Black winged pratincole and more in Riyadh

On Saturday, an early morning trip to some new places west of the city had to be aborted due to car troubles. So I improvised. 

It meant a late start because it took time to rearrange. Furthermore, if you go birding after about 10 am at this time of year, then its best to choose an area close to water. 

One of my choices was the lake near Riyadh cricket club south east of the city. 

Here were the usual resident collection of of ferruginous duck, mallard duck, coot, moorhen and spur winged lapwing along with a few local waders. 

The local birds are always very nervous but visiting migrants are different. They tolerate closer approach and once again there were significant numbers of these. 

In particular a large mixed group were on an island where I could get good views. Many of the birds were wood sandpiper.

However, two of the birds there were quite special.  

black winged pratincole stretching wings

One was a black-winged pratincole which is exceptionally rarely reported in the Riyadh area although I saw five much further north near Buraydah in spring.

This bird conveniently stretched its wings to show black underneath and no white trailing edge. Before this moment, I already had my suspicions that it wasn't the much more common collared pratincole. 

For a start, it was 3 weeks later than the last collared pratincole seen in the area and it was alone.

black winged pratincole with short streamers

The streamers are very small and short compared with the tail unlike with a collared pratincole where the streamers are usually the same length as the tail.  

black winged pratincole at rest

The amount of red in the bill is less than for a typical collared pratincole though I find this a relatively poor way of distinguishing between the two birds.

black tailed godwit

My initial attention was actually drawn to this mixed group by another bird altogether but which is nearly as rare in this area. A black-tailed godwit was standing head and shoulders taller than the other birds in the group dwarfing even the three ruff present.


The other birds in the group but not already mentioned were little ringed plover.

Kentish plover

The main local plover is Kentish plover.

black winged stilt

Black winged stilt is the other main local wader though I have little doubt that there are visitors during passage and the winter.

The lake near the cricket club was not my first stop on Saturday. I started out at Al Hair but I found that only two birds were active in the midday heat. One was barn swallow hawking over the fields but even many of them were resting.

barn swallow

The second was yellow wagtail. I saw more there on Saturday than ever before in Saudi Arabia.

yellow wagtail

Although many tens were in the near-by fields large numbers were also resting near the waters edge.  The picture below shows 40 such birds.

tens of yellow wagtail

Almost all other bird activity had ground to a halt presumably until late afternoon. Of the finch members normally seen in large numbers in the fields, only a few Indian silverbill were out at times. The others kept almost totally to the shade. 

Indian silverbill

A few other birds were observed and all were reluctant to move so as not to waste energy. For example, the squacco heron below allowed close contact.

Squacco heron

Very close by, I accidentally flushed a little bittern and more predictably several moorhen.

After an hour or so in this heat I began my journey back towards Riyadh which ended with the visit to the Cricket club lake already described.

In between times, I did an hour's "bush bashing", walking around Acacia bushes in the Al Hair area away from the pivot fields. I was looking for red-breasted flycatcher which is a rare migrant through these parts but early to mid October is a good time to look.

little green bee-eater

I didn't succeed in finding it. Birding isn't usually that easy! In fact once again most birds were still deep in the shade. Even the little green bee-eater were resting.  I did manage to find yet another wryneck though. 

wryneck

It's been a bumper season in the Riyadh area for them this year.

Until I saw the black winged pratincole and black tailed godwit it had been the highlight of my day. But they obviously bettered it by some distance.

Fields at Mithnab, Buraidah

The second part of my exploratory visit to Buraidah was to farmland.  I chose the Mithnab (variant spelling of Muznib) simply because it is the closest farming district in the Buraidah area to Riyadh (albeit 325 kilometres away!)

The corridor from Buraidah to Hail has the highest concentration of farms in the country and must be good birding because of that. And yet it is rarely visited.

I chose a farm almost at random near Mithnab and started birding. It had several fodder and wheat fields.

collared pratincole

I had a very successful and enjoyable time near and in two wheat fields, one of which had recently been harvested. I could see at a glance that it had attracted lots of birds but I was shocked to find out that 55 pratincoles were either on the field or next to it.

several pratincoles

I didn't have too much time as this was day trip but I soon realised that this was a mixed flock of pratincoles with both collared pratincole and black winged pratincole. Indeed I had not seen collared pratincole on such dry terrain on passage before. Maybe the black winged pratincole had some influence on selection.

the field with the most pratincoles

At least 5 of the birds were black winged pratincole. They had no white trailing edge, smaller tails and fully black under-wings. Though it has to be said that the dark red in the under-wings of some collared pratincole weren't always discernible to my naked eye from a distance (the camera did better on this).

black winged pratincole

Black winged pratincole is the 281st bird on my Saudi list.

ortolan bunting

These wheat fields held more surprises. Though there were many tens of ortolan bunting gorging on the seed spillage, I had'nt expected to see another cinereous bunting again so soon.

cinereous bunting

It was alone as most reported cinerous bunting on passage have been. Only one report I know of this year in the Saudi Arabia has involved two birds. I only saw my first one two weeks ago at the small farm on the way to work. 

European bee-eater, ortolan bunting and red backed shrike

Near the cinereous bunting were many birds of different species resting on a pivot cross bar. Indeed another theme of this farm was the number of resting birds more usually seen on the wing.

resting blue-cheeked bee-eater

As well as resting European bee-eater the dirt areas around the fields were littered with resting blue-cheeked bee-eater and barn swallow.

resting barn swallow

Once again I saw a whinchat, now viewed as a common migrant in my opinion.

whinchat

However, its nowhere near as common as both red throated pipit and yellow wagtail which are often found together and were present in numbers in the harvested wheat field.

red throated pipit

As I said in the last blog, woodchat shrike are still commonly seen in central Arabia despite being among an early migrants. Lingering in central and northern Saudi Arabia seems to be the only logically conclusion as to what is going on.

woodchat shrike

The most common shrike in Buraidah over the whole day was actually red backed shrike. I can't remember seeing a single Daurian shrike or Turkestan shrike. This is in stark contrast to the Riyadh area and to Jubail (on the east coast) last weekend.

red-backed shrike

On top of two types of pratincole and a near threatened bunting, the birds of prey were a little bit more interesting than average too. Along with a marsh harrier and pallid harrier, a group of three lesser kestrel were hawking over the fields.

My conclusion about birding Buraidah is very positive. Why haven't I been there before?