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

Mirbat pelagic brings up 300

Yesterday morning, I went on a pelagic trip out of Mirbat harbour. It was organised by Jens Eriksen and I am grateful for the place on board and the company of all four others.

Despite the stormy weather in these parts of late, the sea was like a mill pond. It was incredibly calm.

Persian shearwater

Within 15 minutes, we had encountered a group of Persian shearwater which were spending much time swimming on the surface and "periscoping" the sea for food.

Two Persian shearwater

Perhaps surprisingly I had previously only seen flesh-footed shearwater and wedge-tailed shearwater in Oman and that by sea watching from land. The much more common Persian shearwater had escaped me. It was a lifer and also the 300th bird on my Oman list. This was fine start to the trip.

Persian shearwater taking off

Apart from the odd sooty gull flying out to sea, the next species seen was brown noddy.

brown noddy

This bird is much more familiar to me but in Oman I had only seen one before which had flown into the bay at Khawr Rori.

There were three at Mirbat.

Jouanin's petrel 1

Soon after seeing the three brown noddy we came across our first group of Jouanin's petrel. This was another lifer and another addition to my Oman list. 

This turned out to be the second most common bird of the trip. Several small groups were seen throughout. When flying it is easily separated from other all dark sea birds by the 45 degree angle it holds its bill at.

Jouanin's petrel 2

Only one great crested tern was observed. All other terns were bridled tern.

bridled tern

When resting, they showed a strong preference for standing on pieces of wood rather than swimming like all the other sea birds including the distantly related brown noddy.

three bridled tern

As a crude rule of thumb, it seems the bigger the piece of wood the more bridled tern.

red-necked phalarope

The most abundant bird of all on pelagic trip was red-necked phalarope. This was not unexpected as most of the world population winters off the Yemen and Oman coast.

Following the early flurry of species, we were seeing the same ones for a long while until three Socotra cormorant flew by.

After a little over 3 hours, we decided to head to harbour and going fast towards it when a small dark bird was spotted.

We soon realised it was a lone Wilson's storm petrel.

first view of Wilson's storm petrel

It looked like it was walking on water. It turned and walked towards us. It was using one wing to catch some wind which was enough to propel it forward at a fast enough speed that it didn't need to fly. It was like it was yachting.

"walking"" Wilson's storm petrel

Occasionally it would jump up a few centimetres but resuming its walk.

"jumping" Wilson's storm petrel

The picture below shows this use of one wing.

 Wilson's storm petrel "walking" again

Just as we were about to leave it changed direction again but was still walking.

 Wilson's storm petrel having turned

This was magical end to the boat trip and I think all of us found this spectacle the highlight. Wilson's storm petrel was a third lifer and the third addition to my Oman list. I started the trip with 299 species and ended it with 302.