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12 July 2015

Hundreds of African Collared Doves – Either Mangorves

Birding at Either Mangroves and narrow mangrove belt surrounding a large inlet west of Sabya produced a number of good birds. It also produced an almost continuous stream of African Collared Doves flying over with hundreds of birds involved. Most were going in a northerly direction and were presumably going to find suitable feeding locations? This is easily the largest number of birds of this species I have seen in the country and shows they have a very good population. Other good birds seen included two Mangrove White-eyes, a possible new species to science and many Mangrove Reed Warblers that breed at the location in good numbers. Herons included Striated Heron, Purple Heron, Grey Heron and Indian Reef Heron all of which were dark phase birds. Interestingly on the west coast, where Either Manroves are located the majority of Indian Reef Herons are dark phase whilst on the east coast the majority are White phase. Another very good and unexpected species here was a pair of Collared Kingfishers. A number of visits to this location have been made over the last few years since Phil and I rediscovered Mangrove White-eye here in 2013, looking for the White-eye with no records of Collared Kingfisher to my knowledge. This may be because people visit the site briefly or possibly because birds have just moved to the location. This is the most southerly site in Kingdom where the species has been seen, although they may occur in mangroves closer to the Yemen boarder and have not been seen yet as people do not generally visit these locations due to difficult access. Other species seen included Greater Hoopoe Lark, Kentish Plover and Caspian Tern.
African Collared Dove
African Collared Dove
African Collared Dove
African Collared Dove
Caspian Tern
Caspian Tern
Indian Reef Heron
Indian Reef Heron
Indian Reef Heron
Indian Reef Heron
Striated Heron
Striated Heron
Striated Heron
Striated Heron
Striated Heron
Striated Heron