Thrush nightingale at Qatbeet

After visiting Dowkah farm last Friday, it was still only 10am. I decided to travel on to Qatbeet while I was in the desert. It is "only" a further 80 kilometres further up the Muscat road.

The garden of Qatbeet Motel is not as good birding as in the past due to clearance of many of the low lying bushes. Nevertheless good birds are still seen and there are a few parts of the gardens with sufficient shade.

After a bite to eat, I started birding around midday which is very hot at this time of year.

thrush nightingale 1

Most of the best birds were clustered around one small area of the garden. It was in the most shaded area but in particularly that part of the shaded patch which also currently benefits from a leaking pipe.

Here I came across a thrush nightingale. This is a rare passage migrant although I saw a few in the Ayns near Salalah last autumn. It is obviously greyer and slightly darker than common nightingale. It also has a much more streaked front.

thrush nightingale 2

There were a few warblers in this patch too. All birds were keeping to cover as best they could and that's why nearly no pictures show straight views clear of the undergrowth. If I had been there early in the morning I am sure things would have been different.

willow warbler

One of the warblers was a willow warbler. This is surprisingly uncommon on migration in Oman in autumn. There was a Eurasian reed warbler there but it evaded my camera.

common whitethroat 1

Two common whitethroat were of the nominate subspecies which I had seen the weekend before too (at Dowkah farm).

common whitethroat 2

There was also the first common whitethroat of one of the eastern subspecies. The female is very bland bird.

eastern whitethroat 1

The majority of common whitethroat seen further south in the Salalah area are from the east.

eastern whitethroat 2

Elsewhere on site, interesting birds were few with a couple of exceptions. One was an Isabelline wheatear.

Isabelline wheatear

The second was a wryneck. This is not only a passage bird in Oman but a wintering one too.

wryneck

I took the opportunity to drive back towards Salalah during mid-afternoon when the heat was fierce. I managed to stop off at Rabkut as temperatures had cooled down. I will blog about that next.

Around Salalah city

Yesterday I stayed close to the city of Salalah. All my sites were within 10 kilometres of the city centre.

I stated out with a visit to Ayn Jarziz then went to the khawr (lagoon) either side of the Hilton hotel and finally and very interestingly to the wadi just west of Raysut Industrial area.

Ayn Jarziz doesnt merit one of those brown cultural and leisure signs that many of the Ayns (springs) do and it is smaller than many of the better known ones but I am glad I went.

It had the basic land birds that I have been seeing at the others: Ruepell's weaver, grey-headed kingfisher, dideric cuckoo, african silverbill etc.

Like Ayn Hamran there were nightingales in the most shaded areas near water.

Thrush nightingale

However this time I had an even closer look at them. Previously at Ayn Hamran I struggled to identify them and concentrated on one bird which turned out to be an "eastern" nightingale. I now believe the issue is more complex.

The first bird I looked at at Ayn Jarziz is not an "eastern" nightingale. It doesn't show any pale fringes to the tertials and greater coverts. It doesn't have a pale supercilium either.  It is almost certainly a thrush nightingale.

This is described as a vagrant to Oman! However I have read several trip reports that quote it in the area and I used to see them in Riyadh on passage presumably heading in this direction.

Below is a real eastern nightingale seen in the same shaded area within metres of the thrush nightingale. Note that it does have white fringes in the right places and a pale supercilium.

"Eastern" nightingale from the rear

Now I regret not looking at the large numbers of nightingales at Ayn Hamran. I eouldnt be surprised if that included more thrush nightingale.

"Eastern" nightingale profile

Next I drove almost directly south to the khawr by the Hilton hotel. This was a little disappointing because it is surrounded by 4 metre tall mangroves except at the seaward exit. However this makes it very peaceful for any birds in there.

cattle egret

The highlight was a screaming striated heron which I must have flushed at the entrance which flew straight past me into the khawr as I was watching two cattle egret at the entrance. Of course there was no chance of a photo for this latest addition to my Oman list

little egret

Otherwise I only managed to see moorhen, little grebe, a little egret and sooty gull there.

sooty gull

The khawr is admittedly very attractive.

Khawr near the Hilton

My next and final stop for the day was the most prolonged and fruitful.

I spotted a wadi running just west of Raysut Industrial area from the main coast road. I had no idea whether it had any water. I parked the car and got out and walked inland. As  walked in the amount of water on the ground grew and when I turned a corner I was met by 75 white stork.These are probably the same birds I saw at the rubbish tip a couple of days before but this was still a surprise. The surroundings were much more pleasant too.

white storks

It got better. There were a dozen flamingo there.

Flamingoes

There were also plenty of associated waders as well as garganey and northern shoveller.

I pressed on inland until I met a very large sedge bed which turned into a reed bed further in.

However I couldn't see many birds in there. Nearly though was a mobile flock of over 50 pale rock sparrow which were enjoying the water and the cliff sides to the wadi.

Pale rock sparrow

This is the second time in under 10 days that I have seen a large flock of pale rock sparrow in the Dhofar region.

Plenty of pale rock sparrow

I had to turn round at one point as there was no way through the reeds.

lizard

 I took a chance to photograph the northern shoveller on the way back.

Northern shoveller

Instead of going back to the car, I decided to carry out up down the wadi, under the main road and to to the coast.

There was a ubiquitous European roller on the way.

European roller

At the sea edge the wadi is flat but rocky with a few rock pools. I know the shore birds would be different here.

There were over one hundred sooty gull and fifteen or so greater crested tern. There were also some waders including a whimbrel (which was smaller than usual and this caused me some identification headaches for a while).

striated heron

The different terrain produced dividends. I got my chance to photograph a striated heron after all.

Oystercatcher

The rocks were always going to be good habitat for oystercatcher and so they were there. This was the third and final addition to my Oman list of the day.

New wave of migrants on the walk to work

I am continuing to walk to and from work via the small University farm. 

It's hard work finding migrants there compared with spring.  It's on average 10C hotter than in April so its not unexpected that many migrants are hiding in the shade.

One exception over the past few days was this common whitethroat which I caught in bright sunlight because the ground next to it was being watered.

common whitethoart

What has been surprising is how few migrants I have seen coming out of the shade and taking drinks. The farm's gardens are watered on some sort of rotation in the early morning and late afternoon just as I am walking through. Patiently watching the areas being watered hasn't brought me so many good results with the common whitethroat excepted.

second view of common whitethroat

Looking deep in the bushes and trees has brought better dividends. This way I spied my first wryneck at the farm this autumn. You may recall they were common during the spring. As in spring, this one stayed a few days.

wryneck

This evening I saw a thrush nightingale in the deep shade. This is another bird which was seen in spring at the farm too.

thrush nightingale 

Even a spotted flycatcher was using a perch under the shade of a large tree to launch his forays into the air.

spotted flycatcher

The heavy influx of immature shrikes observed one or two weeks ago has subsided. Only one young woodchat shrike remains and he has been around for over a week now.

cattle egret

As well as migrants, I have seen two other birds this last week which not so common on the way to work. A cattle egret was attracted to the temporary pool on Thursday and a kestrel was briefly seen this evening.

kestrel

The passage should be hotting up this month just as the temperatures are expected to cool down. Both factors should make the walk more enjoyable.

Five lone trees in the desert

250 kilometres east of Riyadh on the Dammam road, there is a  "pit stop" for lorry drivers. It consists of a mosque, a toilet block and one other outhouse. There isn't even a shop. Crucially there is a row of 5 small ornamental trees to give some shade. No tree was above 5 metres tall.

We stopped there yesterday morning on the way to Jubail to stretch our legs until I realised the 5 small trees were heaving with migrants. What's more they had no way else to go. All around is complete desert with no other trees or even scrub visible.

It had rained the night before (a rare event in a pure desert area) and there was a big pool of water right next to the trees to add to their attractiveness to birds.

common nightingale

It was a very lucky stop. I was able to see all the migrants close up. The birds weren't all warblers either.  There were three members of the thrush family which excited me most. I have never been so close to a common nightingale for so long before and the trees held two! 

common nightingale looks back at me

After seeing two nightingale, I soon realised there was a thrush nightingale there too.

thrush nightingale in the open

Notice the duller colours and the lack of contrast with the tail and body.

thrush nightingale deep in a tree 

Thrush nightingale also has  mottled grey brown wide sides to its breast. it was very interesting to be able to see the two species side-by side for comparison. 

female white throated robin hiding low

Generally staying lower in the tree was also a female white throated robin. This bird flew off once into the middle distance a couple of hundred metres away, only to return two minutes later when it realised there was no where else for it.

white throated robin with wings drooped

All three birds often droop their wings. I think they look quite different when they don't.

white throated robin without wings drooped

Although the three thrush family members got most of my attention, there were several warblers present too. Willow warbler were the most abundant. There was also at least one female blackcap.

side view of common whitethroat

Both common whitethroat and lesser whitethroat made more appearances at the top of the trees which is where photography was easiest so I concentrated on them.

back view of common whitethroat

Again this allowed me time to compare two similar looking species. The rusty side to the wings and orange-fleshy legs  of common whitethroat make separation very easy when both are seen close up. 

lesser whitethroat

An eastern olivaceous warbler was also present. Its thinner beak is one of the easiest ways to separate it from the superficially similar Upcher's warbler.

eastern olivaceous warbler

Having looked closely at the trees, a short walk around the buildings only revealed tens of  local house sparrow and a single Daurian shrike.

Daurian shrike

As we moved on, I was left to wonder if there is such an array of migrants every morning there during the passage or whether the rainfall had any significance.