71 : Short-toed Lark

Short-toed Lark - Calandrella brachydactyla

I went for an afternoon at the Pivot Fields last Saturday afternoon and was lucky enough to bump into a small party of birders from the Emirates Naturalist Group being led on an organised day by a "local'' birder Neil Tovey. Neil kindly offered for me to join and tag along and I hopped into his car for a drive around the Pivot fields. Larks, Pippits and Wagtails are not really my thing as I have not put in the time really studying birds. I will have to ! So it was an education as well as being fun and its good to feel the enthusiasm that people have when you bird in a group. The Pivot Fields is a place where turf is grown commercially in Dubai and obviously as it sits on a flyway across the desert on migration it is a mini-Mecca for birds and birders.

I have a number of pictures of dots I need to blow up sort and post. I started with the Sociable Plover and Northern Wheatear. This Short-toed Lark is a bird I have not identified before. Its distinguished from skylark by a small distinct dark neck patch which if you blow up this pícture you can make out. There is also no "primary projection"of the very end wing feathers which would take it into Lesser Short-toed Lark territory. It is smaller than a skylark and lacks the beading on its front. Its bill is more conical and finch like. It has a clear row of markings on the covert feathers like a small row of squares. Unfortunatley you have to take care as there other overlapping Larks that have to be sorted out ! On this day there weer two other species of Larks flitting about.

The trick will be when I see a Lark myself and have to make the call which I need feel a bit more confident to do. I was bought a small spotting scope for Xmas that I will be able to hide clamp on the car - A long fast lens would again be useful !

Adventures in identification of little brown jobs.

Short-toed Lark - Calandrella brachydactala
Pivot Fields, Dubai, UAE
25 February 2012

70 : Purple Sunbird

Purple Sunbird - Nectarinia asiatica

We have a  few sunbirds on the site now. This is a common UAE birds and you find them around any big blowsy flowers. In the square where I work there are frangipan trees and they are heaving with these Purple Sunbirds just now. I keep thinking I will get a better shot. This for now and the new camera is coming soon !

This was taken at Liwa in the middle of the desert at the Antonara hotel - Qasr al Sarab. So literally an oasis in the desert and there a little jewel thats found its way to the gardens

Purple Sunbird - Nectarinia asiatica
Qasr Al Sarab, Liwa, UAE
February 2011

69 : Northern Wheatear

Northern Wheatear - Oenanthe oenanthe

I love these birds. They remind me of the passion and excitement of migration. They remind me of sunsets at 11.30 pm in the Western Isles of Scotland. They remind me of a first birding holiday in Cley. Like a Common Sandpiper they are a touchstone bird for me. '

Here a female at the Pivot Fields in Dubai propped up on the pivot itself. They are the earliest migrants to arrive in the UK from mid March on. I guess this bird is on its way up to the grasslands of central Asia.

Below - the male taken 24 March 2012 :

Northern Wheatear -  Oenanthe oenanthe
Pivot Fields, Dubai
February 26 2012

68 : Crested Lark

Crested Lark - Galerida cristata

I like these comical little larks. They are resident right across the Middle East and you can find them on any patch of arid semi-desert. Barsha Park must be luxury for them with its manicured lawns. I have seen these birds in Spain as well so I guess they are right across the Mediteranean and North Africa. They do not seem to need wilderness - any patch of building site will do in Dubai.

Additional photo added from Warsan pits to make up for dire shot above !

And better still...

Crested Lark - Galerida cristata
Barsha Park, Dubai
March 2010

67 : Sociable Plover

Sociable Plover - Vanellus gregarius

Yes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Recently better shot - 3 birds - 2 male and 1 female at Pivot fields - 8 December 2012]

[Recently added Female Bird - 8/12/12 - Pivots]



Sorry but sometimes in life you feel larger forces at work. I tap away about stuff but one theme is why are we killing all these beautiful birds - and animals in fairness - and whilst I don't yet have a solution (but the firm I work for has one for the rain forests - watch this space) I think awareness is a good thing.

So yesterday I posted about rare birds - rails I think - and whined on about how we should "save the whales".

Today in the most apparent sense I just got it and I am already a tree hugger. This bird is down to thewire - I think less than 1000. I was looking at 6 of them. A count in 2006 put it at 600-1000,

The guy I was with got very exicited - I can understand why - possibly 0.5-1% of the worlds population.

I have got my head round this and I am quite clear. Here is a plover or lapwing - there are perhaps 1000 left - thats like mountain gorillas, siberian tigers. If we are going to argue about 300 vs 1000 then we have lost the plot. I  know that there are what 6 billion people on this world - These guys - sorry - probably less than 1000 - if that was the human race that would be a Hollywood disaster movie.

This man - and he is man  - was in a flock with 5 females. My books tell me he is not monogomous - good !

Some days I am moved by birds - this is a stradovarious of a bird - A D'vinchi drawing - a Penny Black. Why doesn't the world get this ? I am sorry you cannot put it in a museum or on your wall.  You could  stuff it like a Dodo - This bird is rarer than a tiger or a blue whale.

So what's my point - I cannot make a moral case to value this creature any less than a Panda. So we need to start slapping orders on the Pivot Fields to keep stuff as it is.  I feel a letter to Sheikh Mo coming on. Will phrase it nicely.
Sociable Plover - Vanellus Leucurus
Pivot Fields Dubai
25 February 201

66 : Little Green Bea-eater

Little Green Bea-eater - Merops oreintalis

The picture above was added to the site on 10 March 2012 - the result of a better view. I promised I would return to this page with a better picture given how handsome these birds are. Real jewels. The picture below most recently from december 2012

Below a more recent shot on the wire fence next to the Pivot fields

This little fellow turned up at our poolside a  couple of year's ago. I have seen these from time to time when out birding - normally propped on fences along the roadside.They are resident in the UAE.

2 out of 22 species of Bea-eater captured on my site.

Little Green Bea-eater - Merops Orientalis
Al Barsha, Dubai, UAE
2010

65 : Purple Gallinule (Purple Swamphen)

Purple Gallinule - Porphyrio porphyrio

I have seen these striking giant rails twice. Once on Mallorca at the Abulfera wetlands in the North of the island near Puerto Pollensa. The second time back in dear old Yala National Park in South East Sri Lanka. I like the alternative name "Swamphen"as they are very very chicken like. The colour is this bluey purple all over with bright coral legs, beak and brow. They are a very upright, quite tall bird and stand out easily even in quite dense water plants. They are the largest rail in the Western Paleartic.

Please do click and blow him up - very fine no ??

Perhaps a quick explanation of the Western Paleartic. For some reason some ornithologists have divided up the world by geological regions and  the WP is the huge plate basically that Europe, North Africa and much of the very near or Middle East sits on. Birds of the Western Paleartic (concise edition in 2 volumes raher than the 8 volume tome)  (the 'BWP')  is the biggest worthy book I own - my King James bible for European birds. Outside of the WP the Purple Gallinule's range extends right through Southern Asia and down to Australia and New Zealand. It is also widespread South of the equator in Africa.

Purple Gallinules are omniverous and feed on the shoots and tubors of aquatic plants as well as invertebrates and so on.

I am sorry but back to this - They really are a draft looking bird - they remind me of that bird in "Up" that forms the object of the plot. Yes  a daft big purple swamp chicken. Very endearing. There is some confusion in my books as to the name - there is an American Purple Gallinule which is a similar bird but with yellow legs - "Martinica".

The large family of which Gallinules form a part - Rallidae - has 134 species which inlcudes our home grown coots and moorhens as well as more elusive quarry such as water rails. Given where they hang out - in the middle of a swampy reedbed with plenty of cover I can imagine that I will have some long sessions in hides staking out small open puddles waiting for the shots I need. Thankfully the Purple Gallinule is a little less shy than most although after 48 hours in the Yala I only came away with the one shot so perhaps I was lucky.

Sad news again  - one quarter of the world's rail species are 'vulnerable' or 'endangered' - given their lifestyle that must reflect the pressure that man is putting on our wetlands. I always wondered why the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust was needed in some ways when we have the RSPB and so on. When I reflect on the places in the world where I have seen the most 'life' they are Wetlands. When I think of Rhas Al Khor in Dubai it probably holds the biggest concentrations of birds you will see in the Emirate for obvious reasons. Thats a protected site but they seem intent on building all around it - I expect that it will get denuded away bit by bit, dried up and trashed - I hope not - Flamingos on the edge of the desert are a wonderful thing.

A second pressure on rails is that they have made a habit of colonising far flung islands and then losing the power of flight. I have written about island endemics before but when you couple that with an invasion of rats from ships during word war 2 a flightless groundnesting rail doesn't stand much of a chance. Fully 22 species of rail have shuffled off during the era of modern science.

It's the Oscars this weekend. They have that moving montage every year with all the stars and film people who have died. I'd love it one year if they had a change and did a montage of all the birds and animals made extinct in the last 400 years. We'd have to spend a full five minutes on the rails if we gave them all a clip. Some friends we have lost in the last 400 years... Pandas and American Condors are all very glamorous to save - I guess a chicken that lives in a useless swamp or on an island in the backrow of the world just isn't that glamorous.

Hang in there Rallidae. 22 species. I wonder what they were like. I'll never know. Wake Rail, Laysan Crake, Hawai Crake, Guam Rail (in the wild - still exists in captive breeding).....the list goes on ..... It just feels so wrong...Carrier Pigeon, Dodo, Greak Auk, Eskimo curlew, Ivory Billed Wood Pecker (we have to stop kidding ourselves)... I'd watch that show and shed a tear... animals ? Stelllas Sea Cow, Tasmanian Wolf...if don't wake up soon Orang Utang, Siberian Tiger, Amazonian Pink Dolphin, Blue Macaw.

Come on Holleywood stop crying every year about dead actors who died minted at 98 and start a love in for things that have roamed the earth for thousands of years until we in our most modern and rapacious form came along.

Thankfully my daft big  purple swamp chicken won't get into to too much trouble very soon as he can fly (just) buts prefers to migrate across Spain by walking to get down to the coast in the dry season - they must have little trails that have been used by their purple brethren for thousands of years. I'd go to see that - the march of the Purple Swamphens of Andulucia - there you go Hollywood - your next blockbuster.

I'd just like to say how proud I am of this award and that I'm proud to be a giant rail and proud to be purple....

Purple Gallinule - Porphyrio porphyrio
Yala, Sri Lanka
April 2011

64 : Greenshank

Greenshank - Tringa nebularia

A cold Northern wader snapped yet again in sunny Dubai at Rhas Al Knor (in arabic "The Head of the Creek"). Greenshank are a saltwater wader in my mind - I always see them around estuaries rather than on freshwater. They are elegant with a long legged look and a needle thin upturned bill. They will suddenly run across shallow water on their stilt like legs after fish fry or a small invertabrate.

In Spring I assume they are up in the Northern clock round sunlit lands of Russia. Back home they were a bird for March on a Suffolk coast or September on the Dee. Another world wanderer.
Greenshank - Tringa nebularia
Ras Al Khor - Dubai
Late Summer 2011

63 : Green Imperial Pigeon

Green Imperial Pigeon - Ducula aenea pusilla

It is good to be back into the flow of this. It feels quite satisfying "ticking off" another species on my website. This morning a very fine pigeon species snapped on Sri Lanka in the Yala national park. This was a large pigeon with green back and wings and a smart "dove grey" front.  My photographic field guide of Sri Lanka confirms that at a distance the distinction between the two plumage colours can be hard to see. Click on the picture and look at the bird on the right enalrged and you can see the grey on the neck and the lovely dark green tones on the back. The eye has a white line around it to. A striking pigeon ! I would alomost say that it beats a pink pigeon which is really not as colourful.

That was a lesson learned I think in art class at aged 11 or 12 and relearned at 29 when I started to actively go birding again. Colour washes out over distances so that everything turns to greys or browns. Equally whether the sun is behind or front of a bird has a very real effect. You either get a silohette as every photographer knows when taking a family snap or you get something which shows up colour. Time of day also impacts - I love early morning or evening Winter lights - the colours of birds take on a pastil, crisp look.

So it takes some patience and a little imagination to see the green and the grey on these birds and to know what you are looking at. Seeing a bird can be a bit of  puzzle  - markings come into it - but also where are you ? what time of year is it ? what is the bird doing ? It is satisfying to realise that you are looking at something you have never seen before - even more satisfying to "collect" it in a camera and then months later posting up in here is particulary fulfilling.

I am going to have a "splurge"with the Task for the next few weeks and see if I can take the list up over 100 and see how far I get before Easter. Passage season is almost here.

Green Imperial Pigeon - Duculla aenea pusilla
Sri Lanka - Yala National Park
April 2011

62 : White-Browed Fantail

White-Browed Fantail - Rhipidura aureola

This was a snatched shot from a safari truck. Follow up in two Sri Lanka bird books narrowed down the identification and that black mohican stripe and broad white supercilium and brow is the give away. The clue is in the name.

I got a glimpse of this bird - nothing more or less and this is the best of 3 shots (no long lense as yet).

So armed with this poor shot I have now discovered that this is in the family of "Monarch Flycatchers and Fantails" - the same family as Asian Paradise Flycatcher of which I can share and even worse photo in due course. My own Fantail here apparently wafts his tail about to disturb insects and flush them from hiding spots.

I do remember this being at the end of a long drive where bird after bird was appearing. I cannot wait to go back.

I leave you with Spotted Deer to make up.

We are planning a trip to Tanzania this year. I really need the new camera. I am definately going to spend my retirement in the bush - one way or another. If I bump into elephants, tigers, pandas and pythons along the way while finding my birds I think it will just be a bonus.

White-Browed Fantail - Rhipidura aureola
Yala - Sri Lanka
April 2011

61 : Black-Headed Gull

Black-Headed Gull - Larus Ribidundas

The Essex man of gulls. I am so indifferent to these birds I cannot think of anything to say and do not feel inspired to find out more. Eaters of rubbish and robbers of lapwing nests. That says it all.

I just cannot get excited about gulls - they just remind me of the smell of sewage - they eat it ! I used to see rafts of the things picking over turd when I started birdwatching again in 1998 as an adult. My patch in South London included a stretch of the Thames at Erith with a lovely sewage farm. Deep joy - spent hours sifting through trying to find a Mediterranean Gull - never found one - my Brother picked one out for me at Minsmere last year but I didn't have the camera with me. Yes - eaters of poo. Puts you off doesn't it.

Black-Headed Gull - Larus Ribibundas
UK
Summer 2011

60 : Red-Whiskered Bulbul

Red-Whiskered Bulbul - Pycnonotus Jocosus

I remembered this little fellow from a patio feeding snap session at the Sugar Club in Mauritius so after posting up my first Bulbul earlier this eveing I thought that I would drag him out.

This cheeky chappy and his mates were bolder and brassier than many birds I have encountered but you cannot deny their ridiculous crest ! At breakfast they would sit on the giant light fittings on the breakfast veranda and shit on your plate if you weren't watching. Juice left on the table - bread everything was fair game for a snatch and grab. Despite their handsome appearance I went off them due to their breakfast habits.

This is an introduction to Mauritius according to my "Birds of the Indian Ocean Islands"book - I assume its a Southern African species as with most introductions down there. Thats my second Bulbul out of the 130 we have to get through at some point - that family will take us across into South East Asia. Frontiers in Bulbuling.

This is better than stamp collecting isn't it. At least I have to travel a bit. Mauritius is just 4 hours flight from Dubai which is just as well as I never took a picture of that Echo Parakete.

Red-Whiskered Bulbul - Pycnonotus Jocosus
Sugar Club - Mauritius
July 2010

59 : Tawny Pipit

Tawny Pipit - Anthus campestris

This is my best guess for this bird which was in a small flock on the hotel lawn at Sir Baniyas. I am familiar with Meadow Pipits and Tree Pipits from home. I have looked at all my books and this bird lacks a lot of streaking and is much paler and bleached out but that might just be the strong sunshine.

Pipits are an archetypal LBJ - Little Brown Job. A real specialist quarry and they take a lot of sorting out. From my birds of the Middle East "medium-large pipit with relatively long tail, legs and bill and fairly upright stance which, together with the adult's poory streaked sandy upperparts, nearly unstreaked breast, plain sandy wings with conspicuous dark-centred median coverts and bold whitish supercilium seperate it from smaller pipits". Well there you go then - right all along.

Thats a life tick - probably have seen thousands of these but never really looked hard enough before - that's the beauty of digital photography. Sort them out later ! I think he's rather fine because I didn't know what he was until 10 minutes ago - a quick bit of blowing up and 20 minutes study and I've "discovered" a whole new bird. Thats an exciting way to spend an evening - discovering a whole new species !

Tawny Pipit - Anthus campestris
Sir Baniyas - UAE - Desert Island Hotel grounds
14 February 2012

58 : White-Cheeked Bulbul

White-Cheeked Bulbul - Pycnonotus leucogenys

When I got out to the Gulf several birds were missing. I couldn't see any tits or starlings. Day to day birds were replaced. Bulbuls seem to fill a niche as a garden bird and they remind me of great tits. They are far braver so more like sparrows. In every hotel I have stayed in they will forage at tables.

This is a White-Cheeked Bulbul which seems to be the most widespread in the UAE. There are 130 species of Bulbul spread throughouut Asia and Africa. So 1 per cent of the worlds birds are Bulbuls.

One Bulbul that is a Middle Eastern specialist is the Hypocolius and that will be a special expedition one day to one of the few sites they can be found in the UAE.

White-Cheeked Bulbul - Pycnonotus leucogenys
Sri Baniyas - UAE
February 2012

57 : House Sparrow

House Sparrow - Passer Domesticus

I was having my lunch on Sir Baniyas and thought I have to post this up some time. I see this bird everywhere in the Gulf. It was the bird theme music of growing up in the suburbs. The cheep cheep echoing off the garages and tarmac of an estate.

In the UK there has been a 99% reduction in some urban populations of sparrow. Additives in petrol, pesticides ? Nobody quite knows why - they are not a bird that finds it hard to "have a go" - so why this catostrophic decline in the UK. One writer has called it the miner's canary of urban Britain. Food for thought.

House Sparrow - Passer Domesticus
Sir Baniyas - UAE
13 February 2012

56 : Steppe Eagle

Steppe Eagle - Aquila nipalensis

Oh yeah you say ! How do you know that ? Poor Photo ! Well its a bit of cheating but the ranger on Sir Baniyas told me that it was the first time they had had a Steppe Eagle overwintering. I am used to seeing Greater Spotted Eagle in Dubai as one or two overwinter to snack on the flamingos at Ras Al Khor - the books tell me that a Steppe Eagle is larger but there is an overlap in size. This was a big bird - definately an eagle with a proper "hand" of feathers at the end of the primaries.

I saw it a few times - flushed it once from a delightful gazelle carcass with spilled guts. I am not sure that the Cheetahs are that wild if they kill a gazelle and chew off one ear before getting bored.

My books tell me that Steppe Eagle do overwinter in Arabia - they also confirm that they will predate baby antelopes and scavenge on dead adults so that all adds up ! Sir Baniyas is Macodonalds for overwintering Steppe Eagles. I am suprised they have not found it sooner.

Yum Yum - Steppe Eagle takeaway

There are 20-30,000 pairs of these birds in the old Soviet Union and they all fly South for Winter. They were a life tick for me and when I do that Steppe run one day (following my Pallid Harriers North)I will try for a better shot. I feel inspired to go and try and snap the Greater Spotted Eagle at Ras Al Khow tomorrow or even try the vultures at Al Ain. Glad to be up and running again.

Cruising for a fresh carcass.

Steppe Eagle - Aquila nipalensis
Sir Baniyas Island - UAE
12 February 2012

55 : Osprey

Osprey - Pandion haliaetus

Now here was a suprise on Sir Baniyas Island. We had a mother and juvenile Osprey in view most days. They would loaf about on a sandbank in the middle of the lagoon and then quarter up and down the beach in front of the hotel - merrily chatting to eachother. Fantastic - Osprey are proper birder's birds.

The first sight of an Osprey for someone in the UK would usually be at Rutland Water or in the Lakes or in Scotland. They were rare birds once without a single pair in England. typically they nest next to large freshwater lakes or estuaries. I have also seen one or two on passage at places like Minsmere but the usual view is a dot a long way off. While travelling I've seen them in Florida, the Caribean (Antigua) and in Southern Europe. I remember a bird in Albufera in Majorca carrying a fish which was huge - like a giant torpedo underneath an aircraft. Again in Antigua Jane and I watched as an Osprey dived onto a huge bright flatfish -a sunfish I think. The bird could barely lift it.

In the UK they are Summer migrants - hauling back and fowards from Spain and Africa. Here in the UAE they are resident birds but the population is increased during passage season and they Winter all round the Gulf coast.

Views of fish catched were few and far between and typically the fish caught quite small. They are consumate fishers - hovering over the water about 20 m up in the air or more and then stooping down with talons outstretched.

A lovely suprise anyway - it had not occured to me that I might share the weekend with Ospreys and good bird to get connected with. They seem out of place without a pine tree in the background but us British birders always forget that many of our native birds are global in their range.

Osprey - Pandion haliaetus
Sir Baniyas - UAE
11-14 February 2011

54 : Desert Wheatear

Desert Wheatear - Oenanthe deserti

I haven't posted for about 5 months which has set back the target finishing date on the Task somewhat. I remain committed and with this 54 th bird I am clearly over the half a per cent mark of the world's birds ! You will recall that there are just under 10,000 birds in the world.

This school half term we travelled to Sir Baniyas which is a small Gulf island off the Western Region of the United Arab Emirates. I cannot recall having seen a Desert Wheatear before which seems an obvious bird for the Gulf. This handsome male bird was pottering around the small harbour where we caught the private ferry over to the island. The island itself was a nature reserve/canned Safari Park created by Sheikh Zayed. I reserve my judgement on the wisdom of having 2000 or so ungalates milling about on an island as easy prey for 5 equally canned Cheetahs. I guess it beats a zoo but it isn't Tanzania thats for certain. Anyway a good time was had by all. The bird highlight for me was this wheatear at the start of the break.

Desert Wheatear - Oenanthe deserti
Sir Baniyas Ferry terminal UAE
11 February 2012