Garganey and other water birds at Al Hayer

I birded the lagoons south of the pivot fields near Al Hayer on Friday. You may recall this is my new favourite birding area in the Wadi Hanifah valley. When I first found it three weeks ago I thought it had potential because it is away from picnickers and the habitat of slow moving water in lagoons was attractive to water birds.

garganey

Well I am now even more sure of its potential! 

I was meandering along the banks in an over-tired and correspondingly slow manner because I had very little sleep following my over-night flight back from Istanbul. Then, I heard a quacking noise and realised I was very close to a small flock on ducks on the water. Furthermore they hadn't seen me because of some serendipitous reed cover.

And one of the ducks was a garganey! This species tends to winter further south than all the other anas ducks.  Indeed there is not one record of it in winter in central Arabia by the two main observers (Tom Tarrant and Per Anders Bertilsson) from the past 20 years. 

garganey with shoveler

All the other members of the flock were northern shoveler. You can see how much smaller it is than its fellow anas cousin.

male northern shoveler

Three of the northern shoveler were female and one was male. I failed to get a shot of all the ducks together for fear of breaking cover. Each shot was snatched through a small gap in the reeds when the ducks swam into it.

distant purple heron

Otherwise life goes on for the other water birds, plenty of moorhen were around as usual. Both grey heron and purple heron are more densely found here than other parts of the "Riyadh river".  I did manage to glimpse one of the resident ferriginuous duck which have proved difficult to find. 

bluethroat

Plenty of bluethroat and graceful prinia were seen in the reeds or elsewhere near the water's edge.

common snipe

Just before sunset a very tired me caught sight of a common snipe out in the open on the water. 

I didn't only visit the water's edge on Friday. The next blog recounts the land birds in near-by fields. In my view these were equally as interesting.

Exotic birds in the tea gardens

My last hour and a half birding Istanbul on Thursday was spent in the Topkapi tea gardens. This attractive area has plenty of very tall trees and well manicured grass.  


Superficially it looks peaceful but this was soon punctuated by a screeching I immediately recognised.

rose ringed parakeet

It was not long before I saw the first rose ringed parakeet. The tall sheltered trees are ideal habitat for these birds.

alexandrine parakeet

Moving on through the gardens I realised that some of the parakeets were larger. In fact more than half of them were Alexandrine parakeet. This was a lifer for me and a very pleasant surprise. My first edition of Helms guide "Birds of the Middle East" doesn't show it present in the region outside the Persian Gulf area.

mating alexandrine parakeet

They certainly looked like they are breeding there. The two birds above were actually mating.   

grey heron

Just as surprisingly as the sight of a Alexandrine parakeet was the sight of a heronry high in the trees. Furthermore, it was a semi-occupied heronry. Some of the grey heron were re-enforcing nests ready for breeding.  

grey heron on a nest

I don't know whether the grey heron have been there all winter however a couple of them at least were mobbed by the hooded crow in the gardens. I think this action is more likely for returning herons. The crows are certainly fighting a losing battle judging by the size of the herony.

Sea front walk in Istanbul

Last Thursday was a bonus free day for me in Istanbul. This came about because my business with the Saudi consulate was concluded positively and early.

As well as looking seaward (as previously blogged) the walk along the sea shore had several interesting land birds in the thin strip of parkland along the walk way.

two hooded crow

There were so many and so noisy hooded crow that non-birders must have noticed them even if they didn't notice another bird. The ones above got within one metre of me showing no fear.

lighthouse on the European side

The crow family was very much in evidence. Magpie were also foraging around albeit from a safer distance to me. 

magpie

 These two resident corvid are joined in winter by significant numbers of rook from further north.

rook

I find rook is an ugly bird but it makes up for it with great character.

jackdaw

Jackdaw always look mischievous and even criminal. The last time I saw any was in Almaty, Kazakhstan over three years ago (at a rubbish dump). This time there were two. I got quite a bit of pleasure seeing them as I have seen many less in my birding time than the other corvids present.  The species is apparently resident in this part of Turkey.

starling

It wasn't all crows. Plenty of starling were around. Some are turning into their spring plumage.  However I found it difficult to get excited about them when I have seen a rosy starling fairly recently (in the Riyadh area, Saudi Arabia).

chaffinch

The dominant finch in the parkside was chaffinch. Once again I found urban  birds less shy than their rural counter parts.

part of a flock of chaffinch

One adage I swear by is to look at a large flock closely to find out exceptions. In this case it worked again. Among the chaffinch was a single tree sparrow. It was the only one I saw all day.

tree sparrow

In this parkland strip chaffinch actually heavily outnumbered house sparrow. Many of the house sparrow looked bedraggled.

two cold house sparrow

The mixed woodland chimed to the sound of great tit. And once again the urban ones were easy to see and photograph.

great tit

Finally there were one or two wintering white wagtail in the park. At least that was one similarity with Saudi Arabia.

white wagtail

Some sea birds at Istanbul

I said in my last blog that my next one would be on Saudi Arabia. However my business in Istanbul en route to Saudi Arabia took a day less than expected. As a result I had a free day to bird in Istanbul.

I started my birding on the coast of the Bosporus just south of the tourist attraction of the Topkapi.  The birding was so varied I am making three blogs out of it. The first is about the sea birds I saw.

black headed gull (adult - left and immature - right)

It began as a miserable, wet if quite warm day. However I wasn't miserable. It's good to have unexpected, carefree free time. 

View across the Bosporus from Europe to Asia

Walking passed a ferry terminal I immediately saw dozens of black headed gull in a small car park. One or two had started to gain their spring plumage. The chocolate brown head was beginning to appear.

 plenty of black headed gulls

Out and about were a smaller number of yellow legged gull.

yellow legged gull

Much of the action though was over the narrow sea which separates Europe from Asia. There were many more black headed gull and yellow legged gull in and over the water, often following the ships and ferries.

cormorant

However the most striking feature was the fly past  and fishing of dozens of cormorant. Or at least I thought they were cormorant until closer inspection.

shag

Looking at a bird fishing near the shore I realised I had been too hasty. It was a shag not a cormorant. Scanning the flying birds I discovered about a quarter of the birds were actually shag.

coot

The other water bird I saw were coot. They were tamely gathering in small artificial inlet of the Bosphorus. 

plenty of coot in a bay

The only thing preventing them from coming even closer was the large number of feral cats which seem to live inside the collection of granite rocks piled up for miles along the shore as sea protection.