02/14/10
Exploring Jahra -
Categories: Week 07 - 13 February 2010, Jahra and Sulaibikhat
SAANR is not accessible for the next 10-days and Pivot Fields wasnt accessible today. I was giving a new birder in Kuwait, Ginell Osario a tour of the accessible sites so the only one's left were those around Jahra and Sulaibikhat. The really cold weather of last week is now behind us, but today we had cloud cover till quite late in the morning. Images by Mike Pope
The first stop was Jahra East Outfall which is looking a little overgrown along the channel - good birds were Moustached and Great Reed Warbler and Mountain Chiffchaff. No photographic opportunities so we pushed on to Jahra Pools while it was still overcast. As usual a Marsh Harrier was putting up the birds on each sortie over the pools and he wasnt successful while we were watching
Even the Purple Gallinule headed for cover
The numbers of Little Crake have certainly increased - here an adult male
Little Crakes (unlike Baillon’s Crake) are sexually dimorphic, so this is a female
Ducks were well represented today with Shoveller and these Gadwall
Some Garganey
and a lone Mallard drake
Coot numbers are still encouraging
Next stop was Jahra Farm where the first birds seen were Bank Myna's
Green Toads had tadpoles in one of the small holding ponds - this appears to be the male
and another two joined at the hip, so to speak
We then headed toward Kuwait City, stopping at the spur in Sulaibikhat - where I framed this Curlew in a sea of dead vegetation
I surprised this Litte Egret feeding in a channel below the road
In Sulaibikhat Bay I found a huge flock of Great Cormorants, many in breeding plumage which I have not seen before
Thought we would try and check if Lesser Flamingo was still around, but way too many Greaters to sift through and not enough time to do that.
02/07/10
Week 06 - 06 February 2010, Green Island and Sahara Golf Club
We have had almost a week of overcast cool weather with intermittent rain - great for the desert, but challenging for photography. Images by Mike Pope
I spent 45-minutes at Green Island early one of the mornings, no Hypocolius today - all the fruit they were feeding on is gone, so it appears they have moved on - who knows where though. I did get a Pied Kingfisher hunting in the sea near the entrance gate
A House Crow stopped on the tower, but almost immediately departed without waiting for its photograph to be taken - I hadnt seen a House Crow in over a year. You can see from this image why the White cheeked Bulbul is so named
I only found one Red vented Bulbul - against the gloomy grey sky
I found a pale morph Western Reef Heron feeding around the inner lagoon
Great Cormorants are now pretty common all along the coast during the winter months
I saw a shadow pass over me, looked up and got a Pallas Gull flying over and away from me to land some distance away next to another floating on the sea
On a brisk morning yesterday, watching my son have his golf lessons at the green Sahara Golf Club, I saw the first Hoopoe of the coming Spring and a Kestrel hunting from the high spotlights
However, the highlight of the weekend was seeing two Red Foxes casually grooming themselves at the edge of the driving range oblivious to any wayward shots from the practising golfers - that is until the tractor picking up the balls got too close to them. Nevertheless, a real treat.
