Phil Roberts and I went to Haradh recently and found plenty of good birds despite the temperature being 1 degrees Celsius the coldest day for many years in the region as well as a bitingly cold northerly wind. Some birds were winter visitors such as Mallard, Northern Lapwing, Desert Wheatear, Eastern Imperial Eagle and Tawny […]
Tag: Chiffchaff
5 bars! Eastern Crowned Warbler!
Phew, what a day that was. Yesterday evening the news of an Eastern Crowned Warbler at Bempton Cliffs broke. I had planned a morning’s birding with Terry a long time ago, which I didn’t want to give up, plus I had stuff to do in the afternoon, so I peacefully (or not?) accepted that I […]
Portland Bluethroat and Sub Warbler
We had quite a drive this morning for a day on Portland birding for spring migrants. Having set off early we we in the obs garden at 7.30am but there was no news of yesterdays Bluethroat or Western Subalpine Warbler. I headed off up the hill into the fields in search of anything that might […]
Beaulieu Road Station and Pennington Marsh
I had worked a long week despite the Bank Holiday and so on Friday 1st April I finished at 14:00 and headed to Beaulieu Road Station for a walk. I parked at Shatterford and walked south, along Bishop’s Dyke and back via Denny Wood. Stonechat numbers seemed to be up, with 12 birds seen, returning […]
Ringing abietinus type Chiffchaff – Sabkhat Al Fasl
Whilst ringing at Sabkhat Al Fasl in January I trapped a quite grey/brown looking Chiffchaff with few greenish tones. Unfortunately, with Chiffchaffs, things get complicated in the Middle East. With Mountain Chiffchaffs nearby, which look quite like Siberian Chiffchaff tristis, and a series of taxa with intriguing combinations of abietinus or intermediate plumage but tristis-like […]
Wintering Masked Shrike and other good birds – Deffi Park, Jubail
Phil and I went to Deffi Park, a large municipal park in Jubail. The park is an area of mature trees and nice grass areas but is popular with locals during the day. As a result we always arrive just before first light and look around and have found a few good birds over the […]
Slowly but surely
Spring is moving on and so does the birding in the area. At the IBRCE ringing station, numbers are stillmoderate but nevertheless some nice species are being caught (see Markus write up below) and there are growing numbers of Sylvia’s ticking throughout and new arrivals like Red-necked Phalaropes, Marsh Sandpipers, Greater Sand Plovers and more […]