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
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