{"id":41859,"date":"2013-07-07T15:43:57","date_gmt":"2013-07-07T14:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=41859"},"modified":"2019-12-23T00:31:41","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T11:31:41","slug":"kingdom-of-saudi-arabia-continued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/kingdom-of-saudi-arabia-continued\/","title":{"rendered":"Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – continued…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following my visit to the Rub’ Al-Khali, I returned to Dhahran which would be my base for the next few days. There were a few typical urban birds as well as some others of interest in and around the compound and some of the more open areas. Here is a selection of the common urban birds from the compound.<\/p>\n

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Common Myna<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Eurasian Collared Dove<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Laughing Dove<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Eurasian Hoopoe, a resident breeder<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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White-eared Bulbul<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Western Cattle Egret<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Although this bird is considered a Cat C (Introduced species with self-sustaining populations)species, I hadn’t yet seen the much bigger Alexandrine Parakeets (Psittacula eupatria) in Kuwait.<\/p>\n

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Alexandrine Parakeet<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

On the outskirts of the compound I found a Daurian Shrike (Lanius isabellinus) and later a Crested Honey Buzzard (Pernis ptilorhynchus), which is uncommon – but generally seen in the winter months.<\/p>\n

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Daurian Shrike<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Crested Honey Buzzard, an uncommon winter visitor<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Over the following fee days I visited Tarut Bay, one of key staging areas for migrating waders in Eastern Saudi Arabia. Although it was still winter, I did see a selection of Waders, Gulls and Herons.<\/p>\n

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Greater Sand Plover; winter plumage<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Common Redshank<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Black-tailed Godwit; winter plumage<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Caspian Gull, winter visitor<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Heuglins Gull; winter visitor<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Glossy Ibis<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Western Great Egret<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Western Reef Heron; pale form<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

On my last day, I went further north to Abu Ali Island where I found some desert birds as well as those species more frequently seen along the coast. This Greater Hoopoe Lark seen on the beach (Alaemon alaudipes) is one of my favourites<\/p>\n

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Greater Hoopoe Lark; breeding resident<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Caspian Tern<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Greater Flamingo<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Pied Avocet<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

The most interesting indirect interaction was seeing this Caspian Tern (Hydroprogne caspia) flying away with it’s breakfast when for some inexplicable reason it accidentally dropped it. Although it immediately went into a dive to retrieve it, this Slender-billed Gull (Chroicocephalus genei) had quicker reflexes and grabbed the fish just after it hit the water.<\/p>\n

SB Gull 1 – C Tern 0!<\/p>\n

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Caspian Tern; dropping it’s catch<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Slender-billed Gull; you snooze, you loose!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following my visit to the Rub’ Al-Khali, I returned to Dhahran which would be my base for the next few days. There were a few typical urban birds as well as some others of interest in and around the compound and some of the more open areas. Here is a selection of the common urban […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":2193051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/CMyna_4099.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[4888,700,3218,747,1634,1076,1029,825,3720,710,749,750,1652,4210,4838,1161,4885,768,3313,4889,1065,2638,1302,4890,4891],"class_list":["post-41859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","tag-alexandrine-parakeets","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-caspian-gull","tag-caspian-tern","tag-cattle-egret","tag-collared-dove","tag-common-redshank","tag-daurian-shrike","tag-eurasian-collared-dove","tag-eurasian-hoopoe","tag-glossy-ibis","tag-great-egret","tag-greater-flamingo","tag-greater-hoopoe-lark","tag-greater-sand-plover","tag-honey-buzzard","tag-kingdom-of-saudi-arabia","tag-laughing-dove","tag-pied-avocet","tag-staging-areas","tag-western-cattle-egret","tag-western-reef-heron","tag-white-eared-bulbul","tag-winter-plumage","tag-winter-visitor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2193051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}