Common Whitethroat arriving – Dhahran Waste Water Lake

The scrubby areas around the Waste Water Lake at Dhahran are attracting quite a few migrants. Barred Warblers are common and in early May the first Common Whitethroats appeared in Dhahran, some giving good views. The lake is a good place to see birds flying around catching insects with lots of Pallid Swifts, Sand Martins and Barn Swallows all in small groups. The below photo of the Pallid Swift shows a large full crop, full of insects it has caught. European Bee-eaters have been moving through in good numbers and are mainly seen in flight rather than perched. They sometimes use the overhead power lines for perching, but the light is never good when I see them there for photographs. Other birds seen in good numbers around the lake include Laughing Dove, Spotted Flycatcher and Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin, of which some of the latter will stay and breed.

Common Whitethroat

Common Whitethroat

Common Whitethroat

Barred Warbler

European Bee-eater

European Bee-eater

European Bee-eater

Laughing Dove

Laughing Dove

Pallid Swift

Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin

Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin

Sand Martin

Spotted Flycatcher

Spotted Flycatcher

Spotted Flycatcher

Still lots of Purple Heron - Dhahran Waste Water Lake

The Waste Water Lake at Dhahran is still holding a lot of Purple Heron with well over ten birds seen each trip. At one stage I saw ten in flight together with others in the reeds and waters edge so I suspect at least 15 birds are present which is a very large count for Dhahran. The birds are often seen flying around and sometimes come overhead allowing good photos to be taken of them. The light has to be in the right position to get the birds with no shadows on them but the last few days I have managed to get a few photos showing the underwing nicely. They are the commonest heron now at the lake even outnumbering Grey Heron.

Libyan Jird colony – Khafra Marsh

I set off from home at 03:50 in early May to get to Jubail for first light. By 05:00 just as it was getting light, but there was little activity in the area I had seen them previously. I just saw one Jird run very fast and down a burrow and then nothing more for half an hour. I then decided to look further down the road to see if I could see any activity and saw a single Cheesman’s Gerbil, running around under a small bush. This was the first time I have seen this species, but it stayed in the cover and I was unable to get any photos of it. In Saudi Arabia they are common in the desert. Later I did manage to see a large number of Libyan Jird Meriones libycus with the animals habituated to the noise of the passing vehicles but depart rapidly when they hear any other unusual sound. I stayed a couple of hours looking at and photographing the animals and a couple were so close I could not focus the camera on them. As previously I saw a few animals with the tips of their tails missing. The Libyan Jird is one of the most widely distributed species among rodents, ranging across nearly the entire Palearctic Desert belt from Morocco in Northwest Africa to China. It occupies desert and semi‐desert habitats, generally in areas with stabilized dunes. It becomes most abundant in unflooded river plains, and it is often found close to wadies and occasionally in arable land. Fifteen subspecies were described but their validity and the phylogenetic relationships among them are uncertain. A recent study defined subspecies limits within Meriones libycus into three allopatric lineages within M. libycus: Western lineage in North Africa, Central lineage in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria, and Eastern lineage in Iran, Afghanistan, and China. The results support the existence of at least three subspecies within the libyan jird: African Meriones libycus libycus, Levant-Arabian M. l. syrius, and Eastern Meriones libycus erythrourus.