Ringing

Friday saw our first trip to Jarim this year - bird numbers have increased yet again; the Lesser Crested Terns now number on the first island I estimate over ten thousand Birds with the Bridled close to a thousand and White-cheeked over all the islands in general a similar number. Brendan ringed 450 Lesser Crested Tern chicks ably assisted by Abdulqader Kamis with my crew - all the odd bods like AJ Kev Nabeel and Mohammed (our coastguard crew) and myself scrambling through the dirt and dust sweating our socks off catching the little blighters - made worse by yet another dust storm that had descended again on Bahrain. Further posts including a breakdown of our efforts will follow.

Two pics to start with from AJ
Coast guard boat - one of two provided for the trip - had we been restricted to our small usual hire craft I doubt we would have made it.

Brendan hard at work

Lesser-crested Terns

Bridled Terns -

With the passerine migration over we are now turning our attention to tern ringing. This morning I spent a couple of hours at Askar on the east coast, which has had a colony of mixed White-cheeked and Saunders's little terns for years. Unfortunately, disturbance over the past few years has taken its toll. I only managed to find 4 White-cheeked nests and 3 Saunders's nests in the area that had dozens of nests two years ago.

These Saunders's chicks were really feeling the heat as it rose to 42 degrees. What little shade they could get from this rock was a god send.

The parents fly out to sea and dip their bellies in the water returning to the nest eggs and chicks to cool them with the damp feathers.

The White-cheeked terns start to breed a little later than the little terns. This bird is on eggs.