Birds of Saudi Arabia: More Common Kingfishers

15 October 2012

More Common Kingfishers - Alba Marsh (Bahrain)

Nicole and I went ringing again at Alba Marsh on Friday Morning. A very early start allowed us to reach the site at dawn and we set the nets in a much quicker time than the last time we ringed together. We are learning to do things without the help of Brendan who is now back in Ireland and were certainly more efficient this time. We set four nets, 19 metre, 18 metre, 15 metre and 12 metre double panel. The double panel net is only really good for catching pipits, Bluethroats and warblers and as we saw none of these species it failed to catch anything. We did, however, catch birds in the three other nets including another two Common Kingfishers. The four Common Kingfishers we caught last time we ringed at the site were the first for the ringing project in Bahrain and on Friday we added a further two birds to the total. Other birds we caught were four Clamorous Reed Warblers of which one was a re-trap from two weeks ago, a Savi’s Warbler, a Citrine Wagtail, a Great Reed Warbler, a first year Daurian Shrike, a House Sparrow and a Willow Warbler. A few migrants are passing through but numbers are low. The quality of birds caught makes up for the lack of birds and as winter progress and Water Pipits and Bluethroats arrive we should start catching a few more birds. As can be seen from the photos of Clamorous Reed Warblers the birds are in various stages of moult with some in fresh plumage and others still in wing moult.