Southeast without Österlen

Boys chillin' at Wafrah Farms.

This day was mostly spent at some underwatched or even unknown sites in the south, close to the Saudi border. But first we took a stroll in the park Next-to-the-sea at Fahaheel, where an extremely elusive Lesser Whitethroat (possibly of some subspecies...) caused frustration among the crew members. The two most Larus-damaged of us went in the opposite direction to the pier, smoothly until it was clear we had trespassed into a guard post... The personel weren’t really fond of us watching and photographing the gulls on the beach. And it all made sense when we saw that just behind the gulls, behind three barb wire high voltage fences, Kuwaits oil shipping complex was located. Bright...

Slenders-billed Gull

After this lesson we stopped at two sites, Sewer Plant Reeds and a site that we call Slyshål 1, which was some small pools, bushes and reed south of Sewer Plant Reeds. Slyshål 1 hosted one Menetries Warbler, three Bluethroats and some Desert Warblers, as well as one Jack Snipe, shot dead not too long ago. Sewer Plant Reeds was really empty exept for some hunters in a SUV shooting at a Grey Heron...

Menetrie's Warbler

After visiting these rather small sites we decided to give Wafrah Farms a try. But when we got there we understood that birding this area would be rather hopeless. So after visiting one of the farms and only finding a Daurian Shrike and a Black Redstart we went back to the coast and to a site we call Slyshål 2, a small rubbish dump in the desert surrounded by bushes and some small pools. But also this site turned out to be a rather bad one and the only interesting bird was a Turkestan Shrike.

Daurian Shrike

The rest of the day was spent at Khiran Sand Spit at the coast, a beautiful place with sandy islets off-shore. We arived about three hours before high tide and immediately found three Crested Terns in a large flock of terns, gulls, cormorants and waders. As the tide became higher the birds flew closer to the shore and finally gave really great views. We enjoyed at least 12 Pallas’s Gulls, 20 Lesser Sand-plovers, one Lesser Crested Tern and surprisingly an adult Common Gull among all the roosting birds.

Khiran Sand Spit

Larus rex

Larus rex

Larus rex

Crested, Capsian and Lesser Crested Terns

Crested Tern, Common Gull and some other stuff

Greater and Lesser Sand-plover

Steve-O

Hasse making sketches of the gulls

Yesterday the Belgians saw the Long-tailed Shrike and a male Shikra at Sulaibikhat NR and today the made a cleanup at the Pivot Fields where they saw: Black-throated Trush 1, Pacific Golden Plover 2, Dotterel 2, Red-wattled Plover 1, Bonelli’s Eagle 1, Shikra 1, but unfortunately the couldn’t find the Little Curlew.

After visiting Kabd tomorrow morning with Dr Gary Brown we plan to revisit the Pivot Fields. Sleep tight ya’ll!