Arriving at the ‘patch’ early morning on Friday proved to be a good move. It soon became apparent that there had been a big arrival of birds with Red-backed Shrikes flying around the scrubby desert area and literally hundreds of Willow Warblers flitting about. A minimum of 50 Willow Warblers were sitting on the wires surrounding the settling pond and I soon started to get the feeling that I might see some good birds. I then met Phil who said he had a Moustached / Sedge in a small reed bed on the settling pond which turned out to be a Moustached Warbler a new species for the year and then five or six Sedge Warblers, which were also new for me in Dhahran this year. Both these species were new for Phil on the ‘patch’ indicating the unusual nature of the sightings. We then decided to walk around the spray fields and percolation pond to see what else may have dropped in. A minimum of ten Common Whitethroats where seen in the fields along with three Barred Warblers.
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| Common Whitethroat |
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| Common Whitethroat |
A Great Reed Warbler was an unusual sighting in the spray field, indicating the movement of birds contained quite a few species. A Purple Heron flew out of the fields and a few waders were on the wet area including a Ruff, Wood Sandpiper, seven Little Stints and two Kentish Plovers. A lot of shrikes were in evidence including three Lesser Grey Shrikes, with two together in the same bush, a minimum of 25 Red-backed Shrikes and one Masked Shrike.
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| Red-backed Shrike |
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| Masked Shrike |
Other interesting birds seen was a single Ortolan Bunting feeding along the edge of the spray fields, a Common Cuckoo, only the second time I have seen the species in the camp, several Eastern Olivaceous Warblers, four Common Redstarts and two Rufous-tailed Scrub Robins.
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| Ortolan Bunting |
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| Ortolan Bunting |
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| Ortolan Bunting |
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| Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin |