Gouizha

Ealry morning on July 29th before I left Kurdistan, I ventured up the heights near Gouizha, Sulaimani. 

The altitude was only about 1150 metres but the habitat was sufficiently different from Sulaimani itself to see some difference in the species. 

Rufous bush robin

One species that I had seen down in the town was rufous bush robin. However their density up at Gouizha was higher and they were more approachable.

another pose of rufous bush robin

This was the only place I saw Upcher's warbler on the trip and it appeared quite common.

Upcher's warbler

It was also the only place I saw a shrike. In this case it was a young woodchat shrike. 

Juvenile woodchat shrike

I found the separation between it and masked shrike quite difficult. The rusty nape on the second picture was a big clue. It also has a white rump and large bill fitting woodchat shrike better. My thanks to contributors to birdforum identification forum for drawing my attention to these last two features.

second view of woodchat shrike

My identification issues didn't finish with the woodchat shrike. A wheatear was very common in the area but I struggled to decide whether they were black-eared wheatear, pied wheatear or their hybrids. The default species in Kurdistan in summer is (eastern) black-eared wheatear.

eastern black-eared wheatear - first view

Once again I turned to birdforum for help. Omar from Baghdad pointed out that the face and neck colours fit black-eared wheatear. The nape is partially obscured but the chin colouration is clearer and it is not dark as would be expected with pied wheatear.

eastern black-eared wheatear -second view

There is a useful picture I often refer to (see below) when making comparisons with male Cyprus, black-eared (both dark throated and pale throated) and pied wheatears. This comes from a paper on the cyprus wheatear by Christoph Randler, Marc I. Forschler, Javier Gonzalez, Mansour Aliabadian, Franz Bairlein and Michael Wink. The degree of dark colouration on the nape and chin for each species is shown.

Male dark-throated eastern black-eared wheatear were not the only type of eastern black-eared wheatear seen. 

pale-throated black-eared wheatear 

There was a male pale throated variant near-by.

female type black-eared wheatear

Yet more eastern black eared wheatear were about including female types and young birds.

young black-eared wheatear

I regretted the fact that I had to catch a plane to leave Kurdistan soon after lunch time because I would have liked to have explored this area more fully. I had birded only along the trail at the bottom of the tree line. The woods above looked very interesting as did the higher slopes.

looking up the heights at Gouizha

I did manage to see two wood pigeon as an appetiser as to what may have been there. 

In the end I was satisified with seeing 44 species on the trip in a region with great potential but with some current difficulties being so close to a war zone. 

Summary of all 44 species seen in Kurdistan including the ones at Gouizha

	Azadi Park, Sulaimani	Tanjaro river, Sulaimani	Dukan	Tanjaro river (2), Sulaimani	Gouizha
See-see partridge				x
White stork		x		x
Short-toed eagle			x
Moorhen				x
Black-winged stilt				x
Red-wattled lapwing		x		x
Little ringed plover				x
Green sandpiper		x		x
Common sandpiper		x		x
Wood sandpiper				x
Armenian gull			x
Feral pigeon	x	x	x	x
Woodpigeon					x
Collared dove	x	x	x	x
Laughing dove	x	x	x	x	x
Hoopoe	x
White throated kingfisher			x
Pied kingfisher			x
Blue-cheeked bee-eater			x
European bee-eater			x
Woodchat   shrike					x
Golden oriole			x
Magpie		x	x	x	x
Jackdaw			x
Northern raven		x	x
White eared bulbul			x
Great tit			x
Crested lark		x	x	x	x
Red rumped swallow			x
Barn swallow	x		x	x
Graceful prinia			x
European reed warbler			x
Eastern olivaceous warbler	x			x
Menetries’s warbler	x
Upcher’s warbler					x
Blackbird			x
Rufous bush robin				x	x
Isabelline wheatear					x
Black eared wheatear					x
House sparrow	x	x	x	x	x
Yellow  wagtail				x
White wagtail	x			x
Greenfinch	x
Goldfinch			x