There has been a great increase in miratory birds this week. Some of the sightings are bee-eaters, blue rock thrush, swallows, caspian terns, slender billed gulls, hoopoes, spotted flycatchers, yellow wagtails etc.

Below is a small selection of this weeks photographed birds.

This was taken in the gloom of early evening.

I like the way the wind has blown this hoopoe's crest the wrong way.

This caspian tern stands tall among the lesser crested variety.

A young woodchat shrike. It looks as if it has not fully molted yet.

Unidentified young gull, just about to take off.

The same gull in flight.

This spotted flycatcher stayed in my back garden for most of yesterday afternoon. I managed to get one picture of him through the kitchen window but I think I disturbed him and he flew off. We also had a rufous bush robin but I was not as lucky with him.

The crab plovers pictured below were down at my usual beach location a couple of days ago. This picture shows the difference in plumage between the juveniles and adult birds.

Yesterday afternoon I went down to the beach area of Al Khobar, about a mile from my house. There were lots of waders still around as well as a family of crab plovers. Best of all were some early migratory birds pictured below.

First of all is a steppe grey shrike. We had one stay several months last year, I'd like to think this is the same bird.

A pied wheatear.

and last but not least, a northern wheatear.

There are lots of waders around my usual sites this week. I managed to photograph this marsh sandpiper.

These juvenile redshanks:-


Amongst the other birds I managed to get some good shots of, are the socotra cormorant and greater flamingo below.


Last is my favourite of the weekend, a slender-billed gull looking back.

I had a quick trip to the beach this afternoon. It was just before dusk and the tide was too far out for decent observations and pictures. I did manage to get the following shots of a crab plover that had just devoured a crab, a gull-billed tern and a dunlin. These were all taken today 18th Sep 06 on the northern side of Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia.

We arrived back in Saudi on Thursday night and on Friday went over to Bahrain for the day. After being dragged round the shops, I got an opportunity to check out an oasis near to Riffa. The migratory birds had started to return and we saw an isabelline shrike, woodchat shrike, yellow wagtail, woodcock/snipe (?) and northern wheatear.

Isabelline shrike

Moorhen chick

Northern wheatear