Back on track after two full days of birding!

Hardcore birding

Yesterday we started our day at Salmiya Sports Grounds to have a short look for White-vented Mynah. I didn’t take very long before we found two birds of this escaped species, possibly Category C in the future. At the same site we were surprised to find a wintering Masked Shrike.

Masked shrike

We continued to the Sabah Al-Salem area where we found a nice variegatus Caspian Stonechat, a Menetrie’s Warber and a few Lesser Whitethroats of which one was calling with both the normal ”tek” and another chattering ”che-che-che-che...” call. However, the bird looked like a curruca. Probably something of eastern origin... Gullheadz also got some Steppe, Caspian and Heuglin´s at close range.

variegatus Caspian Stonechat

variegatus Caspian Stonechat

Steppe and Heuglin's Gull

From Sabah Al-Salem we drove to the harbour to catch the 12:30 ferry to Failaka Island. Before entering the boat we had a nice brakfast at a café close to the harbour. The boat ride took about 1½ h and produced a Pomarine Skua and a few Pallas’s Gulls.

On Failaka we got a hotel room immediately and then went exploring the island. The scenery was striking as the island still almost is fully abandoned. Lots of empty houses everywhere, some of them full of bullet holes. The only interesting birds we found during the afternoon was a few Steppe Grey Shrikes and a Crested Tern. Unfortunately we also found some shot birds under a few trees; Hobby, Hoopoe, Corn Crake, two Sparrowhawks, Scops Owl, Collared Dove, Slender-billed Gull and Steppe Gull. A sad sight.

Scenery on Failaka

Pieces of the abandoned holiday village

After almost nine hours of sleep we began our New Years Eve birding close to our hotel on Failaka. It was very quiet except for two Poms, four Crested Terns, ten Black-necked Grebes and a Black Redstart. Also today we saw Lesser Whitethroat, this one gave a House Sparrow-ish call; ”che-che-che-che-che-che...”, somewhat faster and higher pitched than the odd fella yesterday, and without any "tek" calls.

halimodendri Lesser Whitethroat?

Black Redstart

Reef Heron

Then we moved on to the abandoned holiday village along the southern shoreline. Not much happening here either, but a Persian Wheatear showed well at the old sewage farm, the only Wadi-like habitat in sight.. On our way back we spotted an adult Steppe Grey Shrike. Always nice, but why do they always fly as far away as possible before any descent digi-shots can be made??

Some dudes on the road

Persian Wheatear

After enjoying a nice snack the sun got more intense and most of the crew suffered from the sudden heat. In the desert we saw a man who was preparing some kind of trap with a living Brown-necked Raven as a bait. Let’s hope he didn’t catch anything. A short stop at the small lake near our hotel produced one Smyrna and three Pied Kingfishers as well as 48 feral Geese, then we didn´t do much until it was time to catch the ferry back to Kuwait City. New Year´s Eve was spent at Pizza Hut :)

NICE snacks

Pied Kingfisher

Chillin' in the sun

In the evening we recieved SMS's from both the Belgians and from Abdulrahman. The Belgians had birded SAANR all day today finding one Persian Wheatear, the five Maqueen's Bustards and eight Dunn's Larks. The had also had a nice cup of tea with the warden at Tulha, since they had got stuck in the sand... Abdulrahman gave us some good news saying that Rashed had found an Indin Roller at the University in Kuwait City today. We'll team up with the Belgians and Abdulrahman at Sulaibikhat tomorrow at 07:30 to go and try to relocate the bird. See you next year!