Shearwaters aplenty off Mirbat

I got an invitation at short notice to go on a pelagic trip off Mirabat on Saturday morning. A camera crew was visiting the area for a documentary. It won't feature me but it was free and in return I hope I was a help with bird identification.

Once we were about one kilometre out it became apparent that there were several shearwaters around of three species. When bait was thrown prolonged and closed views of all three were possible. Indeed this gave some of the best birding I have had in Oman. Flesh-footed shearwater was the most numerous. This species breeds in the southern oceans generally at latitudes 30°
-35° south. However they come north after breeding including to off the Oman coast. Contrary to the regional guide book they are not rare here.

flesh-footed shearwater

They were surprisingly tame and came very close to the boat. My pictures were limited as the film crew demanded silence and stillness much of the time.

flesh-footed shearwater

This shearwater has no confusion species in this park of the world.

underwing of flesh-footed shearwater

At times the shearwaters literally walked on water.

walking on water

The only time they were agitated was when sooty gull competed with them for bait. This was minimised when we took the boat further out.

sooty gull and flesh-footed shearwater

For once the more local and northern hemisphere breeding Persian shearwater was not the most numerous shearwater around.

Persian shearwater

I find it difficult to get good pictures of them as their underbellies are so white that they readily overexpose.

Persian shearwater swimming away

When close to the boat they frequently had their heads in the water.

Persian shearwater with head down

The third shearwater was wedge-tailed shearwater. This is not common off Oman's coasts. There are two main morphs and also various intermediates. The pale morph has a white belly similar to a Persian shearwater. It is not rare throughout the world but it breeds close to the equator. The further the breeding colony is away from the equator the higher proportions of dark morph and intermediates.

The birds seen off Oman are said to be dark morph. Pale morph birds born close to the equator don't migrate far and highly unlikely to come here.  However, the two birds I saw on Saturday looked more intermediate. I have read that these can be described as "cafe au lait".

wedge-tailed shearwater

There are only 63 records of wedge-tailed shearwater off Oman but I suspect it is more common than the numbers suggest. Not too many pelagics take place.

wedge-tailed shearwater

The main confusion species is Jouanin's petrel which is smaller and certainly darker than the two birds I saw on Saturday. The bill is also shorter but stronger on the petrel.

wedge-tailed shearwater

A few Jouanin's petrel were seen but only came close to the boat while the film crew were filming so I have no photos.

Other notably birds were 12 masked booby and a red-billed tropicbird.

black-crowned sparrow lark

On the beach were two larks. They were the ubiquitous black-crowned sparrow lark. I am ever vigilant for Dunn's lark. 


Even without that, it was a special day.


Birds seen from the boat

Jouanin's Petrel 6
Flesh-footed Shearwater 12
Wedge-tailed Shearwater 2   
Persian Shearwater 5
Wilson's Storm-Petrel 1
Red-billed Tropicbird 1
Masked Booby 12
Striated Heron 1
Common Sandpiper 1
Sooty Gull 22
Bridled Tern 4
Common Tern 12
Great Crested Tern 5

Late May weekend

Last weekend I birded with Andrew Bailey visiting from UAE and who also happens to be a near neighbour in Bulgaria where I have a home.

This blog looks at the weekend.

We started out at Jarziz farm in the early morning. Andrew was very lucky to see the last Amur falcon passing through. None have been since that morning. However we counted three on the day.

Amur falcon

All three were female. 

spotted thick-knee

The spotted thick-knee I had seen the day before were still present and we got good views.

Singing bush lark were abundant and were easy additions (along with Amur falcon) to Andrew's growing Oman list.

female masked shrike

We headed next to Ayn Hamran where Andrew was keen to see grey headed kingfisher and Dideric cuckoo to add to his list. The latter would have been a lifer.  The kingfisher was easily seen but the Dideric cuckoo though heard frequently couldn't be found despite an extensive search.

Another interesting observation was a female masked shrike which I had also seen with Markus Craig several days before. This bird is taking its passage slowly and late.

Next stop was Taqah were we saw lesser sand plover and curlew sandpiper among the small number of waders. These were additions to his list here.

Also at Taqah we called in at the Forbes Watson swift colony at the cliffs. There was plenty of activity there.

The last stop of the morning was the top of Jebel Samhan via Tawi Atair. We stopped patiently at the observation point where Verreaux's eagle can usually be seen but had no success. Birding is never that easy.

On the way there we counted four grey-headed kingfisher on wires.

After a midday break necessitated by the heat, we moved on to Ayn Razat.

long-billed pipit 1

Ayn Razat was full of picnickers. Yet despite this the bird life was full too. Our main reason to visit was to try to find a Dideric cuckoo which we missed out on at Ayn Hamran.

The ornamental gardens were open which I have usually found closed. On the lawn were two long-billed pipit as well as several Ruppell's weaver.

long-billed pipit 2

We went inside because we could once again here a Dideric cuckoo and it seemed to be in the direction of the garden.

Bruce's green pigeon 1

Bruce's green pigeon were in the trees but mostly unseen by the general public below.

Bruce's green pigeon 2

Finally Andrew spotted the Dideric cuckoo. It was in the distance and not in the garden but right through the other side and half way up the hill side looking down on the spring and gardens. It's voice certainly carries.

distant Dideric cuckoo

Ayn Razat also held several grey-headed kingfisher.

Grey-headed kingfisher

Our tour of local sites didn't stop at Ayn Razat. We went owling at Wadi Darbat. On the way we stopped off at Khawr Soly just before dusk and found a single late blue-cheeked bee-eater. This was new to Andrew's Oman list.

blue-cheeked bee-eater

We heard several Arabian scops owl and two Arabian spotted eagle owl at Wadi Darbet but failed to see them. We came very close to the eagle owls but the river divided us from them.

The next day we went out to Ras Janjari with Saeed Shanfari and his friend Aymen. This is not the Ras Janjari in the main country bird guide but it was what the locals call Ras Janjari (pronounced Gang-ery). There are several headlands jutting out into the sea. However the one we were taken to was extremely remote but it jutted into the sea further than any other.

Socotra cormorant

The sea and particularly the small fishing harbour held literally hundreds of sooty gull. The most common tern by far was great crested tern.

Nevertheless there were other more interesting birds present too which were mostly further out.

Bridled tern were easy to identify. However it was the shearwaters which were most attractive to us.

Andrew has more experience in this area than me and managed to identify four shearwaters as flesh-footed shearwater by observation.

wedge-tailed shearwater (l) with flesh-footed shearwater (r)

Meanwhile I obtained two useful distant shots which we sent out for consultation with regional experts. The bird on the right was relatively easy. It is a flesh-footed shearwater. It is all dark with the exception of silvery primaries (visible on the photo if you look carefully). 

The bird on the left is a smaller shearwater. It is a wedge-tailed shearwater rather than the only other candidate - sooty shearwater because of the just-visible white trailing edge and the lighter upperparts (though the strong sun can effect the colour considerably). The overall shape is also right for this bird.

wedge-tailed shearwater

It was me rather than Andrew that gained two lifers here. Both of us of course added two to our Oman list. This made numbers 283 and 284 on my list.

little green bee-eater

The long way back to the main road was a bit of an anti-climax. We stopped to photograph some little green bee-eater and observe a small group of sand partridge scurrying up the hill side.

dhub (spiny-tailed agama)

We also stopped to inspect a very colourful spiny-tailed agama.

dhub (spiny-tailed agama)

Both Andrew and I are grateful for being guided by Saeed and Ayman on Saturday morning.

As we didn't finish this session until way past midday, we did relatively little birding in the late afternoon following a rest. Birding at Ayn Sahalnout produced little of extra interest except the first and only African paradise flycatcher of the weekend.

Overall it was a successful weekend. It was Andrew's second visit and once again not only did he add to his Oman list as would be expected but I did too.