253 : Northern Curlew

Northern Curlew - numenius arquata

Superb latin name for a start - sounds like a centurian from the Eagle of the Ninth. ''Numenius the druids are at the gate - form testudiae !!". We've set off in the wrong direction there this morning. Try another picture.

This birds needs mud to probe in with that long bill to find prey items to refuel. The Pivot fields were looking a bit baked at the weekend - there was little standing water about. This is common wader across the Western Paleartic. Overwintering down in the Gulf and Africa or being seen on passage on the way through. This is the most widespread of the 8 global curlew species - spending its Summers right across temperate Europe and Asia and then heading South right across Europe, Asia and Africa in the Winter months. So a Northern Hemisphere bird and an Old World one.

These are easy to dismiss because they are easy to see in most places but here in Dubai this is probably only the second or third curlew I have seen over a few years. They remind of the cold, muddy estuaries of East Anglia - you can hear the trilling song through the close fog when you are tramping out across places like Mersea Island or Walton-on-the-Naze. The other long contact call is onamatapeic "Currr-looo". Those kind of places somehow represent proper birding in comparison to the radio accompanied, car bound, 5 * Dubai birding that rarely sees me walk more than 100 yards. I am going to have to start working harder for my birds at some point ! This was shot out of the car window.

I remember going to help a family friend canvas for the elections in the UK and finding myself staying near Darlington on the North Yorkshire Moors. We always associate Curlews with the coast. It was June and the fields and meadows about the places were dripping with Curlews and their calls - all up on the high wet peaty ground with a plentful supply of earthworms and stone walls to fire off display songs from. Anthony lost the election to Alan Milton (we were "blue" and in the North) but I got to stay on an amazing piece of moorland with cuckoos and meadow pippets, snipe and other calls all around me in the morning and evenings. Snipe drumming for example - diving for the ground and letting a set of feathers near the base of the legs "hum" - almost like the siren on a Stuka. The Yorkshire Moors in Summer. I had a birdsong tableau by Geoff Sounds (still have if I look for it) taped up on the Moors - awesome. Radio 4 sonic birding.

At night if you find a quiet spot and listen all over the Northern Hemisphere you can on clear nights make out the sounds of the vast flocks of birds passing overhead - it goes on a lot at night - the stars are their guide and the lower temperatures mean that their tiny bodies, undergoing a huge work out, do not overheat as they burn out several hundred kilometres through the dark. Amazing journeys. We see them refueling. There was a little "fall" of Little Ringed Plover at the pivots - a packets of 5 or 6 birds huddled down in the grass with one or two feeding on a pool. It was February of last year when I saw the last birds moving through. This years group were resting up for the next leg of the mission.



For a moment I thought I had not posted for Little Ringed.  I've muddled my Kentish with my Little-Ringed.

The Curlew bird will be heading up to the Taiga and fields of Central/Northern Asia. These journeys are all in play at the moment - billions of birds of the move.

Northern Curlew, numenius arquata

Dubai, Pivot Fields

16 March 2013





252 : Green Sandpiper

Green Sandpiper - Tringa Ochropus

The world is on the move again, mid March and the waders are flooding through Dubai on the way up to the Neartic to breed. I love Green Sandpipers - they are stunning. I slipped out for two hours this afternoon as in my dreams I knew the birds were coming. I actually dream birds which is pretty sad.

The first one of these I saw was at Chestnut RSPB , on a small pool in a copse. There is something crisp about these birds, the white and the dotted back. They are tiny - a sparrow came at sat next to one and it wasn't much smaller. I was up the Pivot fields which are being wrecked at the moment - they are teraing up the grass and buldozing whole reed birds that held large populations of breeding Clamorous Warblers each year. Anyway there was only small pool of standing water so I set the car as a hide with the sun in the right direction to get a catch in the eyes on any photos I took. Lazy car birding - it was 36 on the thermometer so I wasn't going to walk.

On the surface of the water you can see numbers of flies. Fuel for this migrating sandpiper. A sparrow flew in to drink next to the wader and it wasn't much smaller. They really are little pocket beauties. I love the beading on the back. These are a real "Birders Bird".

 

 

I set out with the intention of finding what was on the move - I was delighted with this little Spring migrant who will pop up next to a lake or river somewhere in the Taiga forests far far up North.

 

Green Sanpiper, Tringa Ochropus

Dubai, Pivot Fields

16 March 2013 

 

251 : Sooty Gull

Sooty Gull - Lchthyaetus hemprichii

I have become a bit underwelmed by UAE birds in recent months - I just haven't been trying hard enough. There is a list of 400-500 birds that come through this part of the world and we sit on an important flyway. I need to get out more and I need to hit the books and make the birds a bit like golf shots. I need to get out for Crab Plover, get up the mountains for Barbary Partridges, scour the desert for a Hoopoe Lark (my Unicorn).

How did I not notice these Sooty Gulls flying around all this time. Its part of my overall downer on gulls ! These are smart gulls though a  little easier to identify - yes they are the sooty looking ones ! They have a large range stretching from the Middle East through Asia and associate with fishing villages !

With the modicum of research I could have developed a strategy for Sooty Gull rather than accidentally wandering into some - Be in Middle East (tick) - find fishing village with men haggling over the price of fish (tick) - locate Sooty Gull (tick !).

...Scare Sooty Gull by getting too close while excited - scare all Gulls in fact and then panic and run off poor in flight shots (tick). Going back to post 250 you can see that they were there tucked in with the Armenian Gulls - another ignored Gull due to lack of interest/affinity with haggling fisherman etc.

It has even taken me a couple of weeks to write this post as deep down I just don't get excited by Gulls - seabirds generally. Too much like hard work on the identification stakes. For example the bigger black mirror on the Herring type Gull in the top flight shot above turns it into an Armenian Gull - whats happens if you don't have a Herring Gull next door to compare though ?? A lot of fussing about is what with books and websites and even debates online with people you have never met on bird sites.

Anyway insomnia won the day this morning and we have two new shiny gulls on the Daily Bird - and I have to say I quite this Sooty Gull - the family waited patiently while I stromped off for 5 minutes at the end of Dhow trip to get the shots. I got my cultural shot of Oman as well.  

Sooty Gull, Lchthyaetus hemprichii

Oman, Dibba

February 2013

250 : Armenian Gull

Armenian Gull - Larus Armenicus

In amongst the jumble on the beach here are a number of specimens that look superficially like Heron Gulls - their dark eyes, dark band at the end of the bill, overall size and colouring (grey backs) have them fixed in my book at Armenian Gulls. Formerly "lumped" with Herring Gull they are now recognised as a species in their own right. I am torn between being a lumper and a splitter. The more splits there are to see the more I am chained to this website for life (I am anyway). Equally though sub-species are difficult. I leave it to the guys who DNA test. They discovered a new owl recently by demonstrating that it lived on its own island and had its own call. I think the test is that they have their own range and do not interbreed to any extent.

These birds are probably over wintering from Western Iran. This large congregation was staking out the fishing port on the Omani side of the border at Dibba.

Thats 250 birds - the pace has slowed in recent weeks. Passage is however upon us and it is incumbent on me to spend some time in the field to try to get some new shots. The rugby season will be played out also in a few weeks (I coach - more like shout !) and I will have more time at the weekends to spend in the field. I should be aiming for at least a morning a week. Its almost time for the annual bird trip - I am fancying somewhere exotic like the UK this year ! So much more I could do with Sri Lanka as well - there is a low cost flight option into a second airport now with Air Arabia - and a world of endemic birds that I hardly touched on on my last trip. Or back to India to Goa and straight up into the rain forest ? All I need is an eco-lodge somwhere, a veranda and time to sit back and take photos. Another idea is Salalah in Oman although I might save that one up for the rains ! I saw it on Wild Arabia the new BBC nature piece and it looked amazing. Leopard, striped Hyena, Arabian Wolves, Verreuxs Eagles preying on Rock Hyrax. Who knew I keep asking my wife as we watch the thing. Some of the little cameos closer to home were quite fun - lots of great space age shots of Dubai etc.

I leave you with what I believe is a Hawksbill Turtle from the same trip - that or a Green but I think I can see the making of a beak, the shell is rounder and there is a distinct eyebrow line on one. I am no turtle expert !

Armenian Gull, Larus Armenicus

Oman, coast near Dibba

February 2013



249 : Swift Tern

Swift Tern - Sterna Bergii

We took a trip up the Omani coast in a Dhow recently, driving over to Dibba on the East coast of the UAE (technically Fujeirah)  to meet with our boat. We had to cross the border into Oman at a police check point which was all straightforward - but not before I had a panic about what was packed in the car for the trip.

We have not done a boat trip out with an overnight camp on deck before - its something I would recommend just to get the feeling of being out of Dubai for 24 hours ! The Dhow went North up the coast for 3 or 4 hours and then we snorkelled next to the shoreline (we were stung a bit by jelly fish). The coral fish were stunning  - squid and cuttlefish, pilot fish, the smaller parrot varieties, lots of wrasse, angel fish and the little damsel fish tucked away in the corals. Hard and soft corals on this occasion which I have not really seen before. I must have counted about 40 species of fish in an hour or so.

Not so much fun were the swarms of sea snakes that we had seen from the boat - thankfully they were not close in to shore. Some of the banded snakes were a good 6 foot long - not my idea of a fun swim !!

We then did some handline fishing - between us (not me) and the crew we caught some Red Snapper, Hammour and a Barracuda.

We parked up near a small coastal village with no road access where the locals had cars shipped in for the 2 km of seafront road !! After dark we were ferried into the beach for a meal cooked over a firepit. Sleeping on deck was quite relaxing - not too cold and the noise of the water slapping against the hull was soporific. I tripped in the night trying to find the "heads" but I managed not to fall overboard.

 

 

Where we tied up for the night we had great views of a party of Ospreys. There were 4 birds at one point - presumably a breeding family. There was a lot of calling and swooping about.

 

The bird that is the real subject of this post is the Swift Tern.  A life tick for me - a pair in particular were just chasing eachother round and round the Dhow - I think one bird was trying to get the first bird to drop its catch on each occasion. They are a big powerful Tern with a decent metre or so's wingspan.

I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

 

 

This final pictire gives you an idea of the areial dual that was playing out round and round our Dhow.

 



Swift Tern,  Sterna Bergii
Oman, Musandam Peninsula
February 2013