Aleg at dusk

Mohamed Vall and I had a long weekend's birding trip down to Guidimakha province. This the southermost part of the country and borders both Senegal and Mali. It has more rainfall and longer rainy season than anywhere else. Consquently it birds include species not found eslewhere in the country.

We started out at noon last Friday. Needless to say it is impossible to travel there in half a day. We elected to stay the night in Aleg. Indeed we arrived ahead of dusk and managed some birding at the lake before it got too dark.

Sunsetting over Lake Aleg (courtesy of Mohamed Vall)

A late arrival coupled with extra time needed to walk to the edge of the lake through muddy landscape meant we missed out on identifying so many birds. However we stumbled over many collared pratincole, yellow wagtail and spur-winged lapwing in the fields on our walk towards the water's edge.

Some of the birds going up

Indeed there were many hundreds of birds huddled round the remains of the lake which was only one twentieth the size of our last visit. It will only swell again with the next rainy season, probably from late July onwards.

glossy ibis

Of the larger birds there were probably between 100 and 200 each of cattle egret and glossy ibis.  There were certainly hundreds of assorted waders but most went unidentied.

sacred ibis with cattle egret

There was some good news though. Even though the gloom we could pick out a group of sacred ibis among the cattle egret. This was the first addition to my Mauritanian list of the weekend. Unfortunately we couldn't make out which type of spoonbill was present. This could have added another if they had been African.

We were reliant of identification of birds which chose to come close to our corner of the lake. These included several terns. Many were white-winged black tern and a few were gull-billed tern. 

whiskered tern (courtesy of Mohamed Vall)

More good news was that we could make out a few whiskered tern which were in breeding plumage.

This was a second welcome addition to the list.

collared pratincole

The next morning we left Aleg early and stopped first at Lake Jintu on the Senegal River near Boghe. The light and the birding were excellent. We could indentify all we saw and good pictures were taken. Three more additions were made to the list too. I will blog about that next.

Species identified at the Lake and near-by woodland
Northern Pintail  12

Little Egret  3

Cattle Egret  110    

Glossy Ibis  140

Sacred Ibis  14

Western Marsh Harrier  1

Black Kite (Yellow-billed)  1

Common Ringed Plover  35    

Little Stint  40

Wood Sandpiper  24

Collared Pratincole  40

Gull-billed Tern  12

White-winged Black Tern  55

Whiskered Tern  6

Laughing Dove  12

Namaqua Dove  8

Southern Grey Shrike  2

Woodchat Shrike  4

Brown-necked Raven  2

Black-crowned Sparrow-Lark  14

Sand Martin  5

Barn Swallow  40    

Red-rumped Swallow  1

Western Orphean Warbler  2

Black Scrub-Robin  4

Northern Wheatear  2

Long-tailed Glossy Starling  3

Western Yellow Wagtail  45

Red-billed Quelea  300

Red-rumped swallow at Raysut

Last afternoon towards evening I went to Raysut settling pools. This has become a bit of a habit over the past three weeks.

This time I was joined by work colleague and friend Michael Immel.

He was present when early on on Thursday's visit we came across a small group of swallows. They were hawking for insects over two of the back settling pools but also perching for rest from time to time. What was special is that one of them was a red-rumped swallow.

red-rumped swallow

The red-rumped swallow was the first I have seen in Oman and makes species number 269 on my country list.

red-rumped swallow 2

Dhofar is an the eastern edge of their migration route in spring and numbers can't be very high. 

swallows

Barn swallow numbers on the other hand are high and a few winter here too.

barn swallow

Another obvious migrant at the pools was rufous bush robin We saw at least three and each time the bird was shy flying into bushes at the first sign of trouble.

rufous bush robin

There is definitely a peak in the numbers of red-tailed shrike at the moment too. At the pools were one of both Daurian shrike and Turkestan shrike.

Turkestan shrike

Even though the spring passerine passage is relatively weak in southern Dhofar, it has some small strength at this moment since this is peak season. 

wood sandpiper and Temminck's stint

However the waders were reduced from last week but the quality was good. There were several wood sandpiper and Temminck's stint. A red-wattled lapwing and the vagrant spur-winged lapwing which had been here most of the winter were seen again. They were together. Black winged stilt and little stint were the main other waders.

flamingo and black winged stilt

The group of flamingo had split in two but was otherwise the same as last week.

western reef heron

Grey heron and western reef heron were present along with one squacco heron and an Indian pond heron.

little grebe

The four little grebe were also still present in exactly the same settling pool as before.

whiskered tern 1 (by Michael Immel)

There has been one whiskered tern reported here for months.  I don't know whether it has always been the same bird. Either way, one was present yesterday and it was in full summer plumage. 

whiskered tern 2 (by Michael Immel)

Michael got better images than me and has kindly allowed me to show two of them.

whiskered tern 3

The bird now was a neat black cap, bright red legs and bill as well as a grey belly and upper parts. It can be no other bird.

whiskered tern 4

I left the settling pools very well satisfied and as has been my habit for the past three weeks, we briefly popped into the water treatment lake before it got too dark.

another Turkestan shrike

The two highlights there were another Indian pond heron and a very brown looking Turkesten shrike. This last bird required some work to identify because it was not at all confiding and the colours were very rich. Nevertheless the small white primary patch was one feature that finally convinced me it was the more common of the two birds, Turkestan shrike rather than brown shrike.

Today, I am going out early and will hope the heat doesn't stop me too soon. I will blog about what I see.

Terns on the beaches

Having now seen 246 species in Oman with all but 4 in the Dhofar area, I have not been expecting many new additions before the spring migration.

Indeed this has been the first full week with no additions and there will probably be plenty more.

I have decided to take a more relaxed approach to local birding for a month or so though some reported twitches might tempt me.

In the last week, I have spent a significant proportion of my birding time on beaches.

Caspian tern with one lesser crested tern

This blog looks at some of the terns I have seen on the beaches among the literally thousands of gulls.

On the beach at Khawr Soly were several Caspian tern (also seen at Taqah and East Khawr during the week).

lesser crested tern with one sandwich tern

Very close by was a group of lesser crested tern. Within that group was one sandwich tern. These two birds are very closely related and sandwich tern often associate with lesser crested tern if their own type are not around.

whiskered tern

There was a single small tern next to them but not associating with any of the other terns.

sideways look at whiskered tern

I couldn't identify this small tern immediately. The bill was too short and strong for a Saunders's tern or a little tern.

preening whiskered tern

I am not used to seeing whiskered tern or any other marsh tern on a beach but that is what it is.

Actually the beach at Khawr Soly is straight in front of the sand bar separating the freshwater lagoons and so the bird wasn't out of place.

sleeping whiskered tern

Caspian tern were also seen at East Khawr (Khawr Dahariz) as were gull-billed tern.

gull-billed tern

What surprised me was that one of the gull-billed tern was in breeding plumage already.

gull-billed tern in breeding plumage

Although this blog is primarily about terns, I got distracted for a short time by a bathing grey plover at East Khawr. 

bathing grey plover

I accidentally caught the moment when it raised its wings and showed its underwing black patch.

underwing of a grey plover

This is very useful to differentiate between juvenile golden plovers and grey plover in autumn when some of the former birds have very little golden sheen.

Saunders's tern

On Friday morning I visited Taqah beach and saw more terns. However my main motive to be there was to twitch the skimmers that have been seen twice along the front. Sadly, although I scanned over 2000 water birds, no skimmer was among them. I did see 12 Pallas's gull and other scarcer birds among about 1100 Hueglin's gull and 600 sooty gull.

During this scan I added Saunders's tern to the list of terns seen over the past few days.

The bill is thinner and longer than in a whiskered tern. The winter head pattern usually includes a small amount of black in front of eye too. The legs are often lighter as well.

three Saunders's tern

My regional guide says Saunders's tern can doubtfully be separated from little tern in winter. I am not sure that is true. In summer the white on the crown of a little tern reaches the back of the eye. If it doesn't manage that in winter when there is less black and even more white its not going to do it in summer. So I believe many winter Saunders's tern can be identified by the white not reaching the back of the eye. The problem is identifying little tern. Some winter Saunders's tern have white reaching the back of eye and all little tern.

If I have gauged this correctly all my birds are Saunders's tern with the possible exception of the one towards the bottom right in the first picture.

white winged lapwing

Once again I got distracted from my main tasks while birding. I found a single white-winged lapwing at Taqah. I suspect it may be the same bird I saw for a month or so at near-by Khawr Soly but whose chosen area has since dried up during the winter.

A tern and 300 storks at Raysut

On Saturday, I returned to the Raysut area west of the city of Salalah. I had met a birding couple from Finland who had told me  two days before they thought they had seen a black tern at Raysut treated water lake. This would be a vagrant so it was a significant reason why I chose there to visit.

Whiskered tern at rest

I thought there was only one tern there and spent a lot of time tracking it. It had the all grey rump they mentioned. However, I was pretty sure it was a whiskered tern and coming home and analysing it proved it.

upperside of Whiskered tern in flight

Nevertheless I took more careful photos than usual to make sure. An all grey rump is a characteristic of whiskered tern and black tern but not the white winged black tern which is the most common wintering marsh tern in Dhofar.

The head pattern was a perfect fit for a whiskered tern too.

whiskered tern flying away

Only on returning home did I realise I had made a mistake. There had been two terns there. Unfortunately the photos of the second tern were few and most were too blurred.

unidentified tern

This second tern has a dark back and a different head pattern. It is either a black tern or a white winged black tern. It will need a return visit and hope that it is still there.

Sometimes birding brings disappointments.

white stork

There was other action at the treated water lake. A flock of 12 white stork flew over only to meet a flock of 40 Abdim's stork. They merged for a short while.

Abdim's stork with a single white stork

Meanwhile at ground level, I accidentally flushed three juvenile black-crowned night heron. I had seen one at the site before.

black-crowned night-heron

The site has many wintering citrine wagtail.

citrine wagtail

The water is deep enough to sustain a resident little grebe population.

little grebe

More blue-cheeked bee-eater were passing through. Every water body with cover has these birds at the moment. However, I still haven't seen a single European bee-eater in Oman.

blue-cheeked bee-eater

Blackstart is one of the most common birds down here in semi-arid and lusher settings.

blackstart

As well as the treated water lake I also went to the main rubbish dump where bird numbers have multiplied since my last visit. They were over 250 Abdim's stork and over 200 steppe eagle. 

Around the perimeter I also came across a European roller, a kestrel, several blackstart and desert wheatear and a few barn swallow.
.

sub adult steppe eagle

I laboriously looked through the steppe eagle to see if there was any exception.

young steppe eagle with eastern imperial eagle

In the end I found one Eastern Imperial eagle.

eastern imperial eagle

In my next blog, I'll report on a good late afternoon's birding on Monday when another species was added to my Oman list and it was a good one.

Kharj in summer

On Thursday despite the intense heat which reached 46C in the shade, Lou and I went birding. For the first time in a while we visited the Kharj farming district, 60 kilometres south of Riyadh. In particular we visited the area a little  south east of the city. Here is a waste water treatment plant which gives rise to a river and lagoons. Parallel to the river in the next wadi is a large seemingly natural lake.


The river, lagoons and lake were all visited.

purple heron at Kharj

Once again Lou and I searched hard for moustached warbler and turtle dove which the guide books say breed in central Arabia. Once again we failed to see or hear any. We have finally concluded that the data is out of date and they really don't breed here any more. We certainly couldn't have put in more effort over the weeks in trying to find them in appropriate habitat.

Nevertheless the river did have a wide diversity of bird species. Purple heron, black crowned night heron and squacco heron were seen.

black crowned night heron

In our search for moustached warbler, we kept coming across European reed warbler in the reeds and less frequently eastern olivaceous warbler in the bushes. Graceful prinia was in both places.

little green bee-eater

There was a high density of little green bee-eater with many young ones among them.

Indian silverbill

Indian silverbill were seen in numbers along with the ubiquitous house sparrow.  However we didn't see any spanish sparrow unlike in my "local patch" at al Hair.

Namaqua dove

Collared dove, laughing dove and namaqua dove were also present and obvious. I find that namaqua dove is more willing to come out of the shade than the others but equally you often see it drinking.

camel wallowing

At one point in our walk along the river we came across a very tame group of camels. This female gladly continued wallowing in the water right next to us without a care.

lagoon end of the waste water river

We drove to the far end of the river where it opens out into lagoons and where the reeds finally subside.

spur winged lapwing

Here the birding was quite different. Spur winged lapwing were present. This lapwing is unique to Khraj. I have never seen it at al Hayer or indeed anywhere close to Riyadh.

Kentish plover

Another difference with al Hair is the default breeding small plover is Kentish plover rather than little ringed plover. This probably tells us that the water bodies are more saline at Kharj. Kentish plover was present in the lagoons.

There were also a small number of black winged stilt there.

black winged stilt

After moving on from the lagoons and we temperatures till rising, our last stop was a lake near the middle section of the river in the parallel wadi. Here black winged stilt was very numerous and noisy.

black winged stilt in flight

Several of them kept flying over us as we walked round. I have seen this before in other countries and have always put it down to protecting young.

young black winged stilt

Sure enough a young stilt was seen but I believe others were around but hidden. 

The shores were heavy with Kentish plover. However it was the rarer birds which excited.

whiskered tern drinking

A single whiskered tern was present. It looks like it is over-summering a long way south of where most such tern in the Middle east spend their summer. It was in non-breeding plumage.  Kharj was the only place I saw one in central Arabia in winter too.

whiskered tern in flight

Lou spotted a single sandgrouse drinking. I had time to view it briefly just as it flew off. My best guess is that it was chestnut bellied sandgrouse. This is the same species that Clive, Abdullah and I had seen in Kharj during December.

Finally to add to the species list, one little grebe made a short appearance before hiding.

Overall the variety of birds made the extra journey and the effort in the heat very worthwhile.