Raysut at the end of March

On Wednesday afternoon, I visited Raysut settling pools. This place has always had birds and the recent changes in the landscaping have helped even more. I will write more about the landscaping later.

Up to 6 weeks ago, there were 400-500 steppe eagle, 15 or so Eastern Imperial eagle and a few greater spotted eagle around the near-by rubbish dump. Many would fly into or over the settling pools during a visit.

Nearly all eagles have left. However I did see two and both were greater spotted eagle.

first greater spotted eagle

In general, the steppe eagle left before the eastern imperial eagle who in turn left before the greater spotted eagle though there was some overlap.

second greater spotted eagle

They were not the only birds of prey observed. Two yellow-billed kite also flew over.

yellow-billed kite

This is a scarce local breeding bird which is more usually seen further east in the Taqah area.

Indian house crow

Birds that are always seen at the settling pools are Indian house crow.

flamingo

The largest birds on site were flamingo.

African silverbill

Some of the smallest were African silverbill.

ringed plover

I walked to the southern end of the site and walked anti-clockwise to the south east corner and on to the north east corner.

This side of the site has most of the birds. One of the first waders encountered was ringed plover.

western reef heron with house crow

In the south east corner there is currently a natural looking pool created from run-off from the industrial settling pools. This is attracting many waders including black-winged stilt, wood sandpiper and little stint.

A western reef heron was trying to stay by the pool to but was mobbed by Indian house crow until it eventually left.

wood sandpiper

As I walked further round I came across the vagrant spur-winged lapwing which has spent the winter at the site.

spur-winged lapwing

It had been associating with between 3 and 10 red-wattled lapwing but they have left.

grey heron

Along the eastern perimeter are more of these natural-looking pools with grassy banks. One of them not only held waders but three ducks as well. 

male garganey with gadwall

There was one male garganey with two female gadwall. I know that most male ducks are larger than female ducks but I was a little surprised that the male garganey looked as big as the female gadwall.

male garganey

Most ducks have left southern Oman by now.

yellow wagtail

One of the few signs of any passerine passage in the Salalah area are yellow wagtail and the artificial wetland here is ideal for them. I counted about 15 on the site.

black-winged stilt

The site is much better habitat for passerine migrants than it was in the autumn. At that time the site was dry and non-vegetated apart from the concrete-bunded settling pools. Now some water from the settling pools is being run off on to the near-by land, pools, wetland and grassland has sprouted up. it's pity that the passage is so weak.

If there had been this habitat during the autumn passage, the site would have been extremely good birding.

fields of tall grass

I will keep coming back to the site over the next month or so to look especially in these fields and wetlands. I hope to see more than just yellow wagtail and waders straying from the pools.
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wet fields

Near the western corner and the entrance to the site were several slender-billed gull. One final bird was a whiskered tern. Most of the winter there were one vagrant black tern and a whiskered tern. This bird might well be the same whiskered tern. 

whiskered tern

Jahra Pools

Markus Craig took me to Jahra pools in Kuwait on late Saturday afternoon. This is a fascinating artificial wetland close to the sea. It reminded me a lot of Jubail in eastern Saudi Arabia which is about 250 kilometres further south on the Persian gulf.

Both places have resident purple swamphen.

Purple swamphen

Both have a large number of herons. This time there were western reef heron, grey heron and great white egret present.

grey heron

There was a large variety of ducks present at Jahra pools. These included ferruginous duck,  gadwell, garganey, pintail, tufted duck and wigeon.

ferruginous duck

The ducks seemed more advanced with their breeding plumage than the birds down near Salalah which I normally bird. For example, all our gadwell are still in winter plumage.

gadwell (left)

We spent a little time looking in reeds at one spot for the smaller birds. We spotted bluethroat, graceful prinia and chiffchaff. Unfortunately the cetti warbler did not show. Markus told me this is a good place to see basra reed warbler for part of the year and that they may even breed there.

graceful prinia

The scrub land and coastal land adjacent to the pools also had interesting birds. Two common snipe and a jack snipe flushed in one area. Overhead two common swift flew over.

Daurian shrike

Elsewhere, on scrub land a Daurian shrike was perched. Two marsh harrier were patrolling all over.

greater spotted eagle

The last bird before sunset and the last of my trip was a greater spotted eagle.

Over the weekend I put 73 species on my brand new Kuwait list and gained 3 lifers. None of this would have been possible without the hospitality of Markus Craig and Mike Pope.

Spotted eagle at East Khawr

I went to East Khawr on Wednesday afternoon for a quick visit after work. There had been quite a lot of change in the bird cast since even the day before. 

One of the changes was a big increase in the number of birds of prey. The star one was a spotted eagle.

Unfortunately it didn't stay put.

first shot of the spotted eagle

I had not seen any spotted eagle since arriving in Oman. All the 100 or so eagles at Raysut rubbish dump have been steppe eagle though I have seen booted eagle, short toed eagle and eastern imperial eagle elsewhere.

spotted eagle heading towards me

I posted these pictures of the spotted eagle seen at East Khawr on BirdForum and asked for help in identification. In response, there have been a variety of opinions from pure lesser spotted eagle to hybrid to greater spotted eagle.

another shot of the spotted eagle

The default position is greater spotted eagle and I am putting it into e-bird as that but without total conviction. This is because I have been going with the balance of opinion when it comes to identifying birds of prey however unpalatable it is to my view which favoured lesser spotted eagle. On BirdForum more experts backed greater spotted eagle over lesser spotted eagle or a hybrid.

As and when I get more confident in bird of prey identification my policy will change! I don't take a democratic approach to identification in most other areas. Gulls are the other main exception.

underside picture of spotted eagle

The bird felt different in the field from many tens of the greater spotted eagle I saw in Saudi Arabia. The picture above is not perfect yet the underneath flight feathers look darker than in a typical greater spotted eagle which could be put down to denser and more even barring that lesser spotted eagle has. The double comma is more of a lesser spotted eagle characteristic too. 

Another argument in favour of lesser spotted eagle on BirdForum is that the white flashes on primary bases are too extensive for GSE.

However the counter arguments are based on the overall structure, size and shape more than plumage. More expert people on Birdforum have supported greater spotted eagle than lesser spotted eagle and I acknowledge that. 

As I said before writing in depth about the spotted eagle, East Khawr had more birds of prey. The others were five marsh harrier.  This is a high density of marsh harriers for such a small area. I assume it is because the numbers of waders and other birds was also very high.

marsh harrier

The picture above was taken out of my car window when the window was closed hence the slightly odd colours. 

sleeping red-necked phalarope

The numbers of waders around was very large. There were at least 100 ruff, tens of Kentish plover, ringed plover and lesser numbers of lesser sand plover and greater sand plover. There were fifteen or so Pacific golden plover. There were curlew sandpiper, curlew, greenshank and redshank but nothing truly exotic this time.

Despite the threat from the marsh harrier, a small number of birds were asleep. Presumably they were tired following a long migration.

A red-necked phalarope was one of these.

sleeping juvenile ruff

A young ruff was another.

glossy ibis

The glossy ibis population was the largest I have seen there.

African sacred ibis

The one lone African sacred ibis has finally been left alone by all the European spoonbill which have moved on. Only now does it mix with the glossy ibis.

gadwell

The duck population has stabilised but the composition keeps changing. The last wave includes more gadwell.

European collared dove

The picture of European collared dove was taken to remind me to look more at the adjacent land birds on future visits especially as we approach peak migration time.

Thursday morning at Al Hayer

In my first year in Saudi Arabia, I visited the al Hayer area over 50 times. I call it my local patch. This year I have been there barely one tenth as often. This is not because the birding is bad, far from  it. Its just that there is a lot more of Saudi Arabia to see.

However I cannot turn down going there during the peak of the passage which is probably around now. So I went there on Thursday morning starting very early and then again on Friday until it got too hot. All in all I saw 53 species including tens of migrant species.

This blog is about Thursday morning.

greater spotted eagle

Arriving in the area around 6am, I was surprised that the bird to catch my eye was an eagle. I had thought they had all left the region until next autumn. However this young greater spotted eagle was still around.

lesser grey shrike

The next bird of interest was spotted once I had started walking near the pivot fields. This proved a tricky identification. The lack of any supercilium, no white fringes on the wings and general plainness are typically lesser grey shrike and that's what I tentatively believe it is rather than aucheri Asian grey shrike. 

However its mask isn't fully developed and its front is grey-pink rather than pink but many first calender year lesser grey shrike are like this.

My other doubt is created by the fact is that  most of these pass through central Arabia (and indeed all Saudi Arabia) in late April or early May.

Daurian shrike

There were plenty of Daurian shrike and Turkestan shrike around, more than in winter as their numbers are swollen by migrants which didn't winter here.

 

Turkestan shrike (karelini)

In my opinion, the bird above is an intergrade called karelini. It has a white supercilium intermediate in size between the two species, and full mask and cleaner underparts of a Turkestan shrike but not a rufous head.

chiffchaff

I spent considerable time looking in the tamarisk bushes near the water looking for warblers.Though I spent much more time with more success looking in bushes on Friday. I'll report much more in depth about the warblers seen in that blog.

Suffice to say, there were plenty of European reed warbler, chiffchaff and willow warbler about. The summer breeding European reed warbler tend to keep to the reeds and hold territories so I assume the ones in the tamarisk were mostly or all passage birds.

ortolan bunting

A dry and cut fodder field contained several ortolan bunting on passage.

squacco heron flying directly at me

In contrast the adjacent field had high fodder and was very wet in places. This attracted 17 squacco heron.

red avadavat

Despite all the passage activity there were plenty of active resident birds around too.

white eared bulbul

The pictures are all of Indo-Malay birds which have colonised this part of central Arabia: red avadavat, white eared bulbul and Indian silverbill. The latter two are still expanding westward and I hear that Indian silverbill has reached Egypt now.

Indian silverbill

I had to leave early on Thursday as I had to work on Thursday afternoon. I returned to Al Hayer on Friday when I had a longer period in the field and visited a wider cross section of Al Hayer habitat. The birding was consequently better. More species were seen especially warblers and thrush family members. I'll blog about this next.

Tricky birds of prey IDs at Al Hayer

A week ago on Friday I visited my "local patch" at Al Hayer.  One of the features of that day was the higher than usual number of birds of prey.

steppe eagle on the ground

I am getting much better at separating steppe eagle from greater spotted eagle and its simply because of practice. However sub adults still cause me identification problems.

The one above was on the ground in a field for a while but a long distance away. The long yellow gape was the only separating factor which I could use and which made me think it was a steppe eagle.

the same steppe eagle in flight

However when the bird flew off I had doubts. So once again I posted pictures to BirdForum for help.


One of the correspondents, Tom Conzemi, on BirdForum gave me great help. He reminded me of another feature I should have seen on the grounded bird and was viewable in flight. Juvenile and sub adult steppe eagle have a big pale nape patch. Indeed I am kicking myself about this because I used it to help identify steppe eagle in Tabuk a few weeks ago.

a third picture of the steppe eagle

Here are some more pointers from Tom " the bold barring on moulted inner primary, the large square hand in the second picture and the heavy bill (and long gape as you said) in the first picture". 

He also added that on close looks or with a scope on landed birds look for "round nostril in Spotted Eagles and filiform in Steppe and other large Eagles"

Fulvescens greater spotted eagle

Another problematic identification from the same day a week ago was a pale coloured eagle. It has proved to be a fulvescens greater spotted eagle. This is the first time I have seen this pale morph in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else for that matter. It's pretty much a one in a hundred variant.

Marsh harrier

It was certainly a day for birds of prey. At least three marsh harrier were patrolling the area.

kestrel

Kestrel are nearly always seen at Al Hayer but I don't see European sparrowhawk everytime although I do see them sporadically all year round. On this day I did see one and I got clear views although no photos. The bird was brown-grey rather than grey so I put it down as a juvenile. It was larger and full chested. It wasn't a northern goshawk because the barring on this juvenile's chest was crossways not up-down. So I believe the European sparrowhawk was an immature female.

I am learning a lot about birds of prey at Al Hayer even though they aren't my favourite class of birds.