Birding in a sandstorm

I stopped at the new quarry lagoons area near Al Hayer when and where I saw the pied wheatear (see yesterday's blog) for no more than half an hour. The sandstorm made things very difficult and I had a late start anyway.

Nevertheless, there were one or two other birds on show despite the weather. A tame green sandpiper was feeding at the water's edge. They are present all winter but this one allowed close contact. I wonder if this one was on passage? Passage birds like the pied wheatear are often so tired on first landing that they allow closer contact. The green sandpiper was also keen to feed and drink despite everything going on weather-wise. This is another feature of passage birds.

green sandpiper

In the water and so protected from the worst wind, were three ducks oblivious to the weather.

two of three female teal

I have agonised over the identification of these three birds. I only saw them at distance and am not very good with female ducks. I have flirted with mallard but have settled on teal thanks to expert help.

one of two little grebe in the area

Having not seen little grebe for a long while until last weekend, I met up with two more on Thursday. Like the teal they were protected on the water and busily feeding. I think I have said before that some observers believed little grebe was no longer present on Wadi Hanifah. The theory was that the catfish in the river had predated all the young ones. Whereas it appears they have simply moved to a different (more downstream) location. 

 

white wagtail was one the few active passerines 

The other birds especially the passerines were reluctant to move unless I walked up close or flushed them by mistake. The collared dove and laughing dove were the most obvious movers when I walked near. They are so jumpy at the moment.

After visiting the lagoons, I moved further downstream which coincided with a lessening of the storm.  I'll blog about what I saw, under improved conditions, tomorrow.

Old Marj has even more birds

I returned to Old Marj on Friday for the second week running for several reasons. Two were to see if I had missed any species and get better photos of the birds I had seen if possible.


Within an hour I had re-written my agenda. I discovered that the site was five times bigger than I had thought. 


I walked towards the horizon only to find that the cleaner wetlands area away from the reeds is huge.

a view of part of Old Marj I had missed first time

I don't know how big the wetland is in summer but in winter it is over 3 kilometres long. This must make it a contender for the largest non-saline wetland in the country. I also don't yet know how much of the water is created by dirty water from the town, natural aquifers and rainfall. I suspect all three factors contribute to this wonderful birding environment. It feels like a Nile delta in miniature. 

common snipe mets moorhen

In the first hour there were no shocks. I visited the reed area first. This is where  the town's dirty water flows through reeds and provides nutrients for plant growth. The moorhen and a small proportion of the whole site's common snipe were still there along side a variety of birds such hoopoe, coot and chiffchaff in differing habitats.

green sandpiper

Once again green sandpiper were easy to pick out. One bird I picked up which I hadn't seen the week before was meadow pipit. They looked so camouflaged. See the picture below. 

spot the meadow pipit

After looking around the reeds area I started to walk towards the cleaner wetlands. This is where I realised the huge size of the wetland. It was too big for me to walk all round. There is some unfinished business to be done. 

One area was a wet channel at the side of the main lake. I can best describe it as heavily water logged marsh land. See the picture below. This channel was yet another home for common snipe but my attention was drawn to several whiskered tern flying and feeding all down the channel.  This is a known wintering bird in Libya but I saw more here than at any other site.   

the channel with whiskered tern 

Whiskered tern is another example of a bird which mostly winters south of the Sahara but which finds Libyan winters amenable.

whiskered tern flying above channel at Old Marj

The picture below shows the trailing grey edge to the out half of the wing which I find a quick tool for identification purposes.

second look at whiskered tern, Old Marj

black winged stilt at Old Marj

Meanwhile in the main lake there were more black winged stilt than last week. I could see there were waders there and in the surrounding marsh land which I failed to see last week because I was further away. 

A curlew at Old Marj

There was at least one curlew which you can see on the land verge in the lake. it was too far for me to get a good look. Despite its thin looking bill (at that distance) I think it was an ordinary curlew simply because of its size! 

I can now safely say that there are very large numbers of wood sandpiper on the site - a lot more than I thought last week. Some are starting to show breeding plumage. The white spots are becoming very prominent.

wood sandpiper at Old Marj

I can report that there are also definitely many common redshank (which I failed to notice - or hear last week) and a smaller number of greenshank.  I have reported this bird as wintering at Brega and now its obvious some winter here too.

common redshank

The northern lapwing were still there and they have found some friends. More about this in the next blog.

Green sandpiper at Al Marj

The last of three places I re-visited last Wednesday (my last stop before I left Libya for my Christmas break)  was the run-off stream from Al Marj. Unlike the other two it has been a month a two since I last went there.


There are two birds I saw last time which i really wanted to record by photograph but which evaded me last time. These were moorhen and green sandpiper.


I was pretty sure the moorhen is resident and that a green sandpiper or two would be still around simply because it their apparently favoured habitat of smelly slowly flowing water (sic).

green sandpiper, Al Marj

Both birds were still present but the moorhen was again too fast even though he got tangled up for a moment in an acacia bush. I was really, really pleased to finally spot a green sandpiper before it spotted me. I am beginning to understand the habits of this bird which always makes spotting easier. 

One new bird I saw this time was grey wagtail among the more abundant white wagtail.  Grey wagtail like flowing water and there is not that much in Libya so it was hardly surprising they gravitated to this place.

the run-off stream (or open sewer meets natural ground water!) at Al Marj 

This area is classic territory for cattle egret particularly because at one point there is a rubbish tip too. 

some of the cattle egret at Al Marj run -off stream

I was a little surprised to see one little egret among the cattle egret. This bird is more fussy about its environment.

little egret, Al Marj

On previous occasions at this site I have seen hoopoe. I can confirm I saw it once again and its fairly obvious that it is resident  here. Hoopoe in Libya are usually associated with wet or watered ground such as a farm or watered lawns or (in this case) near a run off stream. The reason is probably because these areas produce more worms and grubs than the more normal sandy ground elsewhere.

Autumn arrivals in July!

Omar Mukhtar reservoir - Saluq - end July

Yesterday I visited Omar Mukhdar reservoir. It supplies water for the whole of the Benghazi area. It is claimed to be the largest man made reservoir in the world. It is truely massive.

Imagine you are a bird and you want to cross the Sahara. You see 100,000 cubic metres of fresh water just before the desert. I think you would stop. Prehaps you wouldn't go any further particularly as its warm all winter.

The drawback is there is precious little cover on the banks of the reservoir although bushes are being grown around the sides.

I was given permission by the police to stay there for 90 minutes. This was much appreciated. 

The first impression is that it is stark and deserted but after a minute or two you realise your mistake. I saw barn swallow skimming the edges for insects. Then one by one I noticed various flocks of waders which had been well hidden at the rocky sides round the lake.  The most obvious bird and most common wader was kentish plover.

However my attention was drawn to darker, slightly larger wader which at first I thought was wood sandpiper. 

Mostly green sandpipers - Omar Mukhdar reservoir - end July

It took me sometime to work out it was actually green sandpiper. This ID problem was a classic example of what I am up against in Libya. The Collins guide shows wood sandpiper as a passage bird though here. It doesn't show green sandpiper in Cyrenaica at all. You have to trust your judgement and have the confidence to go against the book's distribution maps.

The birds I saw were darker and more robust than wood sandpiper.

closer picture of green sandpipers - Omar Mukhtar reservoir - end July

There were about twelve birds.  But they were at least partially mixing with other waders. So I kept to the text book techinque of concentating on the bird and following it through. Its no good watching one bird on the land and another in flight. 

I noticed more detail. These birds had greyish green (green) not yellowish green (wood) legs.

Green sand pipers with kentish plovers in foreground - end July

The main bird they were mixing with were kentish plover (see foreground). This is an easy bird to seperate although I will show later than at least one other sandpiper was present.

Kentish plover and green sandpiper in flight - end July

One of the green sandpiper took off with a kentish plover. It was very dark in flight and the white tail contrasted brilliantly. Shame about my photo. The tail bars were distinct. Don't let the photo lead you astray. 

Two more green sandpipers take off

Above is another picture taken seconds later when the rest of the green sandpiper decided to take off too.

common sandpipers - Omar Mukhtar reservoir - end July

I supect the green sandpipers may stay until next spring. They mostly winter around the Mediterranean. However the other wader that I positively identified will probably not. It winters south of the Sahara normally. It is the common sandpiper.

There were several of these there too. I have read reports that they have been sighted at Eilat, southern Israel in the past week. This is obviously one of the very earliest autumn migrants.

grey heron and little egret - Omar Mukhdar reservoir - end July

The waders didn't have the reservoir to themselves. It is well stocked with fish. So it has naturally attracted grey heron and little egret. These birds are rapidly being known to be more common in summer in Libya than any one had previously thought.

Finally I want to say a few words about the bushes near the reservoir. These are being watered regularly on a sprinkler system and will make fine heath land soon. The shrubs are all natural species and are beginning to attract birds. I saw goldfinch, great grey shrike, turtle dove and my first ever eastern olivaceous warbler.  I think the bushes are going to make a good migrant trap this autumn.

goldfinch - Omar Mukhtar reservoir - end July