Last week on the ‘patch’ – Dhahran Hills

As it is winter and the days are drawing in there is not much time to bird in the evening after work. I am still going out as often as possible and seeing a few good birds in the process although photographing them is not so easy due to the light. The best birds this week have been a flock of about 20 Common Starlings roosting in the reed beds of the percolation pond, several Eastern Stonechats in the spray fields and hundreds of duck on the pond. The duck have had maximum counts of 105 Common Pochard, 52 Norther Shoveller, 12 Gadwall, eight Eurasian Wigeon, six Ferruginous Ducks, six Tufted Ducks and six Eurasian Teal. A single Eurasian Sparrowhawk has been seen over the pond on a couple of occasions and three Eastern Olivaceous Warblers were in a clump of vegetation behind the pond. Numbers of White Wagtails, Water Pipits and Western Cattle Egrets are building up and there are still two Little egrets and a Squacco Heron on the pond. Two White-winged Terns were a nice sight one evening as was a Black-necked Grebe on the pond.