Road to Thumrait

Yesterday, I travelled to Thumrait which is the north and dry side of the Dhofar mountains. However I spent most of my time at the plateau of the mountains. First on the way up I stopped off the main road to Thumrait. On the way back I turned off towards Zeek and travelled back to Salalah from there.

On the first stop off I was met by four or five long billed pipit scattered around the lay-by.

long billed pipit

On a telephone wire was a rufous-tailed rock thrush providing that the observation the day before wasn't a fluke. Laughing dove were also on the same wire.

rufous-tailed rock thrush

Up there the habitat was a mixture of grassland and in the slightly more sheltered areas, woodland. In the woods were several warblers. Most were common whitethroat but also included Upcher's warbler and a single willow warbler.

common whitethroat

The prize sighting though was a juvenile common cuckoo which evaded the camera.  Back out in the grassland were plenty of singing bush lark. 

singing bush lark

Most of the noise was not coming from their singing but form two buntings. There were cinnamon breasted bunting (also seen on the woodland edges) but also striolated bunting. This is best told apart from cinnamon breasted bunting by its lighter and often more russet wing.

striolated bunting

The map in the regional guide has the striolated bunting with the wider distribution. However I am confident now that it is the cinnamon breasted which is more common and striolated only occurs above about 500 or 600 metres. I suspect some misreporting.  

fan-tailed raven

I knew the hills had ravens and it didn't take too long for two fan-tailed raven to appear.

After this I moved on up another half a kilometre before stopping again at a turn off. This place was even more grassland.

Arabian partridge

In the distance I saw an Arabian partridge which I photographed only to find the adult was being followed by a young bird barely bigger than a chick.

Arabian wheatear

Near-by was a tame male Arabian wheatear.

Turkestan shrike

It was here I saw a more attractive Turkestan shrike than usual. I presume it was still in summer plumage.

Onwards and upwards, I passed a blue rock thrush sitting on the concrete barrier separating the lanes just before the top.

The contrast between the lush southern side of the hills and the north side is stark. Thumrait itself is a dusty settlement which reminded me so much of the small desert towns in Saudi Arabia.

hoopoe lark

The birding in the semi-desert was tough. I only managed two lark species. Hoopoe lark was relatively common. However I only saw one black-crowned sparrow lark.

black-crowned sparrow lark

On the way back I visited the frankincense park. It's actually row up on row of frankincense bushes.

frankincense park

I was intrigued to know what birds might like this habitat. The answer is barely any.

Red-backed shrike-Daurian shrike hybrid

I saw just one bird and it was a shrike passing through. I must admit it looked a bit odd with so much grey down the back. Thanks to Andy from UAE for investigating and pointing me to examples of hybrids of the red-tailed shrike complex. Given how grey it is I suspect the partner is Daurian shrike rather than Turkestan shrike.

After visiting the frankincense park, I made my way up to the top of the hills and then turned off the main road towards Zeek. it is really beautiful up there especially when compared with barren land I had just left behind. 

woodland in the Dhofar mountains

In woods I flushed a second common cuckoo and saw a Dideric cuckoo too.

European roller

On one stretch of road, I observed five European roller and four rufous-tailed rock thrush on wires.

brown-necked raven

There was more actions on wires. Two brown-necked raven were trying to intimate a kestrel from leaving. It was sitting on a wire too. The ravens succeeded. They really don't like birds of prey in their patch.

common kestrel

I was having most observations off the wires! One of the last birds seen before I made my descent down into Salalah was a male desert wheatear on a wire.

desert wheatear

Today I will be heading west of the city.

Birding in Brega

We finally arrived in New Brega after a long journey from Benghazi with the temperatures noticeably higher than where we had come from but the land was much greener than we expected. It didn't look like semi-desert. This came as blow because I wanted to see where white crowned wheatear begins in north east Libya. It looked straight away like this would be an improbable bird to see. We hadn't gone far enough south!  Nevertheless what we did see was very surprising.

little egret, wetland, New Brega

The journey had seemed promising enough when 50 kilometres north of New Brega we came across a brown-necked raven. Unfortunately it flew towards the sun but the photo below gives you a silhouette of this bird of desert and semi-desert.

silhouette of a brown-necked raven, north of Brega

The first bird I saw on entering the town of new Brega was a red-backed shrike. This is at the extreme west of its known broad migration front to Africa.

red-backed shrike, New Brega

We were quite shocked to see a permanent and apparently fresh water wetland  on the western edge of the town. We found it by trying to follow a grey heron we sighted in the town.

wetland, New Brega

The main water birds were ruff. This is 300 kilometres from Deryanah where I saw another sizeable flock at the end of last month. There were also some moorhen confirming my view that they are literally everywhere where there is fresh water and cover in Cyrenaica. I also saw two little egret and two grey heron.

ruff, wetland, New Brega

The other main water bird was ringed plover. There was no sign of sandpipers and their cousins. 

ringed plover, wetland, New Brega

There was a small rubbish dump near-by which attracted several cattle egret and both white wagtail and yellow wagtail.

marsh harrier, wetland, New Brega

True to form the wetland had a roaming marsh harrier like all the other major wetlands visited in autumn in Cyrenaica. In the picture above you can see how strong the sunlight was. It looks like it is penetrating the marsh harrier's wings like X-rays!

side-on view of marsh harrier, wetland, New Brega

There were plenty of different land birds attracted to the water. I saw both migrant whinchat and wintering stonechat. This were the first stonechat I had seen in Cyrenaica. it is very common in Tripolitania in winter.

whinchat, wetland, New Brega

There were local house sparrow and a flock of wintering starling in the surrounding trees. On the ground were a small number of wintering meadow pipit.

starling, wetland, New Brega

Everywhere I go and almost all terrain with any cover has spotted flycatcher. There are also easy to photograph so I took yet another picture of one for the record. Surely they must be moving on south soon?

spotted flycatcher, wetland, New Brega

Until New Brega I hadn't seen a single bee-eater all autumn. There were three or more here but they were directly into the sun form my position. I wonder if only small numbers fly through north east Libya compared with north west Libya.

bee-eater photographed into the sun, wetland, New Brega

When we finally left New Brega we headed further south west towards Old Brega. Between the two towns we noticed a larger wetland (than in New Brega) off the main road half way between the two towns.

camels and salty lagoon, near Old Brega

It took an effort to find a route to the lagoons which looked beautiful. Unfortunately we were running out of time to investigate them. Our first impression was that the lagoons were too salty for many bird species. That didn't stop kentish plover being present which loves salty water.

kentish plover, salty lagoon near Old Brega

There was also a single little egret visible. It looks like a good site when the winter rains reach there and lower the salinity although I bet flamingo would like the place just as it is.