Lagoons at Wadi Thulaymah

On Friday, Abdullah Amrou took Clive Temple and me to Wadi Thulymah outside Al Kharj. This was one of three venues we visited in an action-packed day.

In recent years, two new waste water treatment works have been in operation in central Arabia. They have produced new "rivers" similar in many ways to the "Riyadh river" which flows through Wadi Hanifah. One of these new water courses flows through Wadi Thulaymah. 

Though Wadi Hanifah near Al Hayer has been extensively birded by the few birders who make it to central Arabia, Wadi Thulaymah is pretty much virgin birding territory. 

We started our birding at the far downstream end of the new Kharj river. Here the water has collected into about five crystal clear lagoons.  Indeed all the water in this wadi looks clear. I suspect the treatment works are ultra modern. 

Anyway,the lagoon habitat doesn't exist at Wadi Hanifah (though old records show something similar used to be present before the wadi evolved further). 
The good news is that the lagoons at Wadi Thulaymah were teaming with waders.


However even before we saw any waders, a long legged buzzard flew over head and "welcomed" us to the area. 

wood sandpiper

There are a few waders at Al Hayer. However Wadi Thulaymah's lagoons are ideal for them and the density of waders is much higher.  The lagoons held common sandpiper, green sandpiper, wood sandpiper and marsh sandpiper.

marsh sandpiper

This was the first time I have seen marsh sandpiper in Saudi Arabia.

ruff

There was more than just sandpipers. There were also a small number of ruff. Again this was the first time I have seen this bird in Saudi Arabia too. However it has been recorded in huge numbers at Al Safi dairy farm in the past. The front entrance to Al Safi farm is very close to these new lagoons so ruff is not a surprise. 

black winged stilt

Black winged stilt are resident birds in central Arabia and its must be highly probable that they will be at the lagoons all year even after the waders have gone.

little stint

The most abundant bird on the day was little stint. We counted at least 80 of them. When we looked carefully there were at least three temminck's stint among them and one dunlin. At least one ringed plover and two kentish plover were also present.

Temminck's stint

Later on in the day (very nearly dusk) we visited an area a few kilometres upstream of the lagoons. It was too late to bird properly but there is obviously a large clear lake. Although, we couldn't find a good vantage point because of extensive reed beds and a lack of time, we could see a high concentration of ducks. 

The majority were shoveler but there were also tufted duck and at least two pochard. These were the first tufted duck and pochard I have seen in Saudi Arabia.

Clearly, Wadi Thulaymah is worth more visits. 

Flashback to September - the waders

Abdullah Amrou has once again released some of his photos for the blog. This time they were taken in September and early October in Al Hayer, central Saudi Arabia. This is, of course, the main autumn passage time. I will show a selection of these photos over the next two blogs.  


Please visit Abdullah's flickr account for more birds:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/amrou_a/


Today's blog covers the waders that Abdullah photographed. The first bird is a ruff.  Tom Tarrant who birded here in the early 1990s says he saw the bird in every month except January, February, June and July. This data is consistent with it being a passage bird which doesn't stay through mid winter. It is known to winter in south west Arabia and the Oman coast. Al Hayer, Wadi Hanifah is en route to both of these places.  

ruff at Al Hayer presumed on passage

Abdullah's next two birds are apparently common on passage but evidence suggests (including my own observations) that a minority of these birds stay all winter.  These are common sandpiper and common snipe.  You may remember that Abdullah and I have seen both birds over the last ten days or so.

common sandpiper

From my own experience common snipe is only found in an exposed position like in Abdullah's photograph when it is on passage or having just arrived at its wintering grounds.

common snipe

Apart from black winged stilt, little ringed plover is the only "wader" which is absolutely proven to currently breed along Wadi Hanifah. They have been seen all year round too and it is assumed the local breeders are resident.  

little ringed plover

Birding in Brega

We finally arrived in New Brega after a long journey from Benghazi with the temperatures noticeably higher than where we had come from but the land was much greener than we expected. It didn't look like semi-desert. This came as blow because I wanted to see where white crowned wheatear begins in north east Libya. It looked straight away like this would be an improbable bird to see. We hadn't gone far enough south!  Nevertheless what we did see was very surprising.

little egret, wetland, New Brega

The journey had seemed promising enough when 50 kilometres north of New Brega we came across a brown-necked raven. Unfortunately it flew towards the sun but the photo below gives you a silhouette of this bird of desert and semi-desert.

silhouette of a brown-necked raven, north of Brega

The first bird I saw on entering the town of new Brega was a red-backed shrike. This is at the extreme west of its known broad migration front to Africa.

red-backed shrike, New Brega

We were quite shocked to see a permanent and apparently fresh water wetland  on the western edge of the town. We found it by trying to follow a grey heron we sighted in the town.

wetland, New Brega

The main water birds were ruff. This is 300 kilometres from Deryanah where I saw another sizeable flock at the end of last month. There were also some moorhen confirming my view that they are literally everywhere where there is fresh water and cover in Cyrenaica. I also saw two little egret and two grey heron.

ruff, wetland, New Brega

The other main water bird was ringed plover. There was no sign of sandpipers and their cousins. 

ringed plover, wetland, New Brega

There was a small rubbish dump near-by which attracted several cattle egret and both white wagtail and yellow wagtail.

marsh harrier, wetland, New Brega

True to form the wetland had a roaming marsh harrier like all the other major wetlands visited in autumn in Cyrenaica. In the picture above you can see how strong the sunlight was. It looks like it is penetrating the marsh harrier's wings like X-rays!

side-on view of marsh harrier, wetland, New Brega

There were plenty of different land birds attracted to the water. I saw both migrant whinchat and wintering stonechat. This were the first stonechat I had seen in Cyrenaica. it is very common in Tripolitania in winter.

whinchat, wetland, New Brega

There were local house sparrow and a flock of wintering starling in the surrounding trees. On the ground were a small number of wintering meadow pipit.

starling, wetland, New Brega

Everywhere I go and almost all terrain with any cover has spotted flycatcher. There are also easy to photograph so I took yet another picture of one for the record. Surely they must be moving on south soon?

spotted flycatcher, wetland, New Brega

Until New Brega I hadn't seen a single bee-eater all autumn. There were three or more here but they were directly into the sun form my position. I wonder if only small numbers fly through north east Libya compared with north west Libya.

bee-eater photographed into the sun, wetland, New Brega

When we finally left New Brega we headed further south west towards Old Brega. Between the two towns we noticed a larger wetland (than in New Brega) off the main road half way between the two towns.

camels and salty lagoon, near Old Brega

It took an effort to find a route to the lagoons which looked beautiful. Unfortunately we were running out of time to investigate them. Our first impression was that the lagoons were too salty for many bird species. That didn't stop kentish plover being present which loves salty water.

kentish plover, salty lagoon near Old Brega

There was also a single little egret visible. It looks like a good site when the winter rains reach there and lower the salinity although I bet flamingo would like the place just as it is.