Recent highlights in the city

This blog is a round robin of some birding I carried out just before Christmas around the city. 

On Tuesday at Sawnaut farm, eleven cream-coloured courser were present on a newly ploughed field.

cream-coloured courser

It's not often you see them in the city but Sawnaut is certainly a city farm.

A booted eagle was another highlight but an obvious feature as is often the case was the sheer number of doves.  For once I looked at the laughing dove quite closely.

two sub-species of laughing dove

In the north of Oman, the sub species is cambayensis which is the same as in India. It is plainer and daintier than the nominate sub species.

The birdlife international monograph on the species say the nominate reaches Mukhalla in Yemen from Africa. However there is no doubt it goes further west as nominate is more common than cambayensis in Salalah. Both are shown in a picture from Sawnaut farm (see above).

After visiting Sawnaut farm, Dahariz park (also called East Khawr park) was next. 

forest wagtail

This time I easily relocated the vagrant forest wagtail which has been present for well over a month now.

citrine wagtail

A citrine wagtail has been there even longer. It is unusual to see them in parks.

Bruce's green pigeon

Like cream-coloured courser, Bruce's green pigeon can be seen in the city though it can be seen more frequently. The best places are parks. However they often go overlooked in the canopy of larger trees.

two Bruce's green pigeon

After Dahariz park, I made a short call to the near-by Khawr Dahariz (East Khawr). I was not doing general birding, I was looking out for exceptional ducks. I couldn't help noticing the presence of two pheasant-tailed jacana though.

pheasant-tailed jacana

A large majority of wintering ducks here are either: garganey, pintail, shoveller or teal. Mallard, gadwell, ferruginous duck and tufted duck are less frequent and all other ducks less frequent still.

ferruginous duck (left)

The diving ducks appear later than the dabbling ducks. A female ferruginous duck was the only one out of the ordinary at East Khawr when I visited.

My remaining targets for Oman among the rarer ducks (but which are not vagrants) are common shelduck and red-crested pochard.

ferruginous duck

A visit to West Khawr was partly made for the same reason i.e looking for rarer ducks. It's relatively deep waters are often attracted to diving ducks. However on first pass, more than half of the ducks were shoveller and there were only two ferruginous duck representing all possible diving ducks.

male cotton teal

Observing a male cotton teal was good compensation. I can't remember seeing a male in Dhofar before. I can only remember seeing female-types.

cotton teal (left)

Also at West Khawr was a wintering purple heron which is not so common.

purple heron

Continuing with the less ordinary sightings was a close view of a broad-billed sandpiper.

broad-billed sandpiper

It was much more confiding than the common redshank and little ringed plover near-by.

broad-billed sandpiper 2

In the fresh water sites in the city, Indian pond heron is at the moment almost as common as squacco heron so it hardly rates a mention among the highlights. The highlight here is not so much the sighting of one but instead how many there are here in mid-winter.

Indian pond heron at West Khawr

Just before I left West Khawr I noticed I almost missed a wigeon. Not many come down here.

wigeon

I will continue looking for rare ducks in January. The wintering species are mostly settled now unless there is a major cold snap up north. Late ducks are one of the few predictable changes without it.

Mid winter at Khawr Rori

I visit Khawr Rori about once a week. It's little bit far for mid-week trips after work so I tend to go on weekends.

I have been looking for a long-billed dowitcher which was reported about a month ago and then again last week. So far I have failed to find it. Nevertheless Khawr Rori is a very large expanse of fresh water and other new birds could turn up at any time.

pheasant-tailed jacana

It is the place where pheasant-tailed jacana can be most easily seen. I counted eight on my last visit. Only Khawr Taqah comes close.

black-winged stilt with pheasant-tailed jacana

Other Indo-Malay wintering species can be found here too such as cotton teal. You need to look carefully as their are hundreds of other ducks and plenty of geese to distract you.

cotton teal

Among the large birds, the number of greater flamingo and great cormorant has continued to rise.

great cormorant with a grey heron

There are always plenty of herons including intermediate egret and great white egret at this time of year. Though western reef heron is the most common along with grey heron.

western reef heron

I have been paying particular attention to the groups of black-tailed godwit at the Khawr.

black-tailed godwit

This is because the long-billed dowitcher was seen associating with a group in one of its sightings. On Saturday, I followed a group of eleven (11) godwits and checked them one by one. Unfortunately the dowitcher wasn't there.

ruff

Sometimes, I have seen other single birds near the groups. A single ruff was with them on one occasion (whereas at East Khawr you can see more than two hundred some days).

marsh sandpiper

On Saturday, I came across a lone marsh sandpiper while tracking them.

marsh sandpiper probing

This elegant bird is always a pleasure to watch.

marsh sandpiper standing

As well as keeping an eye out for godwits and dowitchers, I have spent time near dusk looking for crakes and waterhen but again I have not been successful at this site (though I have seen Baillon's crake at two other sites).

dusk

There is a second approach to part of Khawr Rori which is accessed directly from the main road. This leads to a small fringe wetland rather than the main lake. I saw my first pied cuckoo in Oman there a couple of months ago.

little stint

It was good to be able to directly compare a Little stint and Temminck's stint there on one visit.

two types of stint

They are quite distinctly different. You can see the Temminck's stint is plainer, has yellower legs and has a fuller breast pattern (though pale).

Temminck's stint and little stint

Once a month, I take a long trip into the desert to see a different set of birds. I did this on Sunday which was a holiday here. It turned out to be very eventful. The next two blogs will cover the trip.

Egyptian vulture at Sadh

Saturday is the one day of the week that I can travel far since I have a standing personal engagement every Friday morning. There was temptation to bird some of the six rare birds seen locally by visiting UAE birders Oscar Campbell and Simon Lloyd. Instead I resisted making the day full time twitching and kept to my original plan.

That plan was to head out east on the coast road past Mirbat.

Egyptian vulture at Sadh

After four hours of poor results I had deep regrets about the plan. I decided to bird more intensively in the area around the fishing village of Sadh. Even here little green bee-eater, Tristram's starling, white spectacled bulbul and blackstart were the only main land birds. The best sea bird was a lone socotra cormorant.

I had just decided to head back and take in Khawr Rori on the way home when two near adult Egyptian vulture flew straight over my head.

second Egyptian vulture at Sadh

While Egyptian vulture is locally common in parts of northern and central Oman, I never expected to see one (or even two) in Dhofar. Suddenly I viewed the long trip in a different light.

After the vulture sighting I did go to Khawr Rori. It was actually the sight of one of the rare birds seen by the UAE duo. They had seen a long billed dowitcher associating with black-tailed godwit.

grey plover

I got distracted by a pair of grey plover.

second grey plover

As I moved round the khawr searching for godwits I saw several osprey.

osprey

I could see many birds clustered around the flamingo both on land and on the water. The flamingo were on the western side. I walked round to see if they included my target passing a large group of greater white fronted goose on the way on the southern sand bar.

wigeon

At the water side were five great cormorant. The ducks in the water near the flamingo were mostly wigeon. 

cotton teal

However in the water with them were two cotton teal, a bird I had never seen until the day before.

black-tailed godwit

I finally found a group of five black-tailed godwit. I spent some time inspecting them and they allowed me very close but there was no long billed dowitcher among them.

second view of black-tailed godwit

As I was contemplating looking for more godwits, I received a text message from Oscar and Simon telling me that two of their finds yesterday had still been at the Raysut settling pools that morning.

I had a dilemma, should I continue looking at Khawr Rori or head straight to the settling pools to seek out their finds.

Given that the settling pools are a confined space and there were two chances, I chose to switch to Raysut.

This was technically a "twitch". I will blog about the result next.

Cotton teal at Mughsayl

On Friday I decided to go back to the Mughsayl area. I particularly wanted to bird inland beyond the khawrs (lagoons) into the wadi.

Nevertheless since I was passing the khawr, I had to look in. On the first and largest inland pool was a single cotton teal as well as several other ducks.

cotton teal

This was a lifer and brought my Oman list up to 214 species.

second view of cotton teal

It was swimming apart from the other ducks but was apparent almost immediately by its small size.

third view of cotton teal

This is yet another Indo-Malay species which comes across to Oman in small numbers to winter.

Northern pintail

The duck population seems to change every time I visit. This time the largest number on this pool was northern pintail.

ferruginous duck

There were four ferruginous duck too.

 coot

Moorhen and coot were of similar numbers to the ducks.

Intermediate egret

There have been intermediate egret present at Mughsayl on every visit I have made in the past 6 weeks. This time I counted four.

black crowned night heron

I walked to the second pool at the back which had previously provided me with some of my best birds. On the way I met a juvenile black-crowned night heron.

pheasant-tailed jacana

Even from a distance I could see a pheasant-tailed jacana.

white wagtail

Still walking towards the pool, a white wagtail blocked my way.

Mallard and a single gadwell

I didn't stay long at the pool which housed 12 mallard and a few gadwell. The best birds are often hidden in the reeds and take time to view. I didn't have time if I were to go into the wadi.
.

long billed pipit

In many ways the wadi was a disappointment but it was always going to be speculative birding. The tawny pipit and long billed pipit thinned out as I went further in.

desert lark

Desert lark became the dominant bird.

Asian desert warbler

An Asian desert warbler was the only one seen but it was confiding.

Asian desert warbler looking straight ahead

Blackstart and Arabian wheatear were easy to see.

male Arabian wheatear

Remarkably this is the first time in the whole of Arabia that I have seen them at sea level.

After almost two hours in the wadi I turned round and birded the smallest and most inland pool on my way out.

little grebe

Little grebe,  teal  and moorhen were obviously present. Other birds were almost certainly there but even better hidden. Birding there pools often requires patience and lots of time.

striolated bunting drinking

The wadi has a healthy population of striolated bunting. Indeed I would recommend it as the best place to easily find this often difficult species. Most of them can be found close to the pools too.

On the way back to Salalah, I dropped into the Eftelqoot area. I didnt see any cream-coloured courser this time but Arabian partridge were observed again.

spotted thick-knee

I walked into three spotted thick-knee in a shallow wadi there. I have always seen them relatively close to water before but not this time unless you count the sea which is 500 meters away under some very steep cliffs.

kestrel

Surprisingly I saw very few birds of prey all day. There was a kestrel in the Eftelqoot area and an Eastern Imperial eagle on the main road a little closer to Salalah.

Eastern Imperial eagle

A bird of prey was one of my best sightings on Saturday. I will blog about that next.