Shrikes - Sabkhat Al Fasl

On Thursday 6th October there were a lot of Shrikes present at Sabkhat Al Fasl. The day before had been very windy and quite dusty and this had caused a lot of migrants to alight in the Jubail area. Shrikes were present on all the bushes and fence posts as well as on a lot of reed stems along the side of the lakes. This allowed for good photographic oportunities and below are photographs of two different shrike species, Red-backed Shrike & Daurian Shrike. AbdulRahman, a very experienced birder from Kuwait, kindly pointed out to me that the top three photographs are of Daurian Shrike and not Turkestan Shrike as I thought. He mentioned adult Turkestan Shrikes have whitish underparts with whitish supercilium and rufous crown contrasting with brown greyish upperparts. It is important to notice underparts & throat to differentiate these two species.

 Daurian Shrike (male)

 Daurian Shrike (male)

 Daurian Shrike (male)

 Daurian Shrike (juvenile)

 Daurian Shrike (juvenile)

 Red-backed Shrike (first winter)

Red-backed Shrike (first winter)