While ringing on Friday 23 January
2015 we trapped and ringed a Moustached Warbler, this is the second bird we
have ringed at this site in two winters with the first being on 7 February
2014. The bird showed an appearance similar to the eastern subspecies A. m. mimica
that occurs from eastern Turkey, Iraq, Transcaucasia, and the lower
Volga east to Kazakhstan and northwest India. This subspecies differs from
nominate A. m. melanopogon by having
dull olive-grey upperparts, not rufous-brown with the black of the crown less
intense, more heavily streaked olive. The underparts are largely white with the
flanks rather pale pink-brown similar to Sedge Warbler A. schoenobaenus. The Moustached Warbler has been recorded as a
local breeder in the Central region and Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia with
the first breeding site in Saudi Arabia located at Hufuf in the Eastern
Province. Records of Moustached Warbler are now quite widespread from the Eastern
Province, with the first record at Sabkhat al Fasl seen in 1990 but there have
been no breeding records from the site as yet. There are breeding records from
nearby where Brian Meadows found them at a small wetlands in Jubail as well as
at nearby Khafra Marsh about 30 kilometers south. Pairs have been seen at
Sabkhat Al Fasl in April and May indicating a strong likelihood of breeding
although birds tend to be resident on their breeding grounds. We have not seen
or trapped birds in the spring, summer or autumn at the site, and there is
evidence for an influx of birds in winter to the area, suggesting they are a
winter visitor to the site. Away from the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia they
are a scarce migrant and winter visitor mainly in the north of the country.
