Somewhere the crew did not visit in February were the vast pivot fields
of Ash Shisr. If you have a look at Google
maps to the north west of Thumrait you can see the barren desert pock marked by
hundreds of vast green circular fields that exist here because deep aquifer water
was rediscovered during the excavation of the what may be the ancient city of
Ubar at the site of the current settlement.
It was once again a drive through nothing and beyond Thumrait
it got even more desolate but then suddenly the first pivot appeared, lush and
verdant in a sea of dust.
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| Journey views |
To find birds
we needed to discover a pivot that had been recently harvested or mown giving
us a similar opportunity as the alfalfa fields in Lesvos and indeed, this was
what many of the crops appeared to be.
The first we stopped at had a few White Storks and Daurian
Shrikes while Tawny Pipits and the odd Desert Wheatear flicked up and down off
irrigators. A Hoopoe was under margin
trees and both Marsh and Pallid Harriers were noted before we moved on
again.
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| White Storks |
A properly mown field appeared on the right and immediately
we could see Lapwings and a few seconds later we were out and watching a
staggering 27 Sociables high stepping through the grass. To our delight a delicate White-tailed Lapwing
was with them and it too gave some excellent views. This was a new bird for some of the party. We
scanned the surrounding area but could find no more and just the odd Tawny
Pipit and Wheatear but moved onwards with big smiles.
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| White-tailed Lapwing |
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| Sociable Lapwings |
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| White-tailed Lapwing |
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| Sociable Lapwing |
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| White-tailed Lapwing & Sociable Lapwing |
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| White-tailed Lapwing & Sociable Lapwings |
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| White-tailed Lapwing & Sociable Lapwings |
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| Sociable Lapwings |
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| White-tailed Lapwing |
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| White-tailed Lapwing |
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| Sociable Lapwings |
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| White-tailed Lapwing - Steve Bird |
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| White-tailed Lapwing - Steve Bird |
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| White-tailed Lapwing - Steve Bird |
We poked around the back of the village and found some
smaller crop fields and a male Pied Wheatear popped up on a post giving us
something to chew over id wise before agreeing that our first thoughts were
correct. There were Arabian Grey
Shrikes, Marsh Harriers, Red-wattled Lapwings and a large flock of Western
Cattle Egrets in the plots. Siberian Chiffchaff and male Eastern Black
Redstart were in the trees with noisy House Sparrows. A glance up
before leaving added a Shikra which looked like an adult female bar some
faint breast streaking and heavy tail bars. A Green
Sandpiper flew up from a water trough puddle as we came back out.
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| Pied Wheatear |
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| Shikra |
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| Shikra - it even did the super fast silly flap-flap-flap gliding |
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Arabian Grey Shrike
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Our map took us to other viewpoints where we found a flock
of Common Kestrels but no Amur Falcons along with Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters,
Crested Larks, a flock of Eurasian Skylarks and quite a few groups of
Black-crowned Sparrow-Larks.
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| Black-crowned Sparrow-Lark |
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| Black-crowned Sparrow-Lark: See how the bill size changed with angle. We thought it was a small billed Short-toed type to start with |
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| Black-crowned Sparrow-Lark |
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| Black-crowned Sparrow-Lark and a tiny bit of shade and the front becomes more heavily streaked. The harsh light was challenging |
Eventually another mown field was discovered but Red-wattled
were the only Lapwings. There were
plenty of Pipits and there were at least four Richard’s striding alongside
Tawnys. There were more Common Kestrels
here and some Sand and Pale Crag Martins.
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| Pivot Pipits |
To be honest it was just too hot and hazy and even the closest
birds were a shimmery mess so we abandoned and wormed our way through the
tracks back to the road where we were greeted by a flock of 44 Sociable Lapwings
dropping into a field. Whether these included
the 27 we had earlier was unclear but the White-tailed Lapwing was certainly not
with them and it seemed more likely that this was a different group, taking us
to 71 for the day and 85 for the trip.
To make the most of this astonishing area you would have to be out here
before first light having already scouted out the best attainable fields
otherwise it could a very long and frustrating day.
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| 44 Sociable Lapwings |
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| A crop of 23 Sociable Lapwings |
Once back on the main road we continued north to check out
another ‘green’ farm at Al Beed. The
area is fenced but you can look in but it was simply too hot and the crops too
high. However one of our targets here
was Greater Hoopoe Lark and a couple duly obliged alongside the car; scurrying
along on this long legs. This was
another of my ‘not seen for an age’ birds.
They are one of my favourites.
However, there was one drawback here – the Face Flies. They appeared en masse from nowhere and trying
to get your cheese roll to your mouth without the meat option was fraught with
danger! I like flies but there may have been some serious flapping and cursing
going on – not that the flies cared.
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| Greater Hoopoe Lark |
Lunch and larks done, we tried to leave without our new buddies
but the car was full of hundreds of them and we took many of them for a free ride
to at least the first petrol station where an ice-cream was required!
The Flies
From here we opted to retry Mudayy for the Hypocolius (just
for me, thanks guys!) but it was again too hot and despite new info we once
again failed to find them and in fact saw very little at all bar a Blackstart
and Bluethroat at the sandgrouse area and a random Ring-necked Parakeet!
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| Arabian Paper wasp sp |
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| Blackstart |
With the light fading we had just one more stop to make and
a slight diversion took us to the famous landfill (yay!) at Thumrait where the
sky was full of Eagles. Over 300 Steppe
Eagles of various ages circled over the tip and the surrounding hills and one
of my pics has about 135 in it. There
were a few Greater Spotteds and a single Eastern Imperial too and a few
Fan-tailed Ravens and White Storks.
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| All Steppe Eagles |
They slowly began to drift low over our heads and spiral up
over the low hills were you could already see the dark shapes of others lined
along the ridges in preparation for sleep. It was another memorable but strangely
silent end to a dusty desert day.
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