Blue Eyed Birder: Oman - An Arabian Adventure

We stood outside as the dawn glow began to illuminate the Arabian sea and listened to the sound of 26 Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters leaving their roost from the reeds of the Khawr Ad Dahariz and climbing up to catch their first breakfast snacks. It was not a sound I had heard en-masse before and it was filed away for future Lesvos visits – I will find one there some day!

The Glossy Ibis and Cattle Egrets were heading out for the day and the Indian Pond Herons and Squaccos were already around the edges despite the early locals pulling out their chairs to sit down for breakfast! Two immature Spoonbills dropped in and started the day with a long drink. We had a chat with a couple of English birders who gave us a few tips and told us of their Siberian Rubythroat find at a random desert petrol station on their way down south proving that anything out here is possible.

Spoonbills

Ruff, Redshank, Black-tailed Godwit and yes, the pale one is also a Common Redshank

Black-winged Stilt literally on the beach

Grey Plover

Slender-bills, Stilts and a sneaky Caspian Tern

Caspian Terns patrolled just feet away and somehow Whiskered and White-winged Black Terns were even closer. You almost didn’t need binoculars. The Stilts glowed and Little Stints ran around our feet where Citrine Wagtails fed unconcerned. Up the channel there was a large flock of Sand Martins and a few Barn Swallows and some Tristram’s Starlings came out of the big tree on the island and headed into town. The Delicate Prinias were singing around us and I found one sat up on top for a short while.

Citrine Wagtail

I reckon this is a Heuglin's Gull

Sooty Gull and Slender-bills

Sooty Gull

Black-winged Stilt

Our day was to be spent working the coastal Khawrs. The journey through town saw the green verges dotted with Ibis, Common Sandpipers, Doves and Wagtails while both Alexandrine and Ring-necked Parakeets flew across the road. On one particular stretch there were suddenly Rose-coloured Starlings on the lamp posts and being stuck in traffic allowed us to have a look. I had only seen singles before but there were at least 40! Another traffic light stop gave us a glowing lemon and lime Bruce’s Green Pigeon sat on a bare snag. Quality urban birding.

Our first stop was at the muddy bay at Khawr Rasut (which also seems to be known as Achukuttan's Creek) where my crossed fingers did not provide me with a Crab Plover. As it turned out the day before had been its last day. Always next time. The drive in gave us a fine line up of Great Spotted Eagles and Ospreys sat up on concrete fence posts and Desert Wheatears and Crested Larks on the open areas.

Great Spotted Eagle

Osprey

Down on the beach the tide was well in but there were still a few Greenshank, Redshank and Stilts but nothing out of the ordinary weaving in and out of the Flamingo legs. A dark Western Reef Egret dabbled in the shallows and a gang of House Crows poked amongst the detritus on the beach.

Western Reef Egret

more Spoonbills

Greater Flamingos

Delicate Prinias sung from the Acacias and a Violet Dropwing was new to the Odonata list and always a favourite. The heads of Olive Ridley Turtles briefly surfaced in the bay. No one knows where the Ridley part of the name comes from!

Violet Dropwing

We bumped back out past Arabian Grey and our first good looking Turkestan Shrike and the same tree held a smart party of African Silverbills and a European Turtle Dove with some Collareds. A striking 2cy male Pallid Harrier drifted over with barely a wing beat.

African Silverbills

A slightly hazy Osprey

Next we tried to look at the Khawr Al Qurm Al Kabir but there seemed to be no way through but through the reed tops we could see 14 Little Terns on the beach with some Cresteds. A Daurian Shrike was perched up and waving around in our view while Arabian Sunbirds zipped about but never stopped. Thankfully two Arabian Green Bee-eaters lingered for a while. They are simply stunning birds at any range. Small Salmon Arabs and Plain Tigers flicked in front of us. The Arab’s upperwing was almost chequered but they never seemed to stop with their wings open.

Arabian Green Bee-eater

Small Salmon Arab

We moved to the south side of the Hilton to check the Khawr there. There were more duck including several Garganey and a lone Pintail and the full heronry selection. Whiskered Terns patrolled at close range and amongst the Glossy Ibis we easily picked up an African Sacred Ibis and a couple of Spoonbills. The biggest surprise was a 1w Russian White-fronted Goose preening in the grass. I am not sure what the status is out here or whether it had been around for a while. Bee-eaters kept us looking up and Steve found a dot of an Oriental Honey Buzzard that drifted closer ticked all the boxes. Another of my autumn Lesvos hopefuls! They have such a distinctive shape.

Purple Heron

Pintail and Garganey

Very Glossy Ibis

Ospreys here seem to catch with every attempt

Osprey

Whiskered Tern

Russian White-fronted Goose

Glossy and African Sacred Ibis

Oriental Honey Buzzard

Khawr Awqad was a more enclosed waterbody and the Caspian Terns took a fancy to it with youngsters whining after their parents. A Medium Egret in the reed edge as usual had that strange feel of Cattle Egret in a shrunken Great Egret body. A Red-knobbed Coot was seen and a single red Darter was later identified as a Wandering Pennant. Down on the beach Sanderlings did what they do best and were scurrying in and out of the surf but I suspect they had warmer feet than those back home!

Sooty Gull

Caspian Tern

Medium Egret

Wandering Pennant

On again to Khawr Salalah where Ospreys successfully hunted and there were plenty of waders too. I was taken aback by a flock of 70 Pacific Golden Plovers on the beach along with six Grey Plover, Ringed Plovers and a few Whimbrel.

Pacific Golden Plovers and Ringed Plovers

Pacific Golden Plovers

Pacific Golden Plover

Greenshank

Black-tailed Godwits

Black-winged Stilts

Whiskered Tern

Western Cattle Egret

Little Egret

Western Cattle Egret

Garganey

Garganey - never been so close to them!

A big flock of smaller plovers were roosting up above the beach and we scanned them looking for something different. One stood out in the 180 strong Kentish Plover flock as Greater Sand Plover-like but it felt taller and slimmer and had a long thin pointy bill. Could we have found a Caspian Plover?

Kentish Plovers

We approached closer using the car and convinced ourselves that we had indeed found a Caspian Plover. Breast band and eye-stripe looked good, legs looked long and the long thin pointed bill ruled out Greater Sand Plover in our inexperienced eyes.

Interesting Greater Sand Plover - possibly Anarhynchus leschenaultii scythicus

Later we pinged some images around for some help and the feedback was unequivocally Great Sand Plover but with the caveat that the bill structure is suggestive of the little studies Central Asian form Anarhynchus leschenaultii scythicus. It was a very useful learning experience and joined the list of those on this trip so far.

For a lunch spot we made our way back to Al Rasut but followed the Khawr inland to the other side of the main road where we could see some reedy pools. A very enjoyable hour was spent working our way around the pools hunting dragonflies and dragonflies. Tom saw a White-breasted Waterhen fly across and we picked up Snipe, Wood Sandpiper, Moorhens and Delicate Prinias while looking. A Water Pipit got up and called stridently as it flew off. The maps suggest that this would be a good record in the south of the country.

Blue Pansy

Common Joker

Grass Jewel - small that a Small Blue

Green Marbled Carpet

Lang's Short-tailed Blue

Mediterranean Pierrot

Pioneer White

Plain Tiger - of the unmarked winged form 'dorippus'

Plain Tiger - we also saw several Grass Yellows

Triangles - a moth

Black Percher

Blue Basker

Phantom Flutterer

Phantom Flutterer - those black segments have a violet hue

Broad Scarlet

Slender Skimmer

This one puzzled us but appears to be a darker perched Wandering Glider

Common Citril

Common Blue-tailed Damselfly - we also saw Vagrant Emperor

There were plenty of interesting Grasshoppers, two Carrion Beetles and some flora that took some investigating although like many places, much of it seems to be alien. Tom found an immature Oriental Garden Lizard clambering around a tree. They have amazing Chameleon-like eyes.

Carrion Beetle

Carrion Beetle #2

Solarnum incanum - we saw the little yellow tomatoes elsewhere

Water Spinach - Ipomoea aquatica

Another species of Ipomea that seems to suggest that it is I.batatas which is Sweet Potato or at least something similar

Congress Grass - Parthenium hysterophorus

Oriental Garden Lizard

Daurian Shrikes were noisily defending winter territories and we also saw Bonelli’s, Greater Spotted and an adult Eastern Imperial Eagle. The Bonelli’s perched up on the cliff face and its long white legs could be seen with the naked eye from some considerable distance.

Eastern Imperial Eagle

Bonelli’s Eagle flashing its legs

Onwards again (it was a day of many stops) but it was not far to the Rasut Settling Pools after trying not to get sucked into the cement works complex! This small innocuous series of pools is only viewable from the road through a fence and although the light was in our eyes we made the most of our visit and very quickly were onto the flock of about 240 Abdim’s Storks lounging around some curious piece of work equipment. There were quite a few White Storks too and these showed up just small the Abdim’s were.

Abdim's Storks

Like all watery areas here there was a very good complement of waders and wildfowl with Teal, Pintail, Gadwall, Mallard and Little Grebes along with most of the Herons and even Greater Flamingos. We searched for the Fulvous Whistling Duck but if it was beyond the first pool it would be out of view.

There were Marsh, Green, Wood and Common Sandpipers, Greenshanks, Redshanks, and Stilts while a Spur-winged Lapwing was a good find amongst the Red-wattleds. Several Common Snipe were picked up around the edges but Paul and I clocked a beefy one up the bank and both called it as Great Snipe at the same time. It was very alert and gave good views before walking down into the grass. It reappeared a short while later and the lines of white covert spots were more obvious with the slight angle change. It even spread its tail showing the clean extensive white corners. Once again, it seems like this is a scarce winter visitor here.

Some of the Storks of both species got up for a fly around and were interspersed with flocks of whistling Tristam’s Starlings purposefully heading off somewhere.

Abdim's Stork

Abdim's Storks

White Stork

Abdim's Stork

Tristram's Starlings

We skirted the works again and made our way back to the coast and southwards towards Mughsayl where the long staying vagrant Black Heron would hopefully still be in residence on the Wadi Athawq. A circling Booted Eagle initially distracted us before we started looking at a few scattered waders which included three dashing, frenetic Terek Sandpipers. They are one of my favourite waders but like so many things, I have only ever seen singletons back in the UK so a trio was excellent. The legs are amazingly bright and the zooming around feeding like some low slung Greenshank.

Booted Eagle

Terek Sandpiper

A glance the other way gave us a couple of hunting Ospreys and there on the mud below the slinky, inky Black Heron. We were able to drive closer and watched this ingenious bird sneak through the water before engaging the dark, shadowy cowl of death with a simple swing of the wings. So complete was the umbrella that you could not see the head or the strike – just the re-emergence of the with tiddler clasped in bill.

Black Heron

Medium Egret

It was a short drive down to the coastal viewpoint (passing Camels at last!) for the off chance of Socotra Cormorant and we had not been there more than a few minutes before the first group of this skinny long necked shag flew by in a snaky line low over the waves. In all we saw 29 in several groups. The guys missed them last time so everyone was happy. Steve picked up a smart adult Brown Booby perched on a small plastic fish buoy.

Socotra Cormorants

Down on the beach there were many gulls and terns but still no beefy Pallas’s Gulls but amongst them were a few Bar-tailed Godwits and Sanderlings and some very large yellow Red Sea Ghost Crabs.

Tristram’s Starlings flew by in large flocks and a few came down to see if we had any scraps and Desert and Isabelline Wheatears hopped around the vast empty main car park. A male Barbary Falcon rocketed through just as we were about to leave.

Tristram’s Starlings - females

Tristram’s Starling - the male

Tristram’s Starling - female

The upper reaches of Wadi Athawq are home to Desert Owls and we had a couple of spots at this well know location but opted to check things out in daylight so that we had a better idea for our nighttime visit the next day.

We checked out a couple of little reedy areas on the way in as they had held Baillon’s Crake, Yellow Bittern AND a Watercock but all we saw were few Moorhens and Teal. Up valley it quickly became totally dry and we found quite a few Desert Wheatears and at our last spot a pair of Arabian Wheatears entertained us with the song of the male echoing off the walls of the small gully we had chosen to stop in.

Arabian Wheatear

Guweira Semaphore Gecko

Guweira Semaphore Gecko - we reckon!

Having sussed out the site we zoomed back for a late afternoon re-visit to Khawr Rasut where the tide was now quite a way out. There were far more waders but still no Crab Plover and we sifted through about 100 Little Stints but could only find the odd Dunlin and no Broad-billed Sandpiper.

There were however other new arrivals with 12 Terek Sandpipers scurrying around and a 1w Great Knot that I was particularly pleased to find as it was my first since the famous Great Dot in Cleveland in October 1996. It was a chunky monkey and it was good to see it in the company of Shanks and such like.

I decided to check on the big gulls on the off chance of a Pallas’s Gull and there it was! A hulking 2w bird complete with eye smudge and way heavier than the Caspian Gulls around it. I watched it for a while and followed it when the gulls flew. The tail glowed white and the black band was very broad. It landed and I showed it to a Dutch birder and we then found a second of the same age a short way off while a further scan added our first super sleek adult Baltic Gull of the trip. There were Caspian Terns and at least 18 Gull-billed Terns too.

Pallas’s Gull with Caspian and Heuglin's Gull and Caspian Tern

Pallas’s Gull in flight - look at that tail!

It was a fine way to end a very long day out exploring.

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And so a Stinky Tale:

The rest of the crew first visited in February and Stylianos was driving the vehicle when it was ‘directed’ along a track that was actually a dried up bed of putrefying fish guts. Said vehicle broke through the crust and got ‘lightly stuck’ and a wheel spin liberally coated the wheel arches and entire underside with said pungent mess. Six days later the car still reeked – inside and out when it was taken to get cleaned with sincere apologies to the LuLu cleaners. Henceforth Stylianos became Stinky #1 and Paul (as navigator) became Stinky #2. As such both now call each other Stinky.

Fast forward to this week. In our flat I had the en suite and we came back on the first full day to find that the toilet had attempted to empty its contents which had previously successfully disappeared. I would love to have taken responsibility but alas it was the pipes.

It took a little while to fix but when we came back from dinner there were two gentlemen frantically trying to put in a brand new toilet. The old one was down stairs and out the front – we did not lift the lid. There was no explanation as to why the whole unit needed removing or how they had done so without making any mess or smell.

From then on I was officially a Member of the Stinky Gang and forever known as Stinky The Destroyer.

A combination of René Descartes - 'I stink, therefore I am'

and Rodin's 'The Stinker'

Blue Eyed Birder

Saturday, 27 December 2025

Oman - An Arabian Adventure - 7th December 2025

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