The river banks at Al Hayer

On Saturday morning, I made one of my irregular visits to the pivot field area south of Al Hayer. In my first two years in Riyadh I visited this area about twice each month.   In a sense it could be seen as my "local patch". However in the past year, the frequency has dropped to about twice every three months as I travel more.

Nevertheless it was a welcome return. There has been a lot of development recently and the Riyadh river seems to be continually changing course as reeds are burnt and earth moved.

I decided to concentrate on the edge of the water rather than spend too much time in the pivot fields themselves.

common kingfisher

A early surprise was the sight of a common kingfisher. One or two are known to winter near the fields every year but I wasn't expecting one to still be around on April 19th. 

purple heron

The birding had started well but before seeing it, a purple heron rose up at the very start as I walked along a new stretch of the river.

rufous-tailed bush robin

Near-by, on some scrub land between the river and the nearest field I witnessed my first rufous tailed bush robin of spring.

European collared dove

I only ventured into the near-by field trying to follow a streaked weaver. During my very short stay in  there I only saw crested lark and European collared dove.

new course of the river

As I returned to the river, I accidentally flushed three common snipe.  Further along near the river's edge were several red-throated pipit.

red-throated pipit

From the river I could see five cattle egret resting on the pivot bar in the middle of the field. While watching these, a black crowned night heron flew past me.

cattle egret

There was much more streaked weaver activity in the reeds at the far side of the river.  I saw 4 nests close together and i am sure there were plenty more out of sight.

male streaked weaver

Unfortunately this was a place where four fishermen were fishing. Sadly two hours later they had produced a barbeque which made the reeds catch fire and a very large area of reeds and tamarisk were burnt down almost certainly destroying all the nests. At least 50 black crowned night heron which I hadn't previously seen flew up into the air to avoid the smoke and fire.

I saw two similar fires last spring. This act made me angry and sad in equal measure. 

female streaked weaver

Further up stream I came across more weavers' nests so at least the whole population wasn't wiped out. The picture of the female above is from that different group.

squacco heron

In the same area were three squacco heron who like the ones in Jubail the day before were in complete summer plumage.

graceful prinia

There are lots of tamarisk and other bushes in this section but I failed to see many warblers who must be passing through at the moment. I can only think that the high temperatures are forcing them deep into cover during the day. Nevertheless the local graceful prinia were braving the heat and I also briefing saw my first barred warbler of the spring.

red avadavat

I have noted before that the exotic birds such as streaked weaver and red avadavat almost disappear from this area in winter only to reappear in spring. I believe they find more densely bushed areas up stream. Both are back in numbers. Red avadavat was easy to see. The males have started to gain some of their breeding plumage since my last sighting two weeks ago but they have a long way to go. However you can start to see why one alternative name is strawberry munia.

young moorhen

In contrast moorhen have been busy breeding since late January.

Turkestan shrike

As the heat steadily rose towards midday, fewer and few birds were disclosing themselves. Turkestan shrike perch out in all heat so one of these could be seen. A black bush robin was seen fleetingly.

grey heron

Something must have disturbed a grey heron which rose up unexpectedly. This was one of the last birds I saw before ending around 11.30 with temperatures still rising.

Strangely I didn't see a single bird of prey all the time at al Hayer. This must be a first.

kestrel at the Riyadh cricket club lake

The only one I saw was at the lake near Riyadh cricket club on the way out towards Al Hayer when I had travelled out with Bernard Bracken who spent the day there.

Return to Wadi Ghan

My company  called me back from Benghazi to go to Tripoli for a few days before the Ramadan break. This gave me a chance to bird again in the Tripoli area. I chose to go out towards Wadi Ghan. This is a reservoir on the northern foothills of Jebel Nafusa.


I went with my friends Martin and Ibrahim.  We stopped first at a place which had proved to be a good migrant trap in spring. It is an area of well spaced trees,and farmland just off the main Tripoli to Gharyan road.


We spent a few minutes chasing a warbler which wouldn't keep still. It proved to be an icterine warbler. I had seen one here in spring too. Either it was a very early migrant or it had over-summered. I hesitate to call it is a summer resident because once again this would dispute the accepted distribution maps. 

In the farmland there were very large numbers of hoopoe. These were unlikely to be migrants this early. I put it down to a large number of local hoopoe being attracted to recently cut fields.

rufous tailed bush robin

Lurking in the hedges was one of my favourite Libyan birds - a rufous-tailed bush robin (or rufous scrub robin as I think the African Bird Club calls it).

I have only seen this bird in Tripolitania although it is supposed to be in Cyrenacia too. 

It was not shy. The only thing stopping a good photo was the extremely strong sun light and the bird's knack of sitting partially in the sun and partially in the shade. I wonder whether this is a real habit.

 

rufous tailed bush robin from another angle 

As we travelled on and upwards towards Wadi Ghan we had a great chance to see a black-eared wheatear. This was the first time I had caught such a good view.

It seems quite co-incidental to see three of the most special main summer breeders birds who are not resident (rufous-tailed bush robin, black-eared wheatear, and turtle dove) in close proximity. In general Libya has many more species in winter and passage than in summer but these three species buck the trend.

male (dark throated) black-eared wheatear

This wheatear was seen just downhill (and north) of Wadi Ghan reservoir. In Libya I have only seen the dark throated version in summer although both it and the pale throated bird can be seen in autumn and spring. 

Wadi Ghan reservoir

The reservoir is at its smallest in mid summer but it is still massive.  At the far end (not very easily accessible for people) I could see some white stork and grey heron wading and keeping cool. Once again it proved to be a place where you can easily see scrub warbler. 

Birding was actually very difficult because it was so hot but we managed to force ourselves down to the land side of the dam. We went looking for other warblers- we had hoped for reed warbler and/or zitting cisticola. However it soon became apparent that there were very few reeds along the stream leading down from the reservoir. Instead there were three or four hundred metres of bamboo. Whether this alien species was there by design or fault we do not know. Ibrahim is a big man but the bamboo dwarfed him!   Instead of warblers we saw only crested lark near-by. We saw no birds in the bamboo.

Ibrahim and bamboo

On the way back we stopped briefly to look at an unidentified bird (at the time) on a wire. 

 probable juvenile trumpeter finch

Having viewed the picture with an experienced birding friend in Bulgaria we have concluded it is probably a young trumpeter finch.  I know the bird is quite common in this area. But I wonder where the rest of the flock was? It's not usually a solitary bird.