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.

Jubail in December

On Friday, I went on a very long day trip to Jubail with Bernard Bracken starting out well before dawn. 

The trip was worth it for the variety of birds seen at Sebkhet al Fasl and Deffi park although no new species were added to my Saudi list.

The main reason for that was probably because the water level was very high following recent rains.The vast mud flats normally hold a large numbers of birds of various species. Unfortunately for me these were completely cover in 50 cms or so of water and many of these species have dispersed elsewhere. My chances of seeing my target, common shelduck, went with them.

On the other hand the sheltered bay which has been created is very attractive to flamingo. There were over 500 present.  

flamingo at Jubail

In the water and at the edge were many black winged stilt.  

Black winged stilt

At the edge were tens of little stint, Kentish plover and a few ringed plover.

Little stint

Common redshank were present too.

common redshank

Around the corner from the main bay is another smaller bay with less deep water. There were two or three sand banks in there which houses some interesting species. The terns were gull billed tern and Caspian tern. 

Caspian tern with Caspian gull

The gulls were mostly Caspian gull with fewer steppe gull and one hueglins gull.

pied avocet

A single avocet was seen next to one of the sandbanks.

slender billed gull

In the more sheletered areas were several slender billed gull.

great cormorant

A few great cormorant were seen flying over-head too.

purple swamphen

As ever, the birds in the fresh water part of the Sebkhet were quite different. Some purple swamphen have been forced into more open areas by the high water line. Meanwhile moorhen were difficult to see as they clamber around more easily in the reeds.

coot and black necked grebe

The coot were swimming at the edges of the reeds but easily seen.

little grebe and black necked grebe

After not seeing any black necked grebe for my first two years in Saudi Arabia, the Sebkhet was the third place in the past two months. Four were seen mixing with the resident little grebe.

Here the terns were whiskered tern and white winged black tern.

teal

Only one duck was seen all day and it was a male teal.

common snipe

Also in the sheltered areas was common snipe and near-by  three green sandpiper. Flying over them were a small number of wintering barn swallow.

white wagtail

The main small passerines were white wagtail and water pipit.

male Daurian shrike

A single Daurian shrike was also seen as was a common starling. Not too many of these make it this far south.

common starling

Six marsh harrier were seen constantly patrolling the area along with two more restful greater spotted eagle.

Greater spotted eagle

After finishing at Sebket Al Fasl, Bernard and I had time to call in at Deffi Park. There was some good birding there.

Jubail in November

There was much more to see at Sebkhet al Fasl on Friday than the red-necked phalarope reported on in the last blog.

As always in the fresh water areas, there were plenty of coot and purple swamphen. The latter bird was shyer than on previous occasions.

European coot and purple swamphen

In the winter, the sebkhet is as good a place as anywhere in Saudi Arabia to see ducks despite troubles with hunters. I am hopeful of adding common shelduck to my list here later in this winter. Apparently they can be seen sporadically from December to March. This time the only ducks I could see were five common teal.

common teal

They were surprisingly tame but that could have been because they were in area inaccessible by car and so more troublesome for hunters to reach.

little grebe

Like coot, little grebe are another very common resident here.

little grebe with an immature bird

Both birds are breeders. Indeed the picture above shows an immature little grebe with an adult. 

blue-cheeked bee-eater

All the time I was in the fresh water half of the complex, I could hear bee-eaters. It was only towards the end of my visit to that area that I picked up on two blue-cheeked bee-eater. Their passage generally this year is very late.

female or juvenile marsh harrier

More easily seen in the air over the reed beds were four marsh harrier including one adult male.

male marsh harrier

The fresh water waders were mostly common redshank, little stint and black-winged stilt though there were vastly more waders and also more variety of species on the salty mudflats. 

common redshank

There was plenty of evidence of breeding of black winged stilt including several young birds.

black winged stilt with marsh sandpiper

The only tern I saw flying over the reed beds this time were all gull-billed tern.

gull billed tern

By early afternoon, there was some eagle activity over the marshes. Two greater spotted eagle arrived.

first greater spotted eagle

Actually I had seen several eagles standing on the mud flats earlier. They had been in the far distance and certainly too far to identify even if I had had a scope. The greater spotted eagle flying over the reed beds may well have come from that loose group.

second greater spotted eagle

The mud flats and shallow water next to them housed a vast number of birds. Many were too far away for me to see. Many others weren't. There were over 400 little egret compared with only an estimated 20 or so in the reed beds.

little egret and western reef-heron in the reed beds

The two birds above have caused me some identification issues. The back bird looks like a little egret but the front one looks more like a pale morph western reef-heron. There were at least 10 other western reef-heron on the site.

Most of the moorhen were surprisingly on the edge of the reed beds adjacent to the mud flats. 

plenty of moorhen

However the mud flats themselves were fascinating.  I wish I had had a scope.

There were at least 25 dunlin and a few curlew sandpiper.

four curlew sandpiper (and a little stint)

And there were at least 100 little stint.

mostly little stint

Five little ringed plover and a similar number of kentish plover were a sideshow. There was at least one ringed plover too.

ringed plover

There were over 400 greater flamingo surrounded by hundreds of terns and gulls too far away for me to fully identify though they included gull billed tern and a smaller number of Caspian tern.

flamingo with terns

There were other species there too. I spotted 8 pied avocet in the far distance.

pied avocet

More surprisingly there were six northern lapwing which were unfortunately even further away.

northern lapwing

At about the same distance, among the gull billed tern was at least one white winged black tern and it was the first one I have seen in Saudi Arabia in breeding plumage.

white winged black tern still in breeding plumage

These mud flats were very interesting and I look forward to my next visit hopefully with a scope.

Birds on the east coast

This is the second blog to look at Mnasur Al Fahad's trip two weeks ago to the east coast.

He saw a very large number and variety of waders, some of which gave almost as many identification headaches as the gulls.

However this blog looks at some of the non-waders he saw. 

All the pictures are his and most have been cropped by me. I am grateful for his permission to post them.

Flamingo

The first two pictures show the beautiful and the ugly! Flamingo is common on the coast and house crow is common in the urban areas in the east. Flamingo is a winter visitor and house crow is a resident.

House crow

All around the coastline of Arabia you can see western reef heron.

 Western reef heron (dark morph)

On my visit to the Jizan area recently you may recall I posted a mixed pairing of dark and light morph.

 Western reef heron (light morph)

There are two common types of cormorant on the east coast. These are great cormorant and Socotra cormorant.

 Great cormorant

Despite two visits and plenty of time spent looking I have so far failed to spot any of the later bird. Indeed it has joined my revised list of nemesis birds.

 Purple swamphen

Sekhet al Fasl near Jubail is one of the very few places in Saudi Arabia where you are pretty much guaranteed to see purple swamphen.

 water pipit

And along the eastern coast line near Jubail, Dammam and Khobar you are also guaranteed to see water pipit in winter. You may recall I saw more in one day than in my whole life before the last time I went to Jubail.

song thrush

While on the subject of Jubail, Deffi Park in the city is worth a visit in winter because it is reported to be one of the best places in the kingdom to see northern migrant winterers such as blackbird, chaffinch, brambling and robin.

However I know that several birding visits have been made this winter without success including one from me. Mansur has now come the closest. He observed a song thrush there which is not as rare but also not very common on the east side of the country.