With the better weather forecast for Norfolk that was our destination for the day one count. Starting with Barn Owl and ending wit a lovely Grey Male Hen Harrier we had a cracking day. Shore Lark at Holkham, Twite at Thornham, Snow Buntings at Salthouse and Cattle Egret at Stiffkey were the four main targets […]
We were up at 05:15 to the sound of screaming Saker Falcon, packed our bags and after a quick coffee headed back up Barig Mountain at 06:00 for a last try for Hodgson’s Bush-chat. After climbing the steep grassy and rock strewn slopes of the mountains in the vehicles we parked at the summit and […]
We had a very peaceful nights sleep in our tents beside Kholboolj Lake (45°20’12” N 100°49’36” E) and awoke to the sounds of Pallas’s Sandgrouse commuting to the lake for their morning watering. After breakfast beside the lake watching Pallas’s Sandgrouse come and go plus two Pallas’s Gull fly-by we packed the Land Cruiser’s and […]
This first half of April has been fantastic, like mid-summer come early, after an early morning breeding bird survey where the highlights were a couple of Song Thrush and a Willow Warbler I spent a couple of hours at Pennington Marsh. Spring really is here and there wereBlackcap singing from the scrub, fair numbers of […]
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 […]
Last weekends birding at Sabkhat Al Fasl produced a good number of winter visitors including the largest number of wintering Greater Spotted Eagles recorded at the site when 17 were seen in one morning. Birds normally arrive in September and stay until April or early May. Western Marsh Harrier is another wintering raptor seen regularly […]
This is the second blog to look at Mansur Al Fahad’s trip two weeks ago to the east coast. He saw a very large number and variety of waders, some of which gave almost as many identification headaches as the gulls. However this blog looks at some of the non-waders he saw. All the pictures […]
Ajban farms is a favorite site of mine , located between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It is a desert scrub area with large water lakes. Unfortunately the water is constantly being pumped into tankers for nearby constructions sites. Not sure how much longer there will be water there, once gone I am sure there will […]
It is mid January already and there are many signs of Spring which will soon arrive. Steppe Eagles are already on the move -singlesare seen daily and like each year, Iwonder where are they heading so early when everything is still frozen up north? Asian Desert and Spectacled Warblers are found in many corners of […]
I visited Deffi Park, Jubail for the first time on Thursday. It is a large city- based public park two kilometres inland from the Persian gulf. It is one of the best places apparently for migrant Eurasian thrushes and finches to be pushed down in mid winter. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t see one blackbird […]
My visit to Sebkhet al Fasl, Jubail on Thursday afternoon was a cool and windy one. It was also wet in the sense that the water level was at least 50 cm higher than during my first visit a few months ago. The picture below is not the open sea. It is part of the […]
So where have the blog gone? Why are you not posting any more, we want to hear some updates… In fact, I can think of so many excuses but the truth is, that I was just too lazy and didn’t have the mood to sit down and write while so many observations and reports have […]
In the late 1990s Tom Tarrant was birding the Riyadh area and he kept good records which I often compare against today’s findings. He has written about “the blue lagoons”. This was part of the Riyadh river where the habitat is more open than the area around the pivot fields where I normally bird. He […]
