Rush round the city

On Tuesday afternoon, I rushed around some birding sites near the city. It's not my usual method of birding. I usually bird in one place intensely before moving on. 

However I  know some good birders who use this technique very well.

In this case it served me well. The last place I visited as the sun was waning give me another addition to my Oman list.

This last place was the rocky but smooth coast just east of the port.

lesser crested tern showing big crest

Here among a cluster of terns and a few gulls I came across a lesser crested tern.

lesser crested tern

It was good to be able to compare it with the three greater crested tern which were a few metres away.

It is noticeably a little bit smaller. The bill is orange as opposed to yellow and the overall mantle and wing colours are lighter.

greater crested tern (foreground)

There were also four Caspian tern present.

Caspian tern (foreground)

The two smallest terns in the group were adult common tern.

common tern

The only gulls in with the terns were slender-billed gull although there were large numbers of sooty gull and Heuglin's gull elsewhere on the shore.

slender-billed gull

One of the gulls was a very smart looking adult.

The main reason for this change in my birding technique was the weather. October is a hotter month than September in Dhofar. Indeed it is the second hottest month on average after May. Birding from the car can be sustained longer than on foot during the afternoons.

Hopefully November will be cooler as normal.

curlew

My dash sites began at East Khawr which has not provided much change in birds over the past two weeks. The curlew was seen there. The site has a very high number of glossy ibis and ruff at the moment but nothing remarkable.

striolated bunting

Next stop was Ayn Razat where the best sighting was an adult striolated bunting coming to drink in the heat. This is by far the best and prolonged view I have had of this bird.

striolated bunting about to drink

The rufous wings, almost unmarked mantle and black speckled chest distinguish adult striolated bunting from cinnamon-breasted bunting. I find the juveniles much more difficult.

citrine wagtail

My last stop before the rocky coast was Ayn Sahalnout. The ducks and terns have gone and the water level is a little lower but there of now several common snipe. However the citrine wagtail are one of the most attractive features.

citrine wagtail looking ahead

This weekend looks set to be a little cooler and there is some evidence that the migration is heavier. Let's see what the weekend brings.

Darin and Qatif corniche

After using up all our allocated time at the mangroves at the north of Tarout Island, Bernard Bracken and I moved round the coast on the island to Darin.

This area has extensive beaches and mudflats. We were also lucky in that we arrived at low tide so we could spend time on the mudflats themselves.

Pallas's gull in flight

One of our earliest sights was a Pallas's gull in full breeding plumage. Half an hour late we saw another which looked like its moult was just finishing. Both birds were on the beach.

A second Pallas's gull

Other gulls were mostly slender-billed gull which out-numbered black-headed gull.

slender billed gull

There were more steppe gull than Caspian gull. I didn't see a single Hueglin's Gull this time.

steppe gull

Every time I visit the east coast outside summer, I look for sandwich tern. I have never seen one in Saudi Arabia.

lesser crested tern and Caspian tern

This time on the mudflats were Caspian tern and also lesser crested tern. The latter bird is a very close relative of Sandwich tern and I was especially careful at looking any groups of lesser crested tern.

Dunlin

Unlike at the mangroves there were a few dunlin.

grey plover

Grey plover were common at both places.

ruddy turnstone

Oystercatcher and ruddy turnstone were at both places too. Lesser sand plover and greater sand plover were numerous here.

a dhow full of great cormorant

Several old dhows were anchored just beyond the mudflats and nearly all of them were covered in great cormorant.

curlew

After finishing at the mudflats of Darin, we walked further south along the coast from a while before turning inland towards the bridge connecting the island with the mainland.

The coast was not very eventful with only a few common redshank and a curlew and grey plover.

common redshank

As we walked inland over some scrub we came across some flooded areas with black winged stilt otherwise this part of the walk was relatively uneventful too.

black winged stilt

A local resident offered us a lift on to the mainland which we gratefully took.

We then spent a pleasant two hours walking down the corniche at Qatif.

Once again the coast held many tens of flamingo though the sea shore is mostly bunded there and so shore birds weren't plentiful. Out in the open sea we saw three mallard which is a rare habitat for therm.

mallard in the open sea

At one point a supply of treated fresh water flowed into the sea. Here we saw a small number of lesser sand plover and a single white winged black tern.

lesser sand plover

We ended the day walking through a field of coastal scrub. Surprisingly, a grey heron was resting in the middle.

grey heron

It was the only place we saw tawny pipit during the day along with the predictable crested lark.

tawny pipit

The final bird was a desert wheatear which turned out to be the only one of the weekend.

On Saturday, we visited Khobar and Dammam. The next two blogs will be about what we saw there.


List of birds seen at Darin coast and Qatif corniche

Mallard	Kentish Plover
Flamingo	Lesser Sand Plover
Western Reef Heron	Greater Sand Plover
Grey Heron	Grey Plover
Great Cormorant	Dunlin
Lesser Black Headed Gull	Terek’s Sandpiper
Slender Billed Gull	Eurasian Curlew
Pallas’s Gull	Whimbrel
Steppe Gull	Black Winged Stilt
Caspain Gull	Collared Dove
Caspian Tern	Laughing Dove
Lesser Crested Tern	Graceful Prinia
White Winged Black Tern	Crested Lark
Greenshank	Tawny Pipit
Redshank	Desert Wheatear
Ruddy Turnstone	House Sparrow
Ring Plover

Whirlwind look at Khobar

As part of our full day trip to the Eastern Province, Bernard Bracken and I made a whirlwind tour of the south corniche at Khobar. Time was necessarily short as places identified from historic records on the ebird database outside the town were still to be visited.  

western reef heron (dark morph)

Western reef heron and grey heron were two of the largest birds there and which would have been immediately obvious even to non-birders. There are two lakes barely 50 metres inland at the corniche and most of the herons were there.

common tern

There were several small groups of common tern next to the lakes too. 

lesser crested tern

Out to sea, a single lesser crested tern was sitting on a buoy.

Kentish plover

Meanwhile back at the lakes there was a good opportunity to compare the different types of small plovers at one place. Kentish plover was the most common.

Common ringed plover

Only a metre or two away from some of them were common ringed plover.

lesser sand plover

A solitary winter plumage lesser sand plover walked straight in front of some Kentish plover at one point.

common greenshank

Strangely I don't recall seeing any little stint or other small waders other than these plovers. However we were racing through the town and I may have missed them. Instead six or so common greenshank were picked up and several ruff were also seen.

Socotra cormorant (mostly juveniles) and a grey heron

Looking seaward there were many slender-billed gull in the water along with a single Caspian gull. Socotra cormorant were also highly visible. Many were first year birds. These can be easily separated from young great cormorant by the white fringes to the wing coverts. Looking at the head and bill isn't so effective as with adult birds!

After this quick-step look at Khobar we travelled south to Half Moon Bay in search of my main target bird for the day. I'll report in the next blog how we got on.

Two late ones from Jizan

I reviewed my photos from Jizan again yesterday afternoon and realised I had missed two species in my original count.  Both are fortunately new additions to my Saudi list though not lifers.  

Both birds were in the background while I was watching and focusing photos on other birds. So apologies straight away for the quality of the pictures on this blog. 

sanderling

The first addition is sanderling seen on the coast at Jizan industrial city. I know this bird better in winter plumage when the head is almost white. It brought back memories as it was the last bird I saw on my last birding trip while in Libya.

front view of the same Sanderling

The second bird also has a Libyan connection. Nearly all the Mediterranean population of lesser crested tern breeds in Libya. However, the population is much larger along the Red Sea coast and it should have been no surprise to see some near Jizan. The photo shows at least five present on a sand bank just off Jizan bay.

lesser crested tern

The above picture was cropped off a photo of waders much closer to shore. 

The result of this photo review is that the total number of species seen by me in Saudi Arabia since I arrived just increased from 191 to 193!

Help us find some lesser crested terns

Libyan lesser crested tern are ringed which helps find their wintering grounds.


Abdulmoula Hamsa is carrying out a PhD at Hull University UK on the habits of Libyan lesser crested tern and ringing information is helping him build up a complete picture of the bird's habits.


As I understand it, ring information and other sightings indicate that birds from two Libyan colonies mostly go along the coast westward (and then south) towards west Africa for winter (eg Senegal) but data on birds from the easternmost colony is lacking.


We need your help to find where they go. Abdulmoula has produced an appeal note which I have reproduced below. Where are Elba's birds?
.

Photo by Abdulmoula Hamsa  

Call for information on wintering sites of lesser crested terns tahalsseus bengalensis (from Abdulmoula Hamsa)

The western African population of lesser crested terns is breeding mainly at three sites off the Libyan coast; these are the only sites in the whole Mediterranean where the species breeds. Ringing of the species chicks started in 2006 till 2010 using metal rings from Birdlife Malta and color rings of Italian scheme (ISPRA), as Libya doesn’t have a national ringing scheme yet.

Wintering areas are poorly known, so identifying these sites and sites along the flyway are crucial for long-term conservation of  the species.

Currently after years of field work in Libya, I am studying the breeding ecology and migration of lesser crested terns that breeds in Libya, and would appreciate providing information on any sightings of these terns in north and west Africa or the Red Sea region, as terns from Elba colony near Egyptian-Libyan border have never been sighted and there is some evidence that some terns may cross to the Red Sea region.

Information on ring types used in different years and contact email can be found at cr-rings website under terns http://www.crbirding.be/

Central Contact is Nicola Baccetti,

INFS, via Ca' Fornacetta 9, 40064 Ozzano Emilia BO -Italy.

fax: +39-51-79.66.28.

e-mail: nicola.baccetti@infs.it