plovers, two Little Stints and seven Black-winged Stilts. Dove numbers are building up with many juvenile birds now present. Eurasian Collared Dove is the commonest followed by Laughing Dove, Namaqua Dove & European Turtle Dove. Small flocks of House Sparrow and White-eared Bulbul are also forming in the spray fields and around the percolation pond and one or two Eastern Olivaceous Warblers and Rufous-tailed Scrub Robins are still about in the scrub beside the pond.


Laughing Dove



White-eared Bulbul

White-crowned Wheatear - Shedgum Escarpment

A very early morning trip to the Shedgum Escarpment with Bob Roberts was undertaken to look for White-crowned Wheatear Oenanthe leucopyga. Bob had seen birds in this area in 2009 and I had failed to see them earlier in the year when I visited. Bob said the birds preferred areas near to the steep cliff faces and as we arrived at dawn it was not too hot so we had a walk around some likely looking areas. This failed to turn up any wheatears with the only birds being seen a Desert Lark and a few Rock Doves. We then decided to drive along the edges of the cliff faces, or as close as we could get in the four-wheel drive Landcruiser so we could cover more ground. On the way back from the cliff towards the main road I spotted a bird sitting on a rock and it soon became apparent it was a 2^nd calendar year White-crowned Wheatear. The bird did not have a white crown and the tail was spotted black on all the tail feathers indicating its age. We watched this bird for some time before deciding to continue on the look for an adult with a white crown. We proceeded to the top of the plateau and had a look around but the wind had got up and there was nothing to see up there, so we came back down and continued along the bottom of the cliff. Here we saw two more Desert Larks and a nice adult White-crowned Wheatear. Both birds were feeding in flat vegetated areas at the bottom of wadis which is their preferred habitat for feeding in the early mornings.

White-crowned Wheatear - 2nd Calendar Year

White-crowned Wheatear - 2nd Calendar Year

White-crowned Wheatear - 2nd Calendar Year

White-crowned Wheatear - adult

White-crowned Wheatear - adult

White-crowned Wheatear - adult

White-crowned Wheatear - adult

 The White-crowned Wheatear is largely resident occurring along the eastern edge of the Summan Plateau where they have large breeding territory sizes of 6.4 hectares or more. They are a bird of the true desert occupying wadis, rocky escarpments & broken boulder areas, where vegetation is sparse and rainfall does not exceed 150mm per year. The birds require flat vegetated areas where they can forage and feed in the early morning and late evening. The subspecies that occurs in the Eastern Province is Oenanthe leucopyga ernesti (Meinertzhagen, 1930) that occurs from southern Israel & southern Jordan to north-east Egypt (Sinai) south to central & eastern Arabia and Yemen.

Arabian Spiny-tailed Lizard - Abqaiq

Whilst visiting Abqaiq to try to find the wetland areas that were present in this region in the 1980's I cam across a very bright yellow Arabian Spiny-tailed Lizard on the side of the road. After just avoiding running t over I turned the car around and the Lizard was running across the hot balck tarmac as the temperature was close to 50 degrees Celsius as it was almost midday. It stopped briefly in the middle of the raod and then ran off into the desert, but allowed me time to take one photograph of it.. I have seen many Arabian Spiny-tailed Lizards but have never seen one this bright yellow. They change colour as they warm up going from a dull ble grey to a bright yellow, like this one. The Arabian Spiny-tailed Lizard occurs in deserts and semi-deserts of Arabia and their spiked tail is muscular and heavy, and when threatened can be swung at an attacker with great velocity, usually accompanied by inflation of its body and hissing loudly, caused by expelling air, and an open-mouthed display of (small) teeth. It is one of the largest members of the genus, with maximum total lengths of greater than 700 mm for males and a weight of approximately 1.6 kilograms. It has a predilection for open habitats with hard substrates into which it can dig, such as gravelly plains and firm sandy areas containing coarse sand, gravel and sparse vegetation. Mountainous areas and habitat with thick layers of stones and rocks are not suitable. In Saudi Arabia the distribution extends horizontally in the middle of the Kingdom from the Red Sea coastal desert in the west to the Arabian Gulf in the east. It is fairly common in the eastern scrub desert of Saudi Arabia, especially in its northern reaches, up to and including the Dibdibah alluvial plains near Hafr al-Batin. Population density in central Saudi Arabia is between 0.1 and 4 specimens per hectare (Kordges 1998).

Sanderlings - Dammam/Al Khobar Wader Roost south

The tide was very high at the Dammam / Al Khobar Wader Roost south, so the waders were pushed up quite quickly. No Crab Plovers were seen but a couple of new waders for the autumn were seen with four Sanderlings, including birds in both winter and summer plumage and a Grey Plover in breeding plumage. Sanderling is an uncommon bird in the Eastern Province, with the few birds that are seen are normally seen in August. Lesser Sand Plover and Terek Sandpiper numbers were up on last week and four Ruddy Turnstones were new in but the main birds seen were Greater Sand Plovers, Eurasian Curlew, Bar-tailed Godwit and Whimbrel. After the tide was in I went to the new flooded sabkha area nearby where there were hundreds on waders but the sun was in the wrong position making viewing difficult. Four Eurasian Oystercatchers were seen with hundreds of Bar-tailed Godwits and Greater Sand Plovers. Plenty of Common Redshanks and Common Greenshanks were also seen.

Sanderlings

Sanderlings (left) & Terek Sandpiper (right) - in flight

Greater Sand Plover

Lesser Sand Plover

Western Marsh Harrier - Sabkhat Al Fasl

A trip to Sabkhat Al Fasl was fairly quite bird wise. There are plenty of White-cheeked Terns at the site this year indicating they have had a good breeding season, with hundreds of adults and plenty of juveniles. Last year only a few birds were seen. Probably the best bird of the day was a female Western Marsh Harrier seen sitting in the reeds at the back of the site. Eight White-winged Terns were seen at two different places with three at the back of the site and five on the main sabkhat area. No Egyptian Nightjars were seen today which is the first time for a month but, hopefully, more will be seen in the next few weeks.


White-cheeked Tern - juvenile



White-cheeked Tern - adult



Western Marsh Harrier  female

 There were a few more waders today than normal, with my first Marsh Sandpiper of the year. There were many more Lesser Sand Plovers and over 50 Terek Sandpipers which is a very high count. Four Green Sandpipers were on the main scrape with a Little Ringed Plover and a few Little Stints and a Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin was seen at the edge of the main reed bed, in an area where it may well have bred as I have seen one in this area over the entire summer. Migrants included two Eurasian Hoopoes & ten Barn Swallows. A few Little Grebes & Purple Swamphens were scattered around and a Little Bittern was seen flying over the reeds but very little else was seen.


Little Ringed Plover



Little Stint

Little Grebe

Gull-billed Tern - Dhahran Hills

Birding the local patch has been a very quiet the last few days with nothing of note being seen and the only migrants being a few Barn Swallows. The percolation pond is full of young Common Moorhens, Eurasian Coots and Little Grebes with plenty of Black-winged Stilts feeding around the edge. Two Little Terns were seen flying about and a single Gull-billed Tern put on a good show flying around catching frogs, as can be seen from one of the below photographs.

Gull-billed Tern

Gull-billed Tern

Gull-billed Tern

Gull-billed Tern

Crab Plovers – Dammam / Al Khobar Wader Roost south

A trip to the Dammam – Al Khobar Wader Roost south provided two more Crab Plovers. This species looks like it is reasonably regular along the Taraut Bay coastline in small numbers from July onwards to October with birds being seen at Abu Ali Island, Jubail Corniche, Dammam Port Mangroves and Dammam - Al Khobar Wader Roost south this week. The Dammam – Al Khobar Wader Roost south is the best place to see the species with it being virtually guaranteed at high tide during this period. Wader numbers are building up slightly with greater numbers of Common Redshank, Terek Sandpiper and Lesser Sand Plover in particular.

Crab Plover

Crab Plover

 

Crab Plover

Common Redshank

At high tide I went to look at a potential site to the south of the wader roost and although it was not possible to get to the main seafront area I found a nice area of flooded (possibly only at high tide) sabkha. This held a large gathering of Sand Plovers, most of which were Greater Sand Plovers as well as many Little Stints. Five Ruddy Turnstones, three Common Sandpipers and seven Common Greenshanks were present along with three Caspian Terns and 12 Gull-billed Terns. I will be coming back to this new site at high tide when I can as it looks quite promising as a place to get the occasional unusual wader.

Lesser Sand Plover & Curlew Sandpiper

Greater Sand Plover

Crab Plovers - Dammam Port Mangroves

I went to Dammam Port Mangroves an hour before high tide but the tide was still too low and no birds had been pushed up to the viewing area. As a result I went back down the causeway to look for any birds there. Here the tide was already well in and very few birds were present except for a group of 25 Greater Flamingos that were finding it difficult to walk on the bottom even with their long legs. The only other birds of note were six Indian Reef Herons. When the tide was full in I went back to the Port Mangroves and although there were few waders there were two adult Crab Plovers present along with a few Little Stint, six Common Redshank and 35 Bar-tailed Godwits. This is the first time I have seen Crab Plover at this site which was a nice surprise. I was hoping for Eurasian Spoonbill as this is the best site for them and I saw five at Sabkhat earlier in the week, but I did not find any there.


Greater Flamingos

Greater Flamingos

Crab Plovers, Bar-tailed Godwits & Common Redshank