Common Starlings & Eurasian Skylarks – Dhahran Hills

A couple of interesting groups of birds have been seen on the ‘patch’ in the last few days. The most interesting sighting was a group of 11 Common Starlings that were seen flying around the percolation pond getting ready to roost in the reed beds. This is only the second time I have seen the species on my local patch with the first some years ago when three birds were seen on a football field near my house. Common Starling is not an unusual visitor to the region in winter but rarely gets onto the camp. This is what having a real local ‘patch’ is all about, finding good birds on the area you bird regularly even if they are not rare, even locally. The other interesting group of birds was 13 Eurasian Skylarks in the edge of the spray fields. Again this species in not uncommon as a winter visitor but do not occur so often on the camp. They occur every autumn in small numbers and are almost always in the spray fields, but this was the first sighting of the winter. Other interesting birds included a Eurasian Sparrowhawk, 21 Little Stints, Curlew Sandpiper, Green Sandpiper and five Common Snipe. Duck numbers still continue to rise with an amazing 105 Common Pochards now present on the percolation pond with three Tufted Ducks, nine Ferruginous Ducks and 65 Northern Shovelers.

Common Starling

Eurasian Skylark