Sticky Al Ansab

I made a fleeting visit to Muscat last Tuesday on business. It gave me a 90 minute opportunity on that morning to call on Al Ansab wetland from dawn onwards.

It was hot and sticky even at that time. Furthermore my one target species was streaked weaver. There are only about six there and this was my fourth trip. I failed to find them. It seems my run of extremely good luck either side of New Year has completely deserted me this spring.

The abundance of black-crowned night heron did little to raise my spirit.

adult black-crowned night heron

There were both juvenile and adult black-crowned night heron present. They often migrate separately.

young black-crowned night heron

The nosiest birds as is often the case were red-wattled lapwing. They are breeding at the moment so one move towards their unseen young ones provokes even more sound.

red-wattled lapwing

European collared dove, purple sunbird, graceful prinia and house sparrow are common in the trees and bushes.

European collared dove

Moorhen are everywhere especially on the new beds of water hyacinth which the water company hope will attract more exotic species even jacanas which aren't normally seen in the north of the country.

common moorhen

As well as large numbers of grey heron, black-winged stilt and a few squacco heron there were other birds. Little grebe were constantly diving in the main water bodies and two whiskered tern were flying over the largest body.

little grebe

At least two late ducks had lingered. One was a male teal while the other was a female ferruginous duck.

ferruginous duck

The little green bee-eater sub species in the Muscat area is much duller than the ones in Dhofar.

little bee-eater

I searched very hard for streaked weaver all my time there. I know the bird well from the large colonies near Riyadh. I know there like reeds nevertheless I spent some time looking at two very young birds hidden in tamarisk which in the end I concluded were very young house sparrow.

very young house sparrow

It will take another visit someday to find those weavers.

South of the bridge, Al Hayer

Yesterday I visited Al Hayer with Bernard Bracken. We switched to summer birding hours and that meant a very early start finishing at 10.30 am.

We were in a pivot field south of the small bridge there at 5.30 am. The temperatures were pleasant and the birds were immediately obviously more numerous than our last visit.  During the session we saw nearly 50 species which will be listed in the next blog.

The field we chose has a wide stream as its southern border with tall reeds on the far side and some cover on the field side.

As soon as we entered the field we saw several busy streaked weaver moving to and from the field into the reeds.

However our attention was drawn to further down the stream in the field where we were straining to see five purple heron and several other species including moorhen and yellow wagtail. 

very young black crowned night heron

We were edging towards them but they were still 100 metres way when we flushed a very young black crowned night heron. This bird was so young it had no fear of us at all. In the end we just had to walk away since it didn't seem inclined to move from us.

second view of very young black crowned night heron

This is pretty conclusive evidence that black crowned night heron still breed at Al Hayer.

distant mallard

We turned our attention back to the birds in the distance. I got a record shot of the mallard. As we moved round the purple heron flushed from great distance and moorhen and a common snipe flushed much closer to us.

barn swallow

Even this early in the morning, plenty of barn swallow were hawking for insects over the field. One of them landed. At the time I thought it was to drink. However from the photo he has a big locust in his mouth which might have been difficult to eat in the air. I wonder if it was a case of greed made it land.

white eared bulbul

Meanwhile in the reeds we caught glimpses of Eurasian reed warbler and much longer views of white eared bulbul and red backed shrike. Indeed the latter bird was very common in a variety of habitat all morning.

red-backed shrike

For example they joined the crested lark, streaked weaver and house sparrow in the field itself.

red-backed shrike

The streaked weaver are now all in breeding plumage.

male streaked weaver

As we moved round the field towards the bridge, we saw a couple of adult black crowned night heron. The pink legs are only found in their breeding season.

adult black crowned night heron

No European bee-eater were seen but some were heard. The resident little green bee-eater was in evidence as usual though.

little green bee-eater

As we left the field to walk over the other side of the road to north of the bridge, we spotted the first rufous bush robin of the day. Bernard managed a photo but I didn't before it rapidly moved off. Thanks to him for allowing me to use it and apologies to him for cropping it so much.

rufous bush robin

We spent the next two hours or so on the north side in and around other fields. However as we set off to leave the area at the end, a European roller was seen which moved off into the distance on the southern side so it rightfully belongs in this blog.

distant roller

Other birds seen on the south side but not mentioned earlier in the text were collared dove, laughing dove and graceful prinia.

A morning in the diplomatic quarter

On Saturday morning I went to the Diplomatic Quarter in Riyadh to do some light birding from 9 am until midday. It would have been impossible to do longer in the heat anyway.

black crowned night heron

I made my way down directly to the waste water stream.  This is a heavily landscaped and beautified area. 

Actually its too beautified in some respects. The trees are nearly all palm and most scrub has been removed. The reeds by the water are too tidy! The overall result is probably to restrict bird diversity. 

In winter through its still very good birding. In late spring, summer and early autumn it can be a little disappointing. 

I saw two black crowned night heron, one grey heron and one little egret from the heron family.

grey heron

I am pretty sure I heard (but didn't see) a white throated kingfisher.

the end of the waste water stream is a lake

Common moorhen were plentiful. The one below shot out like a bolt when I flushed it by walking past it. Then just as suddenly it got to the other side and just ambled away very slowly as if it had forgotten it was running away.

common moorhen

One of the few birds which are comfortable with palms is white eared bulbul. Another is rose ringed parakeet which buzzed around them all morning.

white eared bulbul

The white spectacled bulbul won't normally touch palms.

white spectacled bulbul

The only warbler seen was the resident graceful prinia. This species is highly adaptive and has spread throughout Saudi Arabia in the past 20 years.

graceful prinia

In the newly watered compounds in Riyadh and Jeddah black bush robin has also adapted to becoming a common garden bird.

black bush robin

The diplomatic quarter has a high proportion of resident birds which are introductions. These include not only white eared bulbul and rose ringed parakeet already mentioned but also common myna and Indian silverbill which were also seen on Saturday.

common myna

Two other introductions which can be seen but weren't on Saturday are red vented bulbul and bank myna.

Indian silverbill

As I have already noted Indian silverbill here and elsewhere in the Riyadh area look worse for wear at this time of year.

Looking back, I realise the only bird I saw all morning which definitely wasn't resident was a single pallid swift. 

This weekend I am going for dawn starts to my birding and the two weekends after I am off to the south west including Abha where its going to be much cooler and the birds should be more active.  

100 night herons

At about midday on Friday as I walked along the edge of the reed banks by the "Riyadh river" at al Hayer, a great number of birds took to the air in three waves.  

This was after I moved towards a repeated strange noise that sounded like a cross between a mallard's "quack" and a crow. It was a sort of "quawrk" sound.

black crowned night heron roosting

It took me a few moments to realise I had stumbled upon a day time roost of a very large number of black crowned night heron.

first wave of night herons moving

They had been sleeping in a few trees and tamarisk bushes that grow inside the edge of the reeds. Over 30 birds flew out. However it didn't stop there. A second wave of about 20 birds shot out about 30 seconds later.

third wave of night herons moving

I then starting to walk on down stream, past the place and to my great surprise after I had walked on a few metres away  from the bushes a third and biggest wave of 53 birds left in the opposite direction to the other two.

In total there were over 100 black-crowned night-heron in the roost. The big majority were adults.

Anyway the good news is that once I was safely 50 metres or so away they returned to the same place and disappeared from view. 

I didn't capture events well on camera because I was continually caught by surprise.

I am left wondering if this sized flock is usual? it was certainly the first time I had seen so many.

The golf course at KAUST

The golf course on the KAUST is certainly very high quality and without doubt better than the two I have visited in Riyadh. The birding is pretty good too.

I went round it on Friday afternoon searching for birds with Brian James who also happens to have won a couple of staff tournaments there.

Actually we saw a little of it in the twilight the night before as Kentish plover were scurrying around. Brian told me they actually breed at the side of one or two of the larger bunkers.

hoopoe enjoying the worms

However on Friday afternoon the first birds we came across, not counting the doves and common myna around the clubhouse were three hoopoe. Its not often you see worm casts in KSA but there were plenty there and the hoopoe knew it.

cormorant and spur winged lapwing

There are a number of water features. The largest one is a magnet for larger water birds. He headed towards it. However before we got there Brian noticed a wryneck in a palm tree out of the corner of his eye. Unfortunately it moved off before I could photograph it.

At the water feature were a large number of cormorant and several members of the heron family. A squacco heron was walking at the waters edge and so surprisingly was a first winter black crowned night heron.

juvenile black crowned night heron

An adult black crowned night heron was just round the corner before flying off out of view. A single grey heron stayed motionless in the open.

adult black crowned night heron

In stark contrast, a flock of black headed gull circled the lake endlessly seemingly frightened to land.

spur winged lapwing

Moving on round the golf course, we came upon some more spur winged lapwing which seems almost ubiquitous on the KAUST campus.

yellow wagtail

In some of the roughest grass we saw my first yellow wagtail of the trip and my first in KSA since November. Brian told me they are present every month except December and January. Right on cue the first one appeared on February 1st.

Storks and herons at Marj

I keep coming across first winter black crowned night heron. I have seen them at Wadi al Khalij (east of Derna) and at Brega.


On Friday I saw 15 more at Old Marj. This is yet another under-reported bird in Libya. The guide books give it a blank.


When I saw the birds at Wadi al Khalij in late October (see blog) I mused whether they would stay the winter like those in the Nile Delta or move south like the majority of the European population.  

one of the black crowned night heron at Old Marj

Well, certainly in the case of the Old Marj birds it looks like they have stayed the winter. I am not surprised.

They were not the only members of the heron family at Old Marj. The more common cattle egret were plentiful - especially around cattle!

a cattle egret at Old Marj

There were at least six little egret in the area too. They preferred the part of the water complex with the cleaner water (once it has flown through the reeds and out the other side).  

stork nests at Old Marj

Near-by are the white stork nests. Old Marj is home to the largest colony of stork in Libya (closely followed by Al Abyar). Though I am sure there must be at least one more undiscovered colony because the number of birds grazing at Jardinah government farm in summer is more than the total of these two colonies.

more stork nests at Old Marj

I am told by the deputy manage of Jardinah farm that he has not seen any storks since October so I had assumed that Libyan breeding storks had migrated south probably to one of the southern Libyan government farms in the desert where Jens Hering reported in the literature last year as seeing many hundreds of wintering white stork.

a wintering stork at Old Marj

However while I was at Old Marj I saw two white stork! Unfortunately I couldn't reach my camera in good time and only got the above picture. So it looks like north east Libyan white stork are like those in southern Portugal - some of them either over-winter or come back early. I can't tell which. I wish I had been there in November to know.