Both ends of Wadi Thulaymah

There is a waste water river at Kharj. It runs through wadi Thulaymah. It's a sort of mini version of Riyadh river that runs through Al Hayer.  It's still 15 kilometres long though.

Both rivers consist of relatively clean processed water. The end of the river at Kharj produces the lagoons outside Al Safi dairy which were visited last week and where the chestnut bellied sandgrouse were seen.

On Friday morning, Mansur Al Fahad and I returned to the lagoons near AL Safi and then made the journey to the other end of the river near the processing works and where there is a big lake at the head of the river.

citrine wagtail

Even though we visited at the same time there were no sandgrouse.The birds had changed a little in other respects too. Among the white wagtail was another citrine wagtail - not seen here the week before. This was the second sighting in two different places in two days.

Temminck's stint

There were no little stint but in their place were four (three pictured) Temminck's stint.

Wood sandpiper

There were still plenty of black winged stilt and green sandpiper but a wood sandpiper was spotted this week as well.

Squacco heron

I haven't seen any squacco heron all winter at Al Hayer which is very different from last year. However there were three at the lagoons outside Al Safi. One little egret was initially keeping them company.

Grey heron

Grey heron were seen at both ends of the wadi.

Isabelline wheatear

The most common wheatear, once again, was desert wheatear but an Isabelline wheatear was also seen.

Great cormorant

After leaving the lagoons near Al Safi we travelled to the other end of the wadi without really birding the part in between for any length of time.

Here at the start of the river is a very large but hidden holding lake. Last year it was only place in KSA where I had seen tufted duck and pochard.

This time there were no ducks perhaps because the last visit had been at dusk.  However there were four great cormorant and a lot of noise from unseen moorhen.

Little green bee-eater

The little green bee-eater in the near-by Acacia were remarkably tame and allowed very close approach. So I managed better than average pictures of them.

List of birds seen on Friday at Wadi Thulaymah, Kharj and at the blue lagoons, Al Hayer

Gadwell	Rock pigeon
Pintail	Laughing dove
Garganey	Collared dove
Cattle egret	Namaqua dove
Grey heron	Hoopoe
Squacco heron	Little green bee-eater
Little egret	White eared bulbul
Great cormorant	Crested lark
Osprey	Pale crag martin
Marsh harrier	Graceful prinia
Long legged buzzard	Common myna
Greater spotted eagle	Black bush robin
Steppe eagle	Stonechat
Kestrel	Isabelline wheatear
Moorhen	Desert wheatear
Black winged stilt	Mourning wheatear
Common snipe	House sparrow
Great snipe	Spanish sparrow
Wood sandpiper	White wagtail
Green sandpiper	Citrine wagtail
Temminck’s stint

Water birds at Hofuf

Obviously there were birds with an affinity to water at Hofuf lake. However they weren't necessarily the ones I might have expected.

There were no egrets or grey or purple herons but there were at least 20 little bittern around the lake and I also saw four squacco heron.  
I have thought about this and I have a theory. I wonder if the reason is the hunters in the area. The other members of the heron family are either bigger or flock more making them easier targets. Certainly all the birds at the lake were very jumpy.

cormorant

There was a single cormorant at the lake. Until this morning I had thought it was a great cormorant but now I am having second thoughts. Great cormorant can winter inland in northern Arabia but it isn't winter and Hofuf isn't that far north. On the other hand socotra cormorant is endemic to the coast 175 kilometres way and can be dispersive. This is a young bird and I can't tell them apart. I have posted to BirdForum and will blog the answer as soon as I know.

one of the little bittern

Only one wader was abundant. This was kentish plover which I saw in a variety of habitat. It is a known local breeder. None of the birds let me very close.

kentish plover

The only other waders I saw were common sandpiper and terek sandpiper. I presume they were all on passage. Unfortunately I didn't get a photograph of the latter. However, they are common on the coast to the east.

common sandpiper

Two other birds which weren't photographed were little tern and whiskered tern. These are known local breeders.

moorhen

Two other local breeders are moorhen and little grebe. The little grebe in particular kept close to cover at all times, never venturing out towards the middle of the lake. 

little grebe

Despite all the water, I only saw one wagtail all weekend. Just as I was about to leave on Thursday night as it was getting dark, a female citrine wagtail landed in one of the marshy areas to the side of the main lake.

citrine wagtail

STOP PRESS: 

As Clive's says in the comments. The cormorant is a greater cormorant. Please read the comments for the reasons.

Some sea birds at Istanbul

I said in my last blog that my next one would be on Saudi Arabia. However my business in Istanbul en route to Saudi Arabia took a day less than expected. As a result I had a free day to bird in Istanbul.

I started my birding on the coast of the Bosporus just south of the tourist attraction of the Topkapi.  The birding was so varied I am making three blogs out of it. The first is about the sea birds I saw.

black headed gull (adult - left and immature - right)

It began as a miserable, wet if quite warm day. However I wasn't miserable. It's good to have unexpected, carefree free time. 

View across the Bosporus from Europe to Asia

Walking passed a ferry terminal I immediately saw dozens of black headed gull in a small car park. One or two had started to gain their spring plumage. The chocolate brown head was beginning to appear.

 plenty of black headed gulls

Out and about were a smaller number of yellow legged gull.

yellow legged gull

Much of the action though was over the narrow sea which separates Europe from Asia. There were many more black headed gull and yellow legged gull in and over the water, often following the ships and ferries.

cormorant

However the most striking feature was the fly past  and fishing of dozens of cormorant. Or at least I thought they were cormorant until closer inspection.

shag

Looking at a bird fishing near the shore I realised I had been too hasty. It was a shag not a cormorant. Scanning the flying birds I discovered about a quarter of the birds were actually shag.

coot

The other water bird I saw were coot. They were tamely gathering in small artificial inlet of the Bosphorus. 

plenty of coot in a bay

The only thing preventing them from coming even closer was the large number of feral cats which seem to live inside the collection of granite rocks piled up for miles along the shore as sea protection. 

Still finding new birds at Al Hayer

The list of species seen by me at Al Hayer, south of Riyadh is still increasing. On Friday I saw five more, though only one was first for me in Saudi Arabia. That one gave me great pleasure. More about that later.


Al Hayer was the first stop on Friday on a full day's birding with Abdullah Amrou and Clive Temple. This time we stayed close to the river banks throughout.

common snipe snapped at Al Hayer where it is common in winter

The first new bird on my Al Hayer list was a black redstart. Thanks are due to Clive for spotting it. Historical observers in the area have said its a scarce winterer here.

black redstart

The second new bird for me in the area is cormorant. Three flew over and one had a Tilapia fish in its month. Like the black redstart, previous observers say it is rare there.

cormorant

Reportedly, the most common winter wader in the central region is little stint. However the four I saw at Al Hayer on Friday was the first time I had seen them next to the "river". 

little stint

There were, of course, many of the usual cast present. I have made a few more observations about them though. For example, of the two red tailed shrike, I am now reasonably confident there are proportionately more Turkestan shrike than Durian shrike there in winter.

Turkestan shrike

Another observation is that great white egret may not be as scarce in winter as previously thought. 

It is quite possible on a good viewing day to see all the European heron family except bittern.

Purple heron

Greater spotted eagle seems to be the most common large bird of prey in winter outside of the passage seasons.

spotted eagle

As Abdullah drives a four-wheeled drive car we had a chance to move downstream and explore part of the wadi that Clive and I hadn't visited before. Before we left my more usual haunt, we had good views of another white throated kingfisher.

white throated kingfisher

The river downstream has recently been re-channelled but so far the fauna seems relatively unaffected. This might indicate that some water is still feeding the old channels.

new course of the Riyadh river

Near the new channel we saw two mourning wheatear. This was the fourth new bird of the day for me in the Al Hayer area though I have seen it previously at the near-by farming district of Dirab.

mourning wheatear

A little further downstream still and in a new place I hadn't been to before, was arguably the best sighting of the day. There were three black stork in the air! So black stork became the five new addition to my Al Hayer list. It was also the first time I had seen the bird in Saudi Arabia.

Black stork had been reported as wintering in Wadi Hannifah by Tom Tarrant in the early 1990s and by Per Anders Bertilsson ten year's later. It now looks very likely they still winter there. It seems I just hadn't been looking in the right place.

Second look at Al Thama

Actually its not so much a second look as a fourth or fifth but it was the second look within five days.


I promised myself last Friday I would go back and see on my day off (yesterday) before I set off to my Bulgarian home today.


There is a very busy Friday market near parts of Al Thama which made approaching part of Thama very difficult hence my need to return.

cormorants at Al Thama, Dec 22

I am glad I did go because it cleared up some misconceptions I had had. For example when I blog on Al Thama earlier this week I had said that the island where little tern, kentish plover and black winged stilt bred had been re-landscaped. Well given that I could walk on to the island via the narrow causeway I found that only a small amount had been flatten probably by lorry movements but that 90% is still natural. Without disturbance those birds could breed again.

There is a picture of the island below:

natural island in one of the Al Thama lakes 

Yesterday's section of the Al Thama complex had more birds than that visited on Friday although the whole complex is in need of replanting (or allowing nature to re-grow) very quickly. 

There were at least 50 cormorant. Of course, these may be some of the same cormorant that I saw and blogged about at near-by Buduzeera a couple of weeks ago.

grey heron flying over Al Thama

The biggest surprise for me was the sight of 40 or so grey heron. This solved another mystery for me. Two months ago i saw many grey heron at Ain Azziana and Deryanah but they had mostly disappeared. I had speculated that they had dispersed or moved south.

The few I had seen were usually sheltering in reeds. This shouldo have been a clue to me. It looks like in full winter they prefer slightly inland sites like Al Thama possibly because they are less exposed. The numbers at Al Thama lead meto  conclude there are as many in the Benghazi area as in late September and October. 

grey heron and cormorant on natural island

If you look carefully at the grey heron in the above photo you can see that two are stained (in the middle and at the back). One may be the bird (then at Ain Azzziana) that I blogged about in October. If so, s/he has survived. The worrying thing is there are definitely two affected birds.

black necked grebe

There were several yellow legged gull as well as black headed gull around. The population of black necked grebe continues to increase though the numbers in north east Libya appear much less than in north west Libya (which I saw last winter).


There were precoius few waders. This was just like in the other part of Al Thama visited on Fridday and very unlike the situation at Al Thama before the renovation work began.

I'd like to say a few words about the land birds. These are mostly those who like rocky ground - notably stonechat and black redstart. Though I did see my first flock of spanish sparrow in the city. This bird certainly roams in winter. I only see house sparrow in summer.

stonechat, Al Thama

I have noticed that I don't see many stonechat in their non-breeding plumage anymore. Some birds seem to be getting ready for spring already.

black redstart, Al Thama

The black redstart are still mostly in winter plumage.

The shortest day has been and gone. The spring passage will be upon us before we know it.