Now four Amur falcon at Jarziz farm

I have been reporting on the Amur falcon I have been seeing at Jarziz farm. Here is a further update as part of this blog.

I saw my first two on April 28th. In total I have visited the farm six times more since then. Each time there were between two and four birds present. I went there yesterday and there were two.

Each time, as far as I can tell, they have been different birds. There have been 20 in the seven visits.


The most (four) were on May 19th. This blog looks at my birding on that day both at the farm and later at East Khawr (Khawr Dahariz).

female Amur falcon

The only adult male I observed was on April 28th. This is consistent with the adult males returning first. Of the other 19 birds only six have been immature males. The other thirteen have been either adult females or immature females. 

female Amur falcon 2

When I go early in the morning, they are usually found perched on the big pivot bar. It's an easy find. As time goes on they venture into the field to hawk for grasshoppers and other flying insects.

three Amur falcon clustered together

On May 19th, four Amur falcon were all perched on the bar at the same time.

four Amur falcon

Three birds were female and one was male.

immature male Amur falcon 

On each of the days I visited, there was always at least one European roller.

European roller

Very large numbers of both African silverbill and Singing bushlark have always been present on each day.

African silverbill

Not only is the farm an obviously guaranteed place to see Amur falcon on spring passage but it is a guaranteed place to see singing bush lark for a longer period. Both are prized by visiting birders.

Singing bush lark

In the early evening of May 19th I visited East Khawr for a short while.

great white egret

There are still some intermediate egret at various khawrs around Salalah but here was the rarer (for Salalah) great white egret. It would appear small numbers of both over-summer.

The glossy ibis are also still present at east Khawr. There is no sign of any breeding with these either. Some thirty or so birds of this species also seem to be over-summering.

glossy ibis

Very few waders were present. However, one interesting one was a grey plover.

grey plover 1

It was essentially in winter plumage.

grey plover 2

The orange at the base of the bill intrigued me. I can't find it referred to in any guidebook or on-line reference. However in the end I did find two images of birds showing this feature.

grey plover 3

The main waders however were lesser sand plover. Most had some degree of summer plumage.

lesser sand plover

They don't breed this far south and must have been on passage.

lesser sand plover 2

On Friday I went to Khawr Rori for the first time in over a month. I will write about what I saw next.

Early morning in east Salalah

Soon after dawn and before work on Monday I went birding locally to Jarziz farm and Khawr Dahariz (East Khawr).

I am trying to visit either Jarziz farm or Sawnout farm every day at the moment on the look out for Amur falcon. It has been spotted over both farms in previous passage seasons. However I have had no success with this bird.

Nevertheless there is a lot more to these farms that one species.

Jarziz farm was little different birdingwise from two mornings before. The marsh warbler was still in the same place. Graceful prinia which is the local breeding warbler was very evident as usual.

graceful prinia

There was again a European roller on site but in a different area and quite likely a different bird. There are many of them coming through at the moment as I have discovered birding elsewhere.

European roller 1

European roller loves wires and is quite easy to pick out.

European roller 2

Saturday was not a fluke when it came to swifts flying low over the field early in the morning. It happened again on Sunday. 30 or common swift were crowded over the one large filed the farm still has. Unfortunately there was no alpine swift this time.

common swift flying low over the field

This time there was a pallid harrier in the area. On its arrival in part of the farm, tens of chestnut-bellied sandgrouse flew up and away in alarm.

chestnut-bellied sandgrouse

I inspected the water reservoir. The grey heron and Indian pond heron which had been there for several visits have both finally moved on.

green sandpiper

The only water loving bird there this time was green sandpiper.

singing bush lark

Once again the main noise was provided by singing bush lark.

While Jarziz farm was rather settled over those 48 hours, there was a little more change at Khawr Dahariz.

little stint and lesser sand plover

One of the changes was the arrival of several lesser sand plover. I didn't see them mid-winter. They are definitely a passage bird in these parts even though they may linger a while on passage especially in the autumn.

lesser sand plover

I am getting better at separating them from greater sand plover. The bill looks less robust, the eye is smaller and the legs are grey-black not yellow-green.

lesser sand plover with ruddy turnstone

Glossy ibis commute between Khawr Dahariz and Sawnout farm. This time they were at the khawr.

glossy ibis

Rather than photographing the flamingo, little stint, kentish plover, squacco heron, black-winged stilt, grey heron and greenshank, my remaining pictures are of birds of which there was only one of their species present.

grey plover

Grey plover can be seen in any season except summer.

greater white fronted goose

The single greater white fronted goose is still  present. If it stays much longer, I fear it is ill.
.

common snipe

Khawr Dahariz is a good place to see common snipe mostly because the front end where they graze is quite exposed. Furthermore early morning is the best time to see them as they are often so preoccupied with feeding, they are not so alert.

common snipe 2

Late Monday afternoon, I also went birding in a busy day. It was aanother visit to Sawnout farm especially to look out for Amur falcon. Once again I didn't see one though I did see two other types of falcon. I will blog about that next.

East Khawr revisited

On Saturday, I returned to East Khawr, Salalah. I really didn't know whether many of the birds would have changed compared with my previous visit five days before. I resolved beforehand that would at least try to get better pictures of those that were there.

I kept to that resolution but in the end there were 13 additional species seen either there or walking to and from home to the khawr. One was a lifer too.

African sacred ibis with Eurasian spoonbill

The single African sacred ibis was one of those of which I achieved better photos and it was still associating with the Eurasian spoonbill.

This view came about half way through my visit. However starting at the beginning, I elected to bird the west bank at the inland end, head towards the sea and then bird the east side up into the wadi back inland.

The khawr looking towards the sea

The first sign of anything different from the previous visit came with a view of four greenshank well inland and at the reeds edge.

greenshank

I then continued walking towards the seaward end. I managed to accidentally flush a little bittern which flew right across the water into reeds at the far side. These two were new birds for me in Oman and I had hardly started.

glossy ibis

Suddenly in the distance a flock of 25 glossy ibis took to the air and headed right next to the sand bar at the far end of the lagoon. I am pretty sure I wasn't the cause of their movement.

displaying moorhen

As I moved on towards the sea I passed  a common moorhen which I assume was displaying.

garganey

I could see a duck swimming with moorhen in the distance and right at the far seaward end of the Khawr. It was a garganey.

garganey with moorhen

Much of the change in the cast of birds was actually seen when I reached the seaward end of the Khawr especially among the waders. All the ruff from a few days previous were gone.

lesser sand plover

New replacements included several lesser sandplover.They were behaving aggressively chasing some common sandpiper and little stint off.

ringed plover

The Kentish plover and common ringed plover seemed to be more accepted.

little stint

Little stint were not seen on my last visit.

Black-tailed godwit

There were three singleton birds representative of their species. One was black tailed godwit still in most of its breeding plumage.

Greater crested tern

Another was a greater crested tern (a.k.a. swift tern).

Common tern

A juvenile medium sized tern looks much more like a common tern than white cheeked tern of which a few were which still present. 

Eurasian spoonbill

The number of Eurasian spoonbill had increased from 4 to 6 over the week.

Squacco heron

Several squacco heron were still present but no sign yet of any of the very similar Indian pond heron which apparently visit in the winter months.

common snipe

Another difficult pair to separate for identification purposes in this part of the gulf are common snipe and pin-tailed snipe. My first snipe since I arrived in the country was a common snipe.

curlew

The walk back inland on the eastern bank started out quite uneventful with the flock of glossy ibis being the main attraction though I did see my first green sandpiper in the Salalah area in a small cluster of waders.

However two fly-overs on the land directly east of the khawr as I walked passed enlivened things. First, a young curlew flashed past. It's very pale underside marked it out as the eastern sub species orientalis. It's very short bill and paucity of  under-body streaking marked it out as a young bird.

a flock of garganey

On the way back home I decided to walk up the wadi directly north of the khawr. This is Wadi Dahariz.

Even here I managed to add to my Oman list. The best moment was when I almost walked into a spotted thick-knee.   It had positioned itself directly in front of me as I followed a worn makeshift path. It allowed me within 3 metres before it slowly walked away.

Spotted thick-knee

The second addition was a pair of Namaqua dove which were surprisingly skittish.

Turkestan shrike

The final new bird of the day, also seen in the wadi,  was a male Turkestan shrike.  I am very familiar with this bird from my Riyadh days.

All in all I was very satisfied with this birding session.

List of birds seen at East Khawr, Salalah and in Wadi Dahariz just north of the khawr.    O=new to my Oman list.   L= a lifer

Garganey   O

African sacred ibis

Eurasian spoonbill

Glossy ibis

Little bittern   O

Squacco heron

Grey heron

Purple heron

Great egret

Little egret

Common moorhen

Spotted thick-knee  O, L

Common ringed plover

Kentish plover

Lesser sand plover  O

Common snipe   O

Black tailed godwit   O

Curlew  O

Redshank

Greenshank   O

Green sandpiper

Common sandpiper

Little stint   O

Dunlin   O

Ruddy turnstone

Sooty gull

White-cheeked tern

White-winged black tern

Great crested tern

Common tern O

Feral pigeon

Eurasian collared dove

Laughing dove

Namaqua dove   O

Rose-ringed parakeet

Foebes-Watson's swift

Turkestan shrike   O

House crow

White-spectacled bulbul

Crested lark

Pale crag martin

Graceful prinia

Common myna

Tristram's starling

African silverbill

Ruepell's weaver

Cinnamon breasted bunting