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26 March 2015

White-spotted and Red-spotted Bluethorats trapped & ringed again – Sabkhat Al Fasl

Last weekend ringing we caught three Red-spotted Bluethroats and a single White-spotted Bluethroat. I had heard a number of Bluethroats calling from the reeds and scrub but towards the end of the ringing session we had not caught any and then on the last net round we caught four birds in a single round. One of these birds was a re-trap from 14 February 2014 that was also re-trapped on 31 January 2015. This shows the bird is site faithful for its wintering area and was caught in exactly the same place all three times. One Red-spotted Bluethroat was a new bird and the other another retrap originally caught the week before. The White-spotted Bluethroat was only the second of this subspecies we have caught in Saudi Arabia with the first being the weekend before. Bluethroats will start to move out very soon so it will be interesting to see if we catch any next weekend, if the wind stays calm enough for ringing. Care has to be taken when identifying White-spotted Bluethroats as a few of the Red-spotted Bluethroats appear to be White-spotted until the breast feathers are blown revealing some faint red colouration at the base of the white breast spot feathers.
Red-spotted Bluethroat
Red-spotted Bluethroat
Red-spotted Bluethroat
Red-spotted Bluethroat
Red-spotted Bluethroat
Red-spotted Bluethroat
Red-spotted Bluethroat
Red-spotted Bluethroat
White-spotted Bluethroat
White-spotted Bluethroat
White-spotted Bluethroat
White-spotted Bluethroat
White-spotted Bluethroat
White-spotted Bluethroat