Whilst ringing on 10 April Nicole and I trapped
and ringed three new species for our Sabkhat Al Fasl ringing project. These
were Tree Pipit, Eurasian Wryneck and European Bee-eater. Tree Pipits were very
common at the location but they are clever birds with good eyesight and see the
nets and avoid them. We caught four birds in total and all were gently walked
into the nets in the very early morning. As it became lighter the birds easily
avoided the nets and no further birds of this species were trapped. For most of
the morning large numbers of European Bee-eaters were flying over calling all
the time and I mentioned it would be great to catch one. We did not have any
real expectations as catching high flying bee-eaters in mist nets is not so
easy, but luckily one flew into a net and was trapped and ringed. They are very
gentle birds in the hand and extremely beautiful, so was a very welcome
addition to our ringed species for the site. The last new species was a
Eurasian Wryneck that was caught, ringed and released and then was caught in a
different net later in the day and released again. All three of these species
are regular passage migrants through the region with Tree Pipit and European
Bee-eater being common passage migrants and Eurasian Wryneck an uncommon
passage migrant. It is a little surprising that we had not caught Tree Pipit
before as they are common at the location in April and May but as mentioned
they can see the nets easily and avoid them. We now go much earlier to have the
nets set before it is really light and this accounted for all the birds we
caught so this fact alone was probably the reason for catching them this time.
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| European Bee-eater |
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| European Bee-eater |
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| Tree Pipit |
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| Tree Pipit |
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| Eurasian Wryneck |
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| Eurasian Wryneck |
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| Eurasian Wryneck |
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| Eurasian Wryneck |