Birds of Saudi Arabia: Another Moustached Warbler & Grey-headed Swamphen trapped and ringed

Nicole and I went ringing to Sabkhat Al Fasl on Saturday rather than our normal Friday as the wind was forecast to be a little less strong on the Saturday. We set off from Dhahran at 03:30 hrs and had all the nets set up by first light of 06:15 hrs. The wind was a little stronger than we would have liked but we caught a reasonable number of birds for us ending the morning with 25 birds. Most were the normal suspects for this time of year with wintering birds including Bluethroat, Common Chiffchaff, Common Kingfisher, Moustached Warbler and Water Pipit, resident species including Indian (Clamorous) Reed Warblers and Purple Swamphen. The Purple Swamphen was caught in a mist net as it flew across an open area of water to a reed bed and is the second one we have caught in two weeks after not catching any up to that point. They are really smart birds and I have collected a couple of loose feathers from both birds and will, hopefully, be sending them off for DNA work to be conducted on them to try to work out exactly which subspecies occurs here as currently we are uncertain. They are certainly a Grey-headed type but which of the several grey-headed subspecies are involved we do not know. The other stand out bird was the second Moustached Warbler in two weeks which is only the third record since we started ringing.