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.
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| African Collared Dove |
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| African Collared Dove |
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| Caspian Tern |
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| Indian Reef Heron |
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| Indian Reef Heron |
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| Striated Heron |
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| Striated Heron |
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| Striated Heron |