Thursday 10 September 2015

Cuckoo at Rabkout

Wadi Rabkut is one of the few places in Oman where African collared dove is seen on occasions. I have yet to see this species in Oman so there was reason for it to be my last stop last Friday.

The dove density on the edge of the village is many times higher than in the rest of the wadi. Furthermore from my experience in Saudi Arabia, African collared dove is equally at home in urban as rural environments. Given this, I spent the remaining daylight time on the village edge.

Once again I failed to see African collared dove. Yet this area was teeming with many other kinds of dove.

There were over 30 Eurasian collared dove seen as well as more than 20 laughing dove and feral pigeon.


Laughing doves (left) with a European turtle dove 

Furthermore, I spotted two European turtle dove and a single Namaqua dove too.

Namaqua dove

Other resident birds were white-spectacled bulbul, little green bee-eater and house sparrow.

The main migrants were rufous-bush robin and spotted flycatcher.

However in one of the trees being shared with laughing dove was an adult male common cuckoo.

male common cuckoo

Adult cuckoos migrate ahead of juveniles so now is the optimum time to expect them.

This bird was resting and showed no intention of moving as I walked by.

male common cuckoo 2

Its back and upper-wings appeared darker than average but I couldn't make an oriental cuckoo out of it as other features were lacking or not obvious.

male common cuckoo 3

My next birding was not until mid-week but it was worth the wait as I added another species to my country list in a visit to a site within Salalah. I will blog about this next.

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