An early morning trip to
Bahrain to go ringing proved quite successful for us with 22 birds caught of
eight species. Quite a few re-traps were processes all of which had been ringed
at the same site by us. The most interesting one was an adult male Red-spotted
Bluethroat that was originally caught in November 2012 and again in January
2013 showing the bird was using Alba Marsh as a wintering site. The fact we
then re-caught the bird in November 2013 shows it is probably going to use the
same site to winter again after having moved off north to breed. Bluethroats
are difficult to assign to race unless an adult male is seen or caught, but
this one looks like a svecica that breed in Scandinavia and north Asia as well as north-west North America and Canada and winter in southern Europe, North and
North tropical Africa, Arabia and south and east Asia.
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| Red-spotted Bluethroat - adult male |
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| Red-spotted Bluethroat - adult male |
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| Red-spotted Bluethroat - first year male |
We also re-caught a Common
Kingfisher that we had caught originally at the same site a few weeks earlier
suggesting this bird is also going to use the site as a wintering location.
Other re-traps were Clamorous Reed Warblers that are resident at the site. A
few Graceful Prinias were also caught, a species we have not caught for almost
a year. They are really beautiful as well as small birds weighing only 6-7
grams and are resident at the marsh.
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| Common Kingfisher |
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| Common Kingfisher |
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| Common Chiffchaff |
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| European Reed Warbler |
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| Graceful Prinia |
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| Water Pipit |