109 : Egyptian Vulture

Egyptian Vulture - Neophron percnopterus

Highlights of Jebil Hafite mountain, at 2000m the highest peak in the UAE include the Egyptian vultures that soar around the sides of the mountain using thermals to stay aloft without a single wing beat.

Jebil Hafite
Al Ain, UAE
21 April 2012

108 : Pale Crag (African Rock) Martin

Pale Crag Martin - Ptyonoprogne fuligula

Another new species for me both in life and with the camera. These birds were swirling around high up on Jebil Hafite last weekend. I find Martins quite difficult to identify in the air - especially in places wher you are likely to encounter sevveral speices. You may be likely to catch a quick flash of a identification feature. 

This birds perched on the side of a carved off rock face long enough for me to get a picture. I think any Hirundine (the family with Martins and Swifts) looks distinctly alien in the appearance of the head. The large dark eyes and an almost seal like appearance. The eyes are much more forward facing given them a mammal like quality.I like the way this bird is using its still tail to cling to the rock face a little like a woodpecker when it props itself against a tree drunk to drill a hole.

Jebil Hafite, UAE

April 21 2012

107 : Spotted Flycatcher

Spotted Flycatcher, Ficedula parva

This was not a bird I expected to see 2000m up Jebil Hafite mountain near Abu Dhabi. The last time I saw one of these birds was in a small copse near man parents house in Suffolk. Its possible that the bird is on passage through the region stopping off at an oasis of green (The Hotel Mercure on the top of the mountain) on its way North from Africa to breeding grounds in Turkey, Iran and further North.

Flycatchers will always find a useful perch to work from which makes them an easy target for a half decent photograph. In the copse back in the UK a pair would nest just inside the entrance path to a wood. Up in the canopy you could see the birds flitting out into a gap in the canopy to take gnats and other small insects.I used to find them from their feint high tinny whistled calls - just on the edge of (my) hearing range. 

Jebil Hafite, UAE

21 April 2012 

106 : House Bunting

House Bunting, Emberiza striolata

This is a UAE resident but wa a life tick for me when I caught up with this bird at the top of Jebil Hafite at the Hotel Mercure. I knew it was some form of bunting from the head pattern, size and bill shape. The moustachial and malar stripes coupled with an eye stripe, supercilium and crown stripe making up that full bunting type head.

At home in the UK its Reed, Cirl , Snow, Lapland and Corn buntings - Cirl buntings existing right at the North of their range in one patch of Devon - Snow and Lapland buntings Winter visitors from the continent and further North. They are small birds from the very back of the bird book.

These house buntings need holes in walls or cracks in walls for breeding opportunites. Up here on the mountain the cliff sides were littered with natural little cavities ideal for nesting site.

A brief trip to the mountain netted me 3 life ticks and 5 new bird photographs for the website. A very good mornings work. At that pace I could finish in less than a decade. Sadly though I have to go to work !

Jebil Hafite, UAE

21 April 2012

105 : Rock Thrush

Rock Thrush  - Monticola saxatilis

I took my 10 year old son on a mini bird safari to Jebel Hafite today. The highest mountain in the UAE. Standing at over 2000 m on the edge of the Hajar mountain chain it throws up some bird oddities for Arabia. Near the summit is a quirky little hotel called the Mercure that attracts in the high mountain birds - the last time I saw one of these was in the Sierra Nevada in Spain a good 11 year's ago. This fine fellow - a male Rock Thrush looked far more colourful against the greenery of the Hotel front garden (and with the sun on him) than on the the bleached out sand stone slopes of the Arabian mountains. Rather fine !

Thank you to Peter Helier who I bumped into and put me onto a little lost corner of the hotel grounds that threw up another photo-tick for me.

Rock Thrush - Montacola saxatilis
Hotel Mercure gardens, Jebil Hafite Mountain, Abu Dhabi Emirate, UAE
21 April 2012

104 : European Reed Warbler

Eurpean Reed Warbler - Acrocephalus scirpaceous

It took me half an hour of patient stalking along a big reed bed to get this photo. These warblers will show themselves when singing but for the most part they will tumble and flit from stem to stem. The top of a reed will shake, you can here the faintest chur and straining to see through vegetation you might catch the odd site of the bird as it makes its way cautiously through the bed.

Every so often a bird will break cover and fly down the edge of the bed only to dart in a quickly disapear. Its cat and mouse with a camera. Then, if you're patient, and only if you are lucky a single male will shin up a reed stem in full view to crank out its song and attract a mate.

I have to admit that when I started this site one of my first throughts was - How on earth am I going to get picture of warblers. With some patience and a bit of skill has to be the answer - possibly some luck.

European Reed Warbler, Acrocephalus scirpaceous
Pivot Fields Dubai
19 April 2012

103 : Collared Pratincole

Collared Pratincole : Glareola pratincola

Please click on the pictures to enlarge !

Sometimes you get word of a bird and you have to twitch. Drop everything and drive with a real fear that it will be gone before you arrive. It was - I was looking for a Caspian Plover in Summer plumage. I was so fixed in my goal that I hadn't twigged that I was bound to see a flock of Collared Pratincoles at the same place - of course the Pivot Fields of Dubai - the Cley - the Mecca of Dubai birding.

This was a life tick for me. There was a flock of about 30 birds - I was surrounded by them and at times they would whirl around the car hide.

So what is a Pratincole ? They look like a cross between a swallow (see the forked tail and long pointed wings) and a plover. They are an African bird primarily - with one or two species occuring in Eurasia and two in Australia out of the 17 in the Praticoles and Coursers group. They are social birds and live near water and on sand and mud chasing insects on the ground and on the wing. They are a bird of dry hot open habitats.

I am currently salivating over the few pictures I have of the African species I might see in Tanzania in July.

These Collared Pratincoles are on their way up to their Summer breeding grounds in Turkey and Syria - stopping off on route at our Pivot Fields.

A lifer - a Camera tick - a good twitch - lunchtime well spent. Caspian Plover can wait until another day.

Collared Pratincole, Glareola pratincola
Dubai Pivot Fields
18 April 2012

102 : House Crow

House Crow - Corvus splendens

This crow has colonised Dubai from India, probably as an escape or introduction. This picture was taken in Safa Park last weekend on a warbler snapping trip.

Crows are incredibly intelligent. They can use tools and solve problems.In "Planet of the Birds" they would be the ruling class.

I am off to India in 6 weeks to Bangalore. I discovered that air fares to India at the beginning of the monsoon are cheap ! I have located a guide called Bopanda online who is going to pick me up from my hotel each day and run me out to find decent pictures of birds. I thought it would be a good warm up for Tanzania in July. I fly in on the Thursday night, spend all day Friday and Saturday on bird safari and fly back on the Sunday. I have Birds of the Indian Sub-Continent sitting on my side and I am all fired up and ready to roll !

House Crow, Corvus splendens 
Safa Park, Dubai, UAE
April 2012

101 : Chiffchaff

Chiffchaff - Phylloscopus collybitta

I know Chiffchaffs from the UK but when they are not singing on passage in the Middle East it is very difficult (for me at least) to tease them out from the other warblers that we have pulsing through the region. This bird was stalked by me for an hour in the small wood in the middle of Safa Park.

I m going to "benchmark" this as a Chiffchaff from the broken eye ring, fainter supercilium, yellowy tinge to underparts and general tumbling mouse like skittishness. I have a crick in my neck and 40 shots produced 4 that were liveable but that's the beauty of a digital camera.

It is satisfying when you catch a difficult bird with the lense. These birds are skittish and don't sit still or perch to order. They  are in the canopy of the Tamarisk trees and obscured most of the time by the weave of branches. I am starting to think that it is better to find a decent space in the canopy and wait for the bird rather than chase the birds around the wood firing off blurred shots. The auto focus doesn't work in this enviroment because of the profusion of branches that it can attract to putting the bird out of focus. Equally holding up a heavy telephoto lense and turning the manual focus ring at the same time is quite an effort.

I have avoided warblers to date for the very reason that they are tricky to identify and difficult to photograph. I am just going to have to learn some patience and some fieldcraft - and get used to staring into the tops of trees for hours on end !

Chiffchaff, Phylloscopus collybitta
Safa Park, Dubai, UAE
7 April 2012