The long way to Khawr Rori

On Saturday I started early morning to head to Khawr Rori. I took a long way round partly because Khawr Rori is closed to the public until 9 am.

I went up to Wadi Darbet and then further up to Wadi Hanna before descending the mountains down to the Khawr.

Both Wadi Darbet and Wadi Hanna have plenty of migrants in autumn so it was worth a look in spring though as I have said before, the passerine passage is weaker this season than in autumn.

As I had suspected I failed to see any noticeable passage at Wadi Darbet although there was the odd yellow wagtail.

I had just entered the car to leave after about 45 minutes search when I caught a view of a short-toed eagle in the corner of my eye. 

short-toed eagle 1

I rushed out of the car to get a better view. The bird is clearly a pale morph with a nearly white head and pale upper breast.

short toed eagle 2

I don't know heather it is the same bird I have seen before a few kilometres away near Tawi Atair with similar markings.

short toed eagle 3

Those sightings were over two months ago. Either way, short toed eagle is not down as a local breeder here according to the regional guide. If it or others are seen much longer I will begin to doubt the accuracy of this view.

After this event, I moved on to Wadi Hanna it was still early enough for no picnickers to be about. However this did not improve my chances of seeing any migrants apart from rufous bush robin.

rufous bush robin

Some of the local birds provided interest though. A screaming black-crowned tchagra made so much noise it directed me straight to it. It was unusually high in a tree and in front of the sun nevertheless I had prolonged views. 

It flew off better than I had expected. They can fly reasonably well after all though I don't know how much energy it had to use up with its very short wings.

black-crowned tchagra

A handsome male African paradise flycatcher was another bird to catch my eye.

African paradise flycatcher from behind

The light blue speckles on the back crown was a feature I hadn't noticed in a breeding male before.

African paradise flycatcher

The long tail is so difficult to manage that the bird twisted its hand to look at me rather than its whole body.

African paradise flycatcher looking back

After Wadi Hanna I went directly down the mountain. This takes you down to the coast road, east of Khawr Rori so I starting driving back in the direction of Salalah towards the khawr.

blue headed agama

I spotted a small cove off the main road and managed to get down to it. There was a nice blue-headed agama on the small road down to the cove.

crab on the beach

There were a whole array of either crab or fish traps out to sea from the cove. each trap had a makeshift buoy typically made up of a plastic petrol container or similar. My idea was to watch the buoys which stretched out to sea to look for any seabird to land and rest.  I am afraid this time the idea failed. After about half an hour I had only seen one sooty gull land on a far buoy. My hope was for a brown noddy or masked booby to do so. Both these are still target birds for my Oman list.

My next stop was to finally reach Khawr Rori although it was till before 10.30 in the morning.

It had changed a lot since my last visit. The wader population was less than a quarter what I have been seeing during the winter. Strangely a large number of slender-billed gull have turned up. I doubt if these presumably second calendar year birds will over-summer because I didn't see any in the area when I fist arrived in Salalah in early September last year.

slender-billed gull, Caspian tern and great black headed gull

Caspian tern was not a surprising bird to see there but two great black-headed gull were.

great black headed gull with Caspian tern

I believe these are also second calender year (i.e under one year old) birds. The bill is still pink though the legs are acquiring a yellow colour which is often rapid in this species. The mantle has no black specks on one of the birds but the second one still had hints of this first winter feature. 

Either way I was surprised they were still down this far south.

great black headed gull with slender-billed gull

Only one duck was seen at all. This was a great change from winter. It was a female-type teal.

teal

I walked round the edge of the archaeological site this time in a northerly direction. I couldn't get to the far western side of the lagoon because of development works. In this area too there were few waders except the odd black-tailed godwit. I saw no pheasant-tailed jacana for the first time since early November.

adult moorhen

It looks like some of the moorhen have already bred.

young moorhen

Khawr Rori is arguably the best place in Dhofar to guarantee seeing European spoonbill for much of the year except mid-summer.

European spoonbill

While juvenile flamingo prefer less deep water,  Khawr Rori is more population with adult and sub-adult birds having the deepest fresh water in the region.

flamingo

I really don't understand why I see so few purple heron in Dhofar but one was present on Saturday.

purple heron

There was a small flock of cattle egret living up to its name.

cattle egret

I didn't get a chance to go birding mid-week this week as work has been hectic. I hope to go out to today. I will blog what I see.

A really big one among the gulls and terns

Two weeks ago Riyadh based birder, Mansur Al Fahad paid a visit to the east coast of Saudi Arabia. 

I don't visit the coastline of Eastern Province very often so I was interested in what he would find.

Great black headed gull with four black headed gull

He saw many gulls and terns near Dammam. I am particularly envious about one of his sightings! Among a group of black headed gull was a single great black headed gull a.k.a Pallas's gull.

It was already in breeding plumage unlike the smaller black headed gull which are only just beginning to change.

Its not very common on the Arabian coast but it is so conspicuous by its size that when it does occur it is more often recorded than most other birds.

It is in fact the third largest gull in the world after great black backed gull and glaucous gull. 

I haven't seen one in Saudi Arabia yet. Indeed the last time I saw one was when I used to bird in Azerbaijan four years ago. It was quite common along the Caspian coast.

Slender billed gull

As well as two types of black headed gull, there were plenty of slender billed gull present too.

Heuglin's gull

The birds in the lesser black backed gull complex are very difficult for me to separate and especially so using stand-alone pictures.

My primitive method of separation starts with a comparisons of mantle colours in a mixed group (and in a stand alone picture I can't do this!) . The degree of darkness is in the order: Baltic>Heuglins>steppe>Caspian. We don't usually have to bother with intermedius as an option this far east.

Looking at the top picture on mantle colour alone they have to be either Baltic gull or Heuglins gull. I am minded towards Heuglins gull because the mantle looks decidedly lighter than the upper tail coverts whereas in a Baltic gull the colour is nearly the same.

Please comment if you can help me confirm the bird's ID.

Caspian gull or steppe gull

With this stand-alone picture I could only narrow the choice down to Caspian gull or steppe gull. I posted the picture on BirdForum and the experts there agreed that it couldn't be decisively identified without an open wing picture.

Gull billed tern

No such problems were encountered on identifying the terns. the one above is a gull billed tern. The only possible confusion would be a wintering sandwich tern but the uniform bill colour alone is enough to separate these two.

Lesser crested tern with Terek sandpiper

The final picture is of lesser crested tern heading towards breeding plumage. They seem to be keeping company with a group of Terek sandpiper.

I am not sure I will ever enjoy gull identification and it's made more difficult because I work in Riyadh over 400 kilometres for the coast. I'll try to visit the east coast more often to get more practice.

Sincere thanks to Mansur Al Fahad for providing the pictures which I have heavily cropped in places.