We caught the red-eye to Muscat with Oman Air and after a
reasonable night’s kip while we waited for our behemoth of a vehicle to
arrive (a Chevy Tahoe), I quickly added two new birds to my list with
White-eared Bulbuls and Indian Silverbills in the flower borders. More familiar Red-vented Bulbuls were also
seen along with House Crows. We made our way to the Novotel Hotel to see if
they could hold our luggage. Thankfully
my room was already ready so we de-camped, changed, got our birding gear out
and headed straight back out and down to the beach.
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House Crow
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| White-eared Bulbul |
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| Obscenely big |
We started at the inland side at Al Qurm where the mud flat
amongst the Mangroves was home to a good selection of starter waders. There were what I call ‘Lesvos Long-billed’
Redshanks that still make you think of Spot Reds when you first see them, three
each of Whimbrel and Black-tailed Godwit, Black-winged Stilts, Greenshank,
Curlew, Common Sandpipers and our first Kentish Plovers with both
Greater and Tibetan Sand Plovers also stalking around.
There were Teal and Mallard in the creek with Great and
Western Reef Egrets and Grey Herons and a Common Kingfisher was hunting from
under the Mangroves. Graceful Prinias
trilled and a couple of Purple Sunbirds dangled in an Acacia. A small sandy bird was fossicking around the
base of the chainlink fence and I was delighted to see an Asian Desert Warbler
flashing a russet tail. I last saw this
species at Flamborough about 35 years ago.
We cross the road to the wide expanse of beach where the odd
tourist couple wandered hand in hand or undertook that running type exercise
that seems so unnecessary.
A huddle of
gulls and terns was scanned and Crested Terns were in the majority with 20 but
there were 13 Lesser Crested Terns (another 35 years ago bird), Sandwich and
Whiskered amongst the throng of Slender-billed Gulls. There was the odd Black-headed Gull and a mix
of big gulls too to give the little grey cells a work out with Caspian, Heuglin’s
and Steppe to play with but the stars for me were the Sooty Gulls.
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| Mixed Terns & Slender-billed Gulls |
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| Heuglin’s Gull |
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| Heuglin’s Gull |
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| Heuglin’s in front of Steppe Gull |
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| Heuglin’s Gull |
The Sooty Gulls were not as big as I thought they would be (more Common Gull
size) but very striking, especially in flight where the dark underwings gave
them an almost skua-like feel, aided by the long wings and languid flight.
Off shore there was many more of the aforementioned terns
and amongst them I found two winter plumages Bridled Tern which bouncily worked
they way up and down. It was turning out
to be a very enlightening morning in the field.
Amongst them were the whizzing dots of countless Red-necked Phalaropes
with several hundred seen. Some flocks
were closer in and each of those was probably more that my entire life time of
birding tally for the species.
Ringed Plover, Turnstone and Dunlin were added and there
were more of the ‘sandy plovers’ which was educational to see all three
together. Great Egrets and both light
and dark morph Western Reef Egrets worked the tideline and a skein of Great
Cormorant came overhead and out to sea.
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| Great Cormorants |
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| Western Reef Egret |
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| Greater Sand Plover |
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| Exceptionally long billed Curlew like the 'orientalis' that I see in Lesvos |
Back at the car there were some Common Mynas poking around
and House Sparrows, Feral Pigeons and Laughing Doves made up the quartet of
familiar urban default birds. The first Brown-necked Ravens headed over and a
pale Long-legged Buzzard became the first raptor of the expedition.
The adjacent park was our next stop and we had a superb walk
around the ornamental planted gardens which still had wild areas including a
saltwater channel and a large lake. Pale
Crag Martins were nesting on one of the big building and were constantly
gliding around us while both Bulbuls, Silverbills, Mynas and Doves (including
Collared) were common throughout. Ring-necked Parakeets flew noisily over.
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| Common Myna |
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| Common Mynas |
Our
first Red-tailed Shrike was sat up on the fence and appeared to be a classic
biscuity Daurian and despite being told that they can no longer be safely split, I
endeavoured throughout the trip to at least have a go at giving each a name
(and I don’t mean Rudolph). An Indian Roller was perched up in the trees behind
and we were to find at least ten of these gaudy migrants flop-flop flying
around the grounds. They were quite
timid and getting close to one was tricky and required some stealth.
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| Daurian Shrike |
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| Daurian Shrike |
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| Indian Roller |
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| Indian Roller |
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| Indian Roller |
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| Indian Roller |
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| Indian Roller |
Grey Francolins were found scratching around in the
undeveloped edges where Graceful Prinias sang.
These were yet another bird that I had not seen for quite some time and
like the Pale Crag Martins, had been on the Nile Cruise 20 years ago. Many more of these re-encounters were to
occur during this trip.
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Grey Francolin
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| Sodom Apple Calotropis procera - we saw this shrubby 'tree' all over Oman - often in the driest desert areas |
The salty channel was populated with shouty Red-wattled
Lapwings, Common Sandpipers and Whimbrels and we added Coots and Moorhens,
streaky Indian Pond Herons and what, until recently used to be called Striated
Heron. The three way split sees Green
Heron in North and Central America, Striated in South America and Little Heron
across the Africa, Arabia, Asia and the Antipodes.
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| Sesuvium portulacastrum or very similar forming a mat around the waters edge |
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| Red-wattled Lapwings |
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| Whimbrel |
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| Red-wattled Lapwing |
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| Indian Pond Heron and Moorhen |
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| Little Heron (fka Striated Heron) |
White Wagtails, Western Cattle Egrets and Pond Herons
stalked the lawns and Common Chiffchaffs which were made of identical looking
but different calling collybita / abietinus (hu-weet) and brevirostris (peep)
much as in Lesvos and Cyprus in the winter.
At this point there were no Siberian tristis types.
A pair of Arabian Green Bee-eaters looked around for snack
from the fence and positively glowed and searching for owls gave us a
Black-crowned Night-Heron that stared down with baleful red eyes.
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| Arabian Green Bee-eater |
Down at the very artificial lake there was a fine muddy
patch in the corner with Stilts, Ruff and Lapwings and Common Sandpipers were around the margins where more Pond Herons and a Little Heron
were found. There were ducks too with
Shoveler, Mallard and Teal along with a single female Pochard and several
Little Grebes.
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| Black-winged Stilt and Indian Pond Heron |
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| Ruff |
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| young Red-wattled Lawping |
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| Black-winged Stilt |
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| Black-winged Stilt |
Gangs of Mynas were coming down to drink and looked very
impressive in flight with their pied wings.
A Common Kestrel watched us from a lamppost and House Crows cautiously
came down but were easily spooked.
A few Wandering Gliders cruised around but as usual, never
landed and a Blue-tailed Damselfly was probably a typical common one. Back near the car a bit of waste ground that had a Green Sandpiper on a puddle when we walked through now had a delicate Marsh Sandpiper in its place. From here we drove through Muscat adding
verge-side Crested Larks, Glossy Ibises, Common Sandpipers and even a
Bar-tailed Godwit.
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| Marsh Sandpiper |
Our destination was the Al Ansab Wetlands but as we knew
that we would be too late to get in we headed to an overview that Paul had
found through the hotel and convention centre situated adjacent to it. Below us was a large deep water lagoon that
had a small flotilla of Pochard on it along with a male Tufted and Ferruginous
Ducks. Around the edges in the towering
reeds there were Indian Pond and Squacco Herons, snaky Purples and Greys,
Coots, Moorhens and a couple of Grey-headed Swamphens. A huge flock of Great Cormorants were
chilling on the banks.
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| Pochard, Tufted and Ferruginous Ducks |
The shallower pits to our right had Greater Flamingos and
more heronry things but there were waders too with Avocets, Stilts, Snipe,
Common Sands, Dunlin and Little Stints.
The stars of this visit though were the Eagles and dotted around the
lagoon were at least eight very spotty Greater Spotted Eagles looking all
chocolatey in the afternoon sun. Three
immature Eastern Imperial Eagles were also loafing around and I already
gathered that that I would be on an eagle learning curve this trip.
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| Greater Spotted Eagle |
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| Greater Spotted Eagle and Great Cormorants |
Marsh Harriers quartered the whole site but the perching
eagles were very loath to fly but up above us we found a couple more Spotteds
circling with a female Sparrowhawk.
Purple Sunbirds bounded around the car park behind us but we were all
flagging and decided to head back to the hotel to get ourselves sorted for our
dinner excursion to KFC where a 26 piece bucket was felt to be not overly
extravagant between five of us.
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| Greater Spotted Eagle |
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| Eurasian Sparrowhawk |
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| It was not all for me! |
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