Whilst
ringing on 17 October we caught a two Great Reed Warblers and three Indian
(Clamorous) Reed Warblers as well as a few other birds including Common
Kingfisher, Little Bittern, Graceful Prinia and Bluethroat. It was a little
windy and we were limited on time so set out at 03:30 to allow us to reach the
site and set the nets before first light. We put up five nets in our usual
positions although the wind made moving one to a less windy position necessary
after about one hour. All the nets caught birds but it was quite slow. Sabkhat
Al Fasl is proving to be a much better ringing location than Alba Marsh, and
although we do not catch too many birds the numbers are significantly higher
than Alba. On the 17 October we caught eleven birds of six species whilst at a
similar time of year last year at Alba we caught three birds all of which were
Great Reed Warblers. The subspecies of Great Reed Warbler we get is zarudnyii
which is the eastern breeding race and is generally lighter in colour with more
olive, less rufous brown upperparts than nominate arundinaceus. Acrocephalus
arundinaceus zarudnyiis sometimes treated as an eastern subspecies of Great
Reed Warbler Acrocephalus arundinaceus and sometimes as conspecific with
A. a. arundinaceus. A. a. arundinaceus occurs from Europe east to the
Volga River and A. a. zarudnyi occurs from the Volga River east to southern
central Siberia, although birds resembling zarudnyi occur in western European
populations of arundinaceus. It has thus been suggested that they are actually
colour morphs with darker birds in the west and paler ones in the east.
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| Great Reed Warbler |
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| Great Reed Warbler |
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| Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warbler |
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| Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warbler |
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| Common Kingfisher |
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| Bluethroat |
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| Bluethroat |