28 : Slender-billed Gull

Slender-billed Gull - Larus genei

I snapped this local gull today at Rhas Al-Khor. Rhas Al-Khor means the head of the creek in arabic. The Dubai creek ends in a brackish wetland with mangroves and lots of standing water and saltflats. Its an important site for migrant and breeding birds with a large flock of flamingos most of the year round, herons, raptors and waders. During the migration season and the Winter the place can teem with birds. The municipality has provided two hides with leica scopes and binoculars. It is a pleasant place to sit for a hour or two to see what's about.

Slender-billed gull breeds in the Persian gulf. This bird was feeding near a treated water out-flow into the creek next to one of the hides. A popular spot for herons who run about in the shallows catching small fish. I think slender-billed gulls are proper fish eating gulls as well. I never get excited by gulls - its a combination of their identification difficulties and habits. I am so ambivalent about gulls I could barely be bothered to sort out the new gulls on arrival in the Middle-East. They are at least fairly easy to photograph ! Perhaps that will change.

Slender-billed Gull - Larus genei
Rhas Al-Khor, Dubai
4 June 2011