Early March around Nouakchott

This blog looks at visits to three different sites in the Nouakchott area over last weekend. It starts with North Nouakchott Lake.

As I have said before the lake is under considerable environmental pressure. One pressure is the large scale fly-tipping of household and building waste. The other main one is that the area of reeds looks set to be pumped out and replaced with landfill.

I actually wrote to Wetlands International for advice but received no reply.

Despite this pressure I discovered solid proof of local breeding of African swamphen for the first time on Sunday.

family of African swamphen

One adult African swamphen was observed with four juvenile swamphens. They were eating the reed for several minutes.

African swamphen

The colour of the bills suggests the birds are very young.

Juvenile African swamphen

This observation is well north of what had been thought was the breeding range in West Africa. 

little grebe at the lake

There are young Eurasian coot there too. That species seems to have no set breeding season here as I have seen very young birds every time I have visited over a four month period. 

I am less certain about the breeding times of little grebe and common moorhen. Both birds appear to keep their young better hidden.

three greenshank

After last week's discovery of a marsh sandpiper among the plentiful waders, I was on the look out for this species there again. My hopes were raised when three waders appeared but on closer inspection, they proved to be greenshank. At distance these two species can appear very similar particularly when there is no other wader near by to offer a size comparison.

yellow wagtail

Elsewhere on the site, I can report that yellow wagtail now out number white wagtail. The long standing Baillon's crake was also still present.

I had had more success with marsh sandpiper two days before at West Nouakchott pools. This salt water site provided me with a second marsh sandpiper in the space of a week having seen none all winter.

marsh sandpiper (l)

Marsh sandpiper are not common in West Africa. They breed much further east from central European Russia eastward. So it is a very westward route they have to take to winter here.

marsh sandpiper (r)

This bird gave me much better views than the previous observation.

marsh sandpiper (l)

Most Kentish plover are now in breeding plumage.

two Kentish plover

The pools are not as saline as the sea as can be shown by the presence of several wood sandpiper which don't like heavily salty water.

wood sandpiper

Actually this site is good for attracting both waders that prefer salt water and those which prefer fresher water.

grey plover

Larger waders (as well as smaller ones) such as greenshank, redshank and grey plover have been usually seen.

The final area reported here is the Riyadh district at the southern edge of the city. I went there on Saturday with Mohamed Vall. There are two main sites there. One is the water works to the east and the other is the city rubbish dump to the west of the main road.

The main news from the water works, which has about 80 metres of artificial river, is the rapid grown in the red-billed quelea population. We estimate there were over 400 present. Last time we saw about 40 and the time before none at all. We suspect this new water site is attracting them to the north of their natural range.

red-billed quelea

A booted eagle may have been interested in them but was mobbed by a pied crow and moved on.

namaqua dove

Namaqua dove may be a bird of arid open woodland but it is very attracted to water bodies. There were plenty scattered around the site.

I had hopes of seeing red-throated pipit there but these were dashed once again though both yellow wagtail and white wagtail were observed.

Waders included little ringed plover, common ringed plover, little stint and wood sandpiper.

The only larks were black-crowned sparrow lark.

The city rubbish dump in the same district was a let down once again and we decided it is scarsely worth a visit.

hoopoe lark

The only notable view was a hoopoe lark which provided a distraction display presumably to take us away from its young.

Overall though the weekend was very interesting especially taking into account the visits to the fish marker area as well as the sites in this blog.

Marsh sandpiper at the lake

On Sunday I returned to North Noakchott Lake for the first time in three weeks and after my break away in the UK and Spain.

My camera is still out of action so I was lucky that Mohamed Vall was able to join me and he again took photos. I am truly grateful for the use of all these on this blog.

marsh sandpiper (second left)

The excellent news is that I managed to add another species to my Mauritanian list making 228. This bird was marsh sandpiper. You can make it out the picture as the bird with the white underparts, white forehead and grey crown. You can also probably make out the needle-thin bill too.

Marsh sandpiper breeds in a narrow band of Eastern European Russia and Siberia with a very few pairs breeding in Finland. In some ways it is surprising any of them winter in West Africa being so far west. Indeed they are uncommon and was always going to be the most difficult of the main sandpipers for me to see. Apparently those marsh sandpiper which do end up in west Africa stop off in the Nile Vally in Sudan en route.

two Eurasian spoonbill with cattle egret

There were other changes at the lake since my last visit. All the Mediterranean gull are missing making black-headed gull the only gull except a couple of lesser black-backed gull. No duck has been seen for over a month.

Most of the winter there has been one Eurasian spoonbill present. At the moment there are two. 

cattle egret

This time the spoonbills were associating with the cattle egret though they are less timid. When humans approached the spoonbills would stay behind as the cattle egret flew.

spur-winged lapwing

The spur-winged lapwing are very territorial at the moment. Indeed they didn't tolerate us well. 

Caspian tern

As far as I remember I have not sighted any tern at the lake before. I don't really understand why it isn't attractive to marsh terns. Anyway this time was different. A Caspian tern came to drink. However it was relentlessly harrassed by the same spur-winged lapwing that found it difficlut to tolerate us.

bleck-necked grebe

Elsewhere, the black-necked grebe which has been around all winter was still present.

African swamphen

In the area with the most reeds, the African swamphen are hanging on despite all the earth movement and apparent plans by the authorities to fill in this part (or all?) of the lake. I see it as an environmental gem. It looks like they see it as waterlogged part of the city.

I got so animated a few weeks ago I wrote to Wetlands International about the place to see what they could go. I am not sure they are the right people to ask but I never got a reply any way. It's all a little sad.

Mid winter at Khawr Rori

I visit Khawr Rori about once a week. It's little bit far for mid-week trips after work so I tend to go on weekends.

I have been looking for a long-billed dowitcher which was reported about a month ago and then again last week. So far I have failed to find it. Nevertheless Khawr Rori is a very large expanse of fresh water and other new birds could turn up at any time.

pheasant-tailed jacana

It is the place where pheasant-tailed jacana can be most easily seen. I counted eight on my last visit. Only Khawr Taqah comes close.

black-winged stilt with pheasant-tailed jacana

Other Indo-Malay wintering species can be found here too such as cotton teal. You need to look carefully as their are hundreds of other ducks and plenty of geese to distract you.

cotton teal

Among the large birds, the number of greater flamingo and great cormorant has continued to rise.

great cormorant with a grey heron

There are always plenty of herons including intermediate egret and great white egret at this time of year. Though western reef heron is the most common along with grey heron.

western reef heron

I have been paying particular attention to the groups of black-tailed godwit at the Khawr.

black-tailed godwit

This is because the long-billed dowitcher was seen associating with a group in one of its sightings. On Saturday, I followed a group of eleven (11) godwits and checked them one by one. Unfortunately the dowitcher wasn't there.

ruff

Sometimes, I have seen other single birds near the groups. A single ruff was with them on one occasion (whereas at East Khawr you can see more than two hundred some days).

marsh sandpiper

On Saturday, I came across a lone marsh sandpiper while tracking them.

marsh sandpiper probing

This elegant bird is always a pleasure to watch.

marsh sandpiper standing

As well as keeping an eye out for godwits and dowitchers, I have spent time near dusk looking for crakes and waterhen but again I have not been successful at this site (though I have seen Baillon's crake at two other sites).

dusk

There is a second approach to part of Khawr Rori which is accessed directly from the main road. This leads to a small fringe wetland rather than the main lake. I saw my first pied cuckoo in Oman there a couple of months ago.

little stint

It was good to be able to directly compare a Little stint and Temminck's stint there on one visit.

two types of stint

They are quite distinctly different. You can see the Temminck's stint is plainer, has yellower legs and has a fuller breast pattern (though pale).

Temminck's stint and little stint

Once a month, I take a long trip into the desert to see a different set of birds. I did this on Sunday which was a holiday here. It turned out to be very eventful. The next two blogs will cover the trip.

Long-toed stint and more

I found time late yesterday afternoon to visit my local at East Khawr but taking in the near-by Dahariz Park for the first time.

This was a successful session with four new additions to my Oman list including a lifer.

Caspian tern

Even on arrival as I first scanned the birds at the seaward end of the Khawr, I immediately pick out some Caspian tern. This was new to the country list.

Caspian tern and others

Right in front of me while I was scaning more widely were four dunlin including a stocky-looking juvenile.

first year Dunlin

Meanwhile out near the Caspian tern were several great crested tern. Saunders's tern, white-cheeked tern and white-winged tern were also present elsewhere.

great crested tern

Just behind the Caspian tern my attention was drawn to a frenetic wader. 

marsh sandpiper turning

It was a marsh sandpiper which was eating vavaciously and turning often. It was clearly hungry. Either way it was another first for me in Oman.

marsh sandpiper

Further away from me a large group of glossy ibis and ruff were sharing some of the area with taller grass.

glossy ibis with ruff

There were a larger number of sooty gull at the khawr and off the beach than usual.

sooty gull

Seven Heuglin's gull were swimming in the khawr too.

garganey with wood sandpiper

There were plenty of Kentish plover, lesser sand plover, greater sand plover and common redshank. Smaller numbers of wood sandpiper, Temminck's stint, sanderling and greenshank were around too. Garganey duck number still seem to be rising and they are getting tamer.

Dahariz Park

After an hour or so I left form the near-by Dahariz Park which is less than 200 metres away and should have been visited before.

Rufous bush robin

It had an almost exactly the same cross section of bird species as the larger Salalah Park last weekend. One small difference is that there were no golden oriole but there was a Bruce's green pigeon.

Scaly-breasted munia

These parks are the only places I have seen scaly breasted munia. Hoopoe like the place too.

Hoopoe

Almost as an after-thought I decided to return to the khawr to see if anything had changed in the intervening 45 minutes.

It had. two whimbrel had turned up as had a fast walking wader which I didn't immediately recognise. I knew it was different though. 

 a wet long-toed stint

The bird was very wet initially. I assume it had taken a bath. It was now walking off the water and kept away from the water line all the time I tracked it. 

a dried out long-toed stint

With a long neck, upright stance and of course long toes on dull yellow legs, I worked out it was a long-toed stint. This apparently is quite scarce in the gulf even in Oman. It was certainly a lifer.

desert wheatear

To top the afternoon off, I came across a desert wheatear a few minutes later on the edge of the khawr. Excluding blackstart (which really is a wheatear), this was my first sighting of wheatear in Oman.

I was very pleased with yesterday afternoon.