Ringing

Brendan has gone on leave for a few weeks - he went out alone to recover his nets last night before flying out - "had thirty birds including a Pallid Swift" - this was his txt (sms) message to me from the Airport - no pictures I was otherwise engaged

Escapes rarities and feral species dominated our catch this week.

Black-headed Bunting Emberiza melanocephala

Cut-throat Finch Amadina fasciata

Red-billed Quelea Quelea quelea

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Common Mynah Acridotheres tristis

Ortolan Bunting emberiza hortulana

Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava

A hot humid day, quieter than expected but still some interesting birds ringed including some more exotics.

Olivaceous Warbler

Scaly Breasted Munia

Yellow-crowned Bishop a male Euplectes afer

A busy weekend with a few surprises by way of a Great Reed Warbler, Pale Rock Sparrow and a Red-rumped Swallow adding interest to a steady flow of birds ringed.

Whimbrel

Sandmartin

Rufous Bushchat

Pale Rock Sparrow

Crested Lark - pic of a juvenile bird illustrating moult

A surprise for everybody was this female Black-headed Bunting Emberiza melanocephala - a scarce migrant normally seen in autumn unexpectedly turned up in the nets in early August

Yet another escape - Green Singing Finch or Yellow-fronted Canary Serinus mozambicus

We have now reach 3000 birds Ringed since we started this project -

Our target species were our migrant breeders - Olivaceous Warblers and Rufous Bushchats - we were not disappointed as we manged to catch some of each plus a single White-cheeked Bulbul a resident breeding species.

Friday we went out to Jarim Reef - on it in the late eighties three man-man islands were put in - two have since become home to thousands of breeding terns each summer - outnumbering all are the Lesser Crested at least 3000 pairs followed by Bridled 500+/- then White-cheeked around 200+/- besides these 15+/- pairs of Western Reef Herons, Kentish Plover and a small number of Saunders's Terns. Each Winter a few pairs of Caspian Terns have been noted as well as a single pair of Ospreys - who have now built a substantial nest - they have yet to successfully rear any young.

We ringed 350 Lesser Crested Tern Chicks and around a dozen White-cheeked Terns - we will revisit the colonies in three weeks when the Bridled and White-cheeked chicks are more numerous.

More pictures under Bahrain Obs.

the lads who joined in - the back of the boat

Khalifa who sat in the front with me

Brendan having a recce

If he can do it so can I

May saw the end of our spring Season - Brendan was away - the weather was lousy we had 15 days of dust and wind - now we have Hot and Humid 40c plus plus everyday and humidities that reach 98% - birding here can be tough - its certainly not for the feint hearted
To view the latest details of our efforts please CLICK ON here BELOW

click HERE

Twenty birds ringed today with little change in the species being trapped - Kentish Plover chicks are everywhere but not always easy to catch, the Grey Francolins which are - cannot be ringed as their legs are too small. Olivaceous Warblers continue to be caught with the number of re-traps from last year now numbering six. Rufous Bush chats, Winchats, Bulbuls Crested Larks Willow and Reed warblers Ortolan Buntings and a single Yellow Wagtail made up the bag.

Olivaceous Warbler

Winchats

Yellow Wagtail

Today was busier than usual - no time for much photography alas as I was busy clearing the nets to keep Brendan supplied with birds to ring. Once again Willow Warblers dominated with Sedge, Whitethroat, Reed and Great Reed following on. Of the local breeding species Rufous Bush chats, White-cheeked Bulbul, and Spannish Sparrow were all ringed - Red-backed Shrikes continued to keep us on our toes as we lost no fingers to biting birds today. Swallow and Sandmartin despite their numbers eluded us today. Our returning Nightingale turned up again today - we have a few in fact that seem to like being re-trapped although it has to be said we did catch a fresh bird today.

The only bird photographed was this Red-Backed Shrike

Despite the strong breeze there were so many birds passing that we still managed to get 23 - A Good return on just a few hours. Great Reed and Willow Warblers dominated but we caught Swallow, Sand Martin, Reef Warbler, Isabelline Shrike, Red-backed Shrike, White-throat and Nightingale.

Couldn't resist photographing the Willow and Great Reed together - illustrates well just how big the Great is!

Redstart

Young Female Red-backed Shrike

It rained this afternoon - not enough to make the ground wet but a few large spots associated with a thunderstorm that passed to the north of us. Barred, Willow, Reed, Whitethroat Nightingale, Pied Wheatear and Swallow were all ringed in a very short but active burst of migrant activity. A Kentish Plover chick was ringed on site

Pied Wheatear

Kentish Plover - Chick

More sand no vis however no wind but boy was was it hot and sticky.
Got dust in the camera as well so didn't take many photos of the species caught today. Olivaceous & Reed Warblers, Whitethroat, WC Bulbul, Nightingale and Thrush Nightingale, Ortolan Bunting, Isabelline Shrike, Redstart.

Reed Warbler

Good afternoon session witha a fair variety - Ortolan Buntings, Rufous Bush Robin, Nightingales, Isabelline Shrike, Olivaceous Warbler,and to close a Scops Owl - our third in last few weeks.

Olivaceous Warbler

Its been rather hectic these last few days with a sudden rush of migrants - although it has to be said somethings are still late coming through for instance we seem to be a bit short on Willow Warblers infact Warblers in general. Brendan also mentioned that many of the birds are not carrying any fat in fact many are a little on the thin side - just why is hard to state but the weather has been unseasonal and might be the reason why the birds are late this year as well as having some impact on them as they move north against strong winds.
Brendan and Abdulla

Blackcap

Masked shrike

Thrush Nightingale

One Nightingale one Thrush Nightingale

White-throated Robin

Have been away - and on my return had my laptop stolen with a good number of new images on it - so we are a little short on photographs at the moment.

But for Brendan its been a hectic few weeks with over 300 birds caught - this is a lot when you consider we can only do a couple of sessions a week often short ones after work and it gets dark here daily around sixish -

Some remarkable catches though 90 Pale rock sparrows over a dozen Cinereous Buntings, two Scops Owls, six Rollers not to mention the Ortolan Buntings Wheatears Nightingales etc - to name just a few of the species trapped. We also trapped our first Olivacous Warbler of the season - a retrap from our efforts last year -
Cinereous Bunting

Ortolan Bunting

Pale Rock Sparrow

Red Rumped Swallow

Roller

Scops Owl

hybrid Yellow Wagtail

Even though it was dull and heavily overcast yet again - We spent a few very busy hours at Badaan this afternoon - Wheatear galor with a few warblers thrown for our delight. We trapped ten birds of six species - Isaballine, Desert, and Pied Wheatear, Stonechat, Eastern Orphean Warbler, a Chiffchaff and a Water Pipit. No sign yet of Willow Warblers but seen were more Lesser Whitethroat, Whitethroat Hoopoe, Blackcaps, loads of Yellow Wagtails and large numbers of House Martins along with the wintering regulars. Reports of Redstarts and large flocks of Short-toed larks and even a Dupont's Lark from E Saudi made up the weeks effort.

The weather continues to plague our efforts however we did manage to ring a few choice species.

Pied Wheatear

Black-eared Wheatear

Another Shamal and sand and dust everywhere with visibility down to 200mts yet again
First bird up today this Pied Wheatear but note the tail markings

The bird of the day

Grasshopper Warbler

Northern Wheatear

Tawny Pipit

Woodchat Shrike

Chiffchaff

This weekend we concentrated our efforts in Saar with our target species Wheatears and Rock Thrush - we managed to catch a good number of Isabelline Wheatears with a few Desert and a single Pied, several more Rock Thrush and shrikes - the Kestrel was trapped in the desert and found to have a home made jessy still attached indicating it had at sometime, had a run in with the local village lads - the piece of string was removed from one leg and the bird was then ringed and released apparrently none the worse for its ordeal. The Stonechat (Badaan) was a loacl recapture having been ringed at the Farm during the course of the winter.

This bird Olive-backed Pipit was identifiedAnthus hodgsoni yunnanensis based on the measurements however this bird has caused quite a stir -
see http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=108253

and the current thinking is that it is a Tree Pipit not an Olive-backed today we recieved from Juhani Kyyrö who now lives back in Finland 2 further photographs.

I have slotted them in first above the original post plus a third picture which is of a Tree pipit caught here last April

A TREE PIPIT for comparison

For a second Tree Pipit caught here see this link
http://www.virtual-bird.com//gallery/2006-04-10/images/_KYY3055.jpg
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This is the original post -
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The bird was netted and ringed by Dr. Brendan Kavanagh back on 5th October 2007 - (while I was away) - Juhani Kyyrö (Juhani.Kyyro@sci.fi) has since left and we have only just been able to put his Photographs and Brendans Observations together -
the measurements for the birds were as follows

Hind claw 6.8 (see photo!)
Wing 85
Weight 17.9
Tail 58
Bill skull 15.0
Bill depth 3.3 (dist edge nostril)
Bill depth (Proximal edge of nostril) 3.6
Bill width (Proximal edge of nostril) 4.2
Emargination 3,4,5
2nd Primary 4/5
5th Primary 2.5 less than Wing point

Olive-backed Pipit

Report of 1st observation of this species in Bahrain
MICHAL SKAKUJ AND TADEUSZ STAWARCZYK

Olive-backed Pipit Anthus hodgsoni

During a visit to Badan Farm on 2 December 1995 MS noticed a small pipit perched on a wire 300 metres away. Through his telescope the relatively unstreaked olive upperparts and distinct head pattern were noticed, suggesting Olive-backed Pipit. Subsequently it landed on a bush and was observed at 10-18 metres for 10 minutes, allowing him to compile a detailed description and photograph the bird (Plate 1). Despite searching it was not relocated in the days following.

General appearance. A little smaller than Tree Pipit A. trivialis, in silhouette closer to Meadow Pipit A. pratensis, which was observed nearby.
Plumage. Olive upperparts with some greyish tones in some light conditions. Mantle and scapulars lightly streaked, but streaking distinctly less obvious than on Tree or even Water Pipit A. spinoletta. Rump unstreaked. Dark olive-brownish tertials clearly fringed whitish-yellow. Greater and median coverts fringed pale yellow forming two distinct wing-bars. Olive cap streaked blackish, with dark border above rear part of supercilium. Broad supercilium, clearly whitish behind the eye and yellowish with some warmer shades near bill base. Lores blackish. Ear-coverts relatively pale centred with distinct dark border. At rear lower part of ear-coverts a black spot and smaller white spot just above it noted. Striking dark malar widest at base. Breast distinctly spotted with black, on upper part spots and malar bases formed almost continuous band across breast. Flank streaking more diffuse, fainter and less distinct. Breast, flanks and submoustachial warm yellowish, but base colour to rest of underparts pure white. Tail dark olive- blackish with whitish outermost rectrices.
Bare parts. Bill shorter and higher compared to Meadow Pipit, yellowish-pink with slightly darker tip. Legs pinkish-yellow with short hind claw.
Voice. Call very similar to Tree Pipit, 'dzeep' or 'zeet'.

Olive-backed Pipit breeds in the taiga zone of northern Siberia, wintering principally in south-east Asia (Cramp 1988). In the Middle East most records are from Israel, where it a regular but rare migrant and winter visitor in October-April (Shirihai 1996), UAE - 15 records by the end of 1995 (Richardson & Aspinall 1996) and eastern Saudi Arabia (Bundy et al. 1989). It is a scarce winter visitor to Masirah island, Oman (OBRC 1994), there are at least two recent records in Kuwait (see Sandgrouse 18 (2): 78) and single records in Turkey (Kirwan 1993) and Iran (Scott 1994). Most Arabian records are in autumn. The December record from Bahrain is the first for the country and suggests overwintering. Nevertheless because of its secretive behaviour it could have been overlooked in the region.

We managed to catch a bevy of Rock Thrush this week plus a Desert Wheatear and a Great Grey Shrike - the ssp of which is still under review.

Great Grey Shrike

Desert Wheatear

Rock Thrush

The second bird - much bigger than the first

Blue Rock Thrush

Spannish Sparrows and Isabelline Wheatears dominated the days efforts but my personal favourite was the Chiffchaff our first migrant wrabler of the year - much later than last. However the weather has been terrible this year - last week for instance we had winds of 70mph that wipped up sandstorms that lasted until yesterday. Hopefully things will get back to normal and we can continue to monitor the passage of Migrants through the spring.

The weather is playing hell with our weekend sessions - however we did at least manage to trap, net and ring some birds -

Isabelline Wheatear

Tawny Pipit

Abdulla brought along a young family member to Badaan Farm and our weekly afternoon ringing session. Catching both a song thrush and a childs attention Brendan goes through his routine.

The following bird was trapped after being seen and photographed on several occassions in a ditch a Badaan Farm. We have withheld the ID as the measurements of the bird are were inconsistant with THAT expected.

A mixed bag today which included one Grey Hypocolius

Bluethroat

Since our return from Christmas leave the weather has been largely wet windy and very cold. Temperatures have dropped as low as 5°c at night this last week considering apparent summer temperatures often exceed 55°c in August it’s no wonder our birdlife is feeling the effects of this cold spell. We have re-started the ringing program with a new species to the ringing list that of Skylark. However the bad weather and strong winds have restricted the catch to just a few birds; however we have now discovered a new site for ringing Grey Hypocolius a species that had largely eluded us this last autumn.
Song Thrush