I spent much of Saturday morning at Wadi Darbet. It is still very green and attracting many birds indeed more so than from November onwards when the ground dries out under the trees. I was looking mostly for any passage birds. I found quite a few. adult male common cuckoo Remarkably in one […]
Author: Robert Tovey
Dr Rob Tovey is a scientist by training and more recently an English teacher. His profession allows him to travel to some of the more difficult-to-get-to places and stay there for years if his inclination takes him. He is a keen bird watcher, blogger and amateur photographer. He has worked in Azerbaijan and Libya and is currently in Saudi Arabia. Rob also has a base in Bulgaria so overall is becoming a bit of birding specialist in very general terms where East meets West.
Out East Again
I have been out to some of the sites east of the city quite regularly over the last week and have sometimes ended up at Khawr Rori if I have had time. In the springs (ayns) I have been looking for any rare passerine migrants and at Khawr Khawr for little crake. Unfortunately I have […]
Tour of the east side
As well as visiting local farms on Friday, I toured some sites east of the city starting at Ayn Hamran. The stop at Ayn Hamran was relatively short but it is never uninteresting. Though there were no wintering birds seen yet apart from a couple of common sandpiper and a grey wagtail. It’s always a […]
Buraimi
Last Thursday was the only day during Eid when I had no long distance travelling. I stayed in the Buraimi area on the border with UAE. I visited two sites there: Buraimi sewage plant and Jebel Qatar. Both are conveniently on the same road to Mahdah and barely five kilometres apart. The sewage plant is […]
Early morning at Ghaftayn
On Wednesday morning, I got up early at Ghaftayn rest house to see what passage there had been over-night. These desert stops have highly variable windfalls of migrants during the passage seasons. One morning can be heaving while another can have virtually nothing. The same goes for the rarity of the birds. This was only […]
Dowkah delivers again
My Eid trip lasted from Tuesday afternoon until Saturday evening. It involved 3500 kilometres of travel and took me to several birding locations. This and the next four blogs will chronicle the results.I headed north out of Salalah on Tuesday and reached one of my favourite birding locations, Dowkah desert farm, with time to bird […]
Eagles and water birds at Raysut
I managed a second late afternoon out birding during the week on Wednesday. I chose Raysut settling pools. This is much more interesting that this time last year as the habitat is better. Last autumn all the water was retained within concrete bound pools. For the past few months the ones on the far east […]
Collared pratincole twitched at Raysut
I finally saw collared pratincole in Oman yesterday. It became bird number 295 on my Oman list. Thanks are due to Jens Eriksen for tipping me off that four were at Raysut settling pools. It wasn’t easy as I was at work at the time the message came through. I left work at the close […]