East Salbukh wetland revisited

I returned to the newly found wetland north of Riyadh near Salbukh on Friday. It showed a passage season in full swing and because of this several species of birds seen were different from a week before.

In this blog I have tried to show  different birds from last week's pictures except where it would detract from the storyline.

semi-collared flycatcher

I started the walk in the same place, at the southern end of the wetland in a bushy area.  One of the early sightings was a male semi-collared flycatcher. This was the second one for me in the Riyadh area.

different angle on semi-collared flycatcher

In the same area and in other tamarisk bushes along the walk some willow warbler have joined the chiffchaff. Last week I didn't see a single willow warbler. This week they made up 25% of the population. 

There is usually only a short period when both are around.

willow warbler

A third different species over last week was little egret. Both grey heron and squacco heron were again present. However I counted a flock of 22 squacco heron which is much larger number than last week.

Incidentally the wetland does have fish. This must make it attractive to the heron family.  

little egret

Still in the bushy area at the start of the walk, a tree pipit flew straight up into a tree as I approached it. This was yet another bird not seen at the wetland last week.

tree pipit

As I walked round the wetland, I came to the area which is wet and grassy without reeds. As last week, there were yellow wagtail but numbers have swollen four fold. 

female feldegg yellow wagtail

Interestingly virtually all the yellow wagtail next to the water were the feldegg sub species sometimes called black headed wagtail. There were other sub-species in the neighbourhood but I'll explain more in my next blog.

male feldegg yellow wagtail

While observing the yellow wagtail, I caught sight of a marsh harrier. Actually three were observed during the day.

marsh harrier

Also flying over head all through my visit were tens of barn swallow and a few sand martin.

little stint

The next distinct area as you walk round the wetland has wet mudflats and some standing water. This is one of the places where I am finding waders. There were no black winged stilt this week. However there were three little stint which I didn't see last week.

common sandpiper

Kentish plover was once again the most common wader. The others were little ringed plover, wood sandpiper, common sandpiper and wood sandpiper. The most common sandpiper this week was wood sandpiper.

kentish plover

Only one shrike was observed. It had a light belly and apparently a light brown head like a Turkestan shrike but the supercilium was weaker than average and the overall colour was a little greyer than average.  I can't definitely identify this one as Daurian shrike, Turkestan shrike or inter-grade.

Red tailed shrike

Last week, there was tricky female Siberian stonechat to identify with a strong supercilium easily mistaken for a whinchat.

whinchat

This time there was the real thing. Actually there were three. All were male and keeping close to together in tight passage group. At one stage all three were sitting in a row on a power wire.

moorhen

At the northern end of the wetland is the lowest point. Here there are some stretches of open water.  I finally got clear views of the moorhen after two visits but nothing more exotic on the water.  I believe this wetland is relatively new. Certainly the factory supplying spent cooling water is. So birds like little grebe don't seem to have found it yet.

the bottom end of the wetland

One bird that has found it is Eurasian reed warbler some of which showed clear signs of being breeders here.

Eurasian reed warbler

I also saw a marsh warbler flitting between waterlogged tamarisk bushes at a distance from the reed beds. The behaviour was good start towards its identification.

common redstart

There were two other notable species in tamarisk on the way back round. Common redstart was seen all the way round but only towards the end of the circuit did I snatch any type of photograph.

ortolan bunting

One of the last birds I saw was a very tired ortolan bunting sheltering at the hottest time of day under a very small tamarisk. This was my first sighting of one this spring.

At times on my way round I ventured away from the wetland from time to time into the surrounding countryside. I'll blog about that next.

Still some life at the farm after all

There has been no further dismantling of the university farm on the way to work since last week.

I decided it still worth visiting for birding on my way home. I did this on three evenings this week (Sunday, Monday and Wednesday). I am glad I did.

semi-collared flycatcher on Sunday

On Sunday evening, there was a male semi-collared flycatcher on site. I have seen plenty in the south west of the country but this was my first in the Riyadh area. However Riyadh is on a known migration route.

I didn't see it on Monday evening but I did see a male semi-collared flycatcher again on Wednesday evening. Of course, I can't be entirely sure it was the same bird.

semi-collared flycatcher on Wednesday

Given how small the remaining gardens are on the former farm, tracking the flycatcher(s) as it moved around wasn't difficult.

chiffchaff

There were other passage birds in the gardens too. Several chiffchaff were seen especially on Monday evening.

another chiffchaff

That evening a lesser whitethroat and another wryneck were around as well.

lesser whitethroat

The terrain is now inhospitable for little green bee-eater which are seldom seen so far within the city.

little green bee-eater

I am pretty sure it is the temporary storage of so many bee hives which is keeping them anchored to the old farm!

bee hives

On Wednesday evening, a lone rose-ringed parakeet arrived just as I was giving up to go home.

As said before I will keep visiting the gardens occasionally until they are no more.

SW Saudi Arabia trip report part 1 - SE of Taif

As trailed in my last blog, Brian James and I undertook a four day birding trip in south west Saudi Arabia. Here is a bit more detail and a solid look at one of the areas visited. Later blogs will cover the other areas and a full species list will be provided.

Itinerary:

Saturday 18/8
Met at Saptco bus station Taif at 8am (B)

In the morning, drove south east on route 205 visiting a watercourse near al Fatat (C) and three other stops including a juniper region heading on route 205 towards Baha.

In the afternoon continued our journey towards Baha on route 205 taking opportunities to bird roads off but passed through Doos (D) without stopping.

Stayed the night in Baha.

Sunday 19/8

Started out from the hotel at 6am. Birded a wadi on the edge of Baha (E)before heading south on route 15 (towards Abha). Visited the isolated upland village of al Farah before turning round and heading back towards Baha. Stopped on the edge of Buljurashi in late afternoon to bird before the light faded. 

Monday 20/8

Started out from hotel at 6am.  Birded new places in Baha in the early morning including a wide valley with mixed juniper and acacia noticed the day before in the Raghdan district (near Raghdan park which is an amusement centre for families). Headed north on the same route as we came down (205). This time we stopped at Doos (D) which is in a valley and then two more upland villages for contrast.

Stayed the night in Taif.

Tuesday 21/8

Another 6 am start. Birdied the very high Ash Shafa area (A) extensively in the morning followed by a return to the al Fatat area (C) in the afternoon including a second (and briefly a third visit to the water course). Stayed the night in Taif 

Wednesday 22/8

Returned to Riyadh.

Note the weather was generally very pleasant. Typically the day time high was around 29C depending mostly on altitude. It rained four times and two storms were heavy. During one of these temperature dropped briefly to 16C. Fog is a hazard in the south at the top of seaward facing valleys.

map of the four day trip (adapted from google maps)

Today's blog looks at the area south east of Taif which includes a water course near al Fatat. This area was visited on the morning of 18 August as we headed south and on the afternoon of 21 August when we birded out of Tiaf.

glossy ibis and little stint

Almost the first bird seen having left Taif was a lifer. Before we had got 10 kilometres out of town, I saw my first ever striolated bunting. It proved to be quite common all along our route and a later blog will include a picture. Little swift were flying overhead providing a second lifer in the space of a few minutes.

Near al Fatat, we stopped speculatively at a low lying bridge without immediately realising that there was a dammed water course near-by. This turned out to be a fruitful decision.  The water provided a glossy ibis which although not a lifer was a welcome addition to my Saudi list. It was still there when we returned three days later. So were a number of little stint, common sandpiper, green sandpiper and wood sandpiper and a single black-winged stilt though we had no way of knowing if they were the same birds.

female garganey

Some birds had clearly changed. On the Saturday there was a female garganey presumably on passage, a greenshank, a little egret and a whiskered tern. None of these were around by Tuesday.

little egret

On Saturday we saw two collared pratincole but on Tuesday no less than 31 arrived as the afternoon wore on.

little stint, collared pratincole and black winged stilt

New arrivals on Tuesday were six squacco heron, a ruddy turnstone and a couple of little ringed plover.

five of six squacco heron present

At this time of year, I am sure the bird list will change everyday with migrants coming and going.

ruddy turnstone

wood sandpiper

Migrants with less affinity to water were to be seen at the stream (as opposed to the dammed area). I got very good views of a tame first year semi-collared flycatcher here. This species was encountered in several places on the trip and is clearly a common autumn migrant here.

semi-collared flycatcher

A cuckoo was seen late on Monday night when we were travelling back from Baha  and were not intent on birding this area extensively. It was a few kilometres further south of the water course. Another was seen on Tuesday afternoon on a tree over-looking the stream.

common cuckoo

A grey wagtail was also present on the water. This was the second one of the trip. The other was seen nearer Baha. Some grey wagtail are known to winter in the mountains.

grey wagtail

Another migrant seen (this time on Saturday) was eastern olivaceous warbler which later proved common throughout the trip. It was not as common as white throated robin which were very numerous throughout the trip including a couple here on Tuesday.

pale rock finch

Migrating barn swallow were numerous on both days.

The last migrant seen south east of Taif were two pale rock finch on a wire some kilometres from the water course.

Arabian babbler

Residents included arabian babbler, little green bee-eater, laughing dove, rock dove and namaqua dove. Namaqua dove seemed to be quite common in the Taif region but strangely absent further south near Baha.

Namaqua dove

Although black bush robin was present here and at other places further south, it was not at all common. 

black bush robin

Other resident birds seen a little further south east were african silverbill, palestine sunbird and arabian wheatear. 

long legged buzzard

Also seen further south east down route 205 were two birds of prey - kestrel and long legged buzzard. Indeed these were the most commonly seen birds of prey for the whole trip.  

As we were watching the long legged buzzard, out in the wilderness, on Tuesday, a couple of waves of European bee-eater and blue-cheeked bee-eater passed.

The proportion of Afro-tropical and Arabian endemic birds was least in the area looked at today. The other areas had more and we will look at one of these next. The next blog will look at the area north of Baha particularly but by no means exclusively near Doos.

Taif to south of Baha

I had been back in Saudi Arabia for less than a week when I got a message from Brian James asking whether I fancied birding the south west mountains over Eid. 

Brian introduced me to serious bird watching when we were both in Azerbaijan and as luck would have it we have both ended up in Saudi Arabia. 

Since the planes were fully booked I took the bus to Taif where Brian met me and our road trip south began.

a first year semi collared flycatcher - one of several of the species seen on the trip

Today, I returned to Riyadh after four full days birding with a list of 93 species seen. Nine were lifers and there are 13 additions to my Saudi list making a total of 224 species since I arrived just under a year ago. The species seen this week were a good mix of Arabian endemics, African species and Western palearctic residents and migrants.

Over the next couple of days I will be sorting out the photos and notes for a series of blog entries and to input onto the ebird database.

In short, the birding was excellent. Even the weather was pleasant, never rising much above 30C - not bad for Saudi Arabia in August. 

Have the bee-eaters returned?

I have been waiting for the local bee-eater to return. I thought they had two days ago when a flock of about 20 birds descended on a wood I was visiting at the time. They stopped there all the time I was there. At one time there were 17 birds on a single tree.


However I haven't seen them locally in the 36 hours since and I now wonder if like the previous two flocks they are just passage birds.

bee-eater, Klimentovo near Varna

Near-by I also saw two woodchat shrike. This is an uncommon bird around here. I am surprised that my first summer shrike was woodchat shrike rather than lesser grey shrike or red-backed shrike which are much more common.

female woodchat shrike

Often a female woodchat shrike has a yellower head than the male but not this one. It was equally as orange brown as the male in the pair.

male woodchat shrike

The only easy way I could distinguish between the sexes of these two was that the male has a much stronger black mask over the top of the beck.

spotted flycatcher

I increased my sightings of flycatcher species locally from one to three. In an earlier blog I showed a pied flycatcher on passage. In the last two days I have seen plenty of spotted flycatcher and a couple of semi-collared flycatcher too.  Its a confusing time at the moment with some passage birds mingled in with local breeders. This is true for these flycatchers although I must say the semi-collared flycatchers at least looked very comfortable. 

semi-collared flycatcher

Comparing the semi-collared flycatcher with the pied flycatcher I saw a week or two ago, there is the big white spot above the beck (rather than two small ones) , the collar! and more white on the wing. 

a new shot of a golden oriole

I can confirm the golden oriole which I featured in the last blog are here to stay. They were in pretty much the same place as a few days ago.

One topic I haven't yet give much coverage of locally is bird of prey activity. There is plenty of it. Excluding passage birds, above the skies just south of the village you can see common buzzard, sparrowhawk, and kestrel. I have also seen a pair of eagles. A silhouette of one of them is shown below. I have never pretended to be very good with the ID of eagles. It is my biggest birding weakness. I can manage short toed eagle and bonelli's eagle as I had experience of them in Libya.

 first shot of eagle

Three eagle species visit this area in the summer. My very hesitant guess is that the birds were lesser spotted eagle. I hope they are summer residents and I'll get more chance for a closer and longer look.

second silhouette of an eagle

Of course my village is on a major passage route too but these birds weren't in any hurry to travel north. One passage bird I did have seen in the past two days over-head was osprey. You have to remember we are only 4 kilometres from the coast as the crow flies.

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