As I’m writing this at 10:20pm I’m utterly and totally shattered after a typically amazing day’s birding in and around Salalah. We began at Ayn Hamran, departing the hotel at 6.15am, finding a superb Grey-headed Kingfisher, followed by good views of Eastern Imperial Eagle, Short-toed Eagle, Steppe Eagle and a European Roller.
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| European Roller |
Down at East Khawr we saw the second recorded sighting of Knob-billed Duck for Oman. Wow! The water level was higher here than I’ve seen previously so there were less birds than I would have expected.
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| Knob-billed Duck - 2nd for Oman |
However, luck was on our side as we did find a Small Pratincole on the beach side of the khawr and fortunately it was about 20m away from our parked cars. You just never know what you’ll see down here!
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| Small Pratincole |
A large flock of Glossy Ibis just kept getting bigger and bigger with birds arriving all of the time and further scrutiny revealed a Temminck’s Stint, several Ruff, a cracking Citrine Wagtail and plenty of commoner species. We then drove to Jarziz Farm where Singing Bushlark was our main target, which we eventually found along with another Grey-headed Kingfisher, Isabelline and Great Grey Shrikes.
My Spotted Thick-knee site has been trashed, so we quickly moved on to West Khawr where the water level was again high. But a huge gathering of gulls congregating around the fishermen was quite a site and everyone enjoyed the spectacle, getting some great photos. I especially liked getting some shots of Sooty Gulls flying towards us as they headed onto the khawr to bathe.
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| Sooty Gull |
After our picnic lunch we drove to Khawr Mughsayl and got really lucky with some close Persian Shearwaters flying past just offshore, and it was apparent that there were more birds out there….. So we set up scopes and found 7 Brown Noddies milling around, with one or two alighting on the buoys, and we estimated at least 40 Bridled Terns, 200+ Socotra Cormorants loafing ion a large raft, several Lesser Crested Terns and many Great Crested Terns.
Driving around to the khawr we scoped a Pheasant-tailed Jacana before other birders began to congregate across the road at the newly described Wadi Ashawq Nature Reserve. Inevitably something good was found here and we were told about a White-breasted Waterhen skulking on the far side, which we duly scoped and we saw another jacana. A Yellow Bittern was also found here the following day, so it just goes to show that with more birders around there’s plenty of good birds being found!
So tonight we were attempting a stab at Desert Owl, but with 3 cars of Belgian birders, a French crew and a British crew potentially all heading to the end of the wadi and doing the same individual pair of owls that everyone does, well let’s just say I didn’t fancy it. Fortunately after so many visits to Oman, this being my 9th, I had a trick or two up my sleeve. I’ve discovered another two sites so we headed to one of them and waited. Shortly after the light fully went a bird began calling and in under 5 minutes we were eye-balling a superb Desert Owl.
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| Desert Owl |
In fact it kept getting closer and closer, literally filling the Swarovski’s field of view and everyone filled their photographic boots. I’m aware how sensitive owls’ eyes are and we didn’t take the mickey, so after a few minutes we turned the spotlight off and left as quietly as possible. What an incredible end to a brilliant day.
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