Our day began just a few minutes away from the hotel at Mahout Park, where practically the first bird we saw was an Oriental Turtle Dove feeding on the floor below a large tree. Apart from that it seemed a little quiet, but we did pick up an Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Daurian Shrike and a couple of Lesser Whitethroats. From here we hit the road and headed inland, a journey that is now a lot easier with a new road taking us to the southbound highway and saving us an incredible amount of time. This new route initially took us west and we were amazed to find a huge temporary lake right out in the desert and in the early morning light it looked incredible.
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| The temporary lake looked stunning in the morning light |
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| There's Mr H scanning... |
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| Breakfast time... |
With some Greater Flamingo’s looking so out of place, and even a few wildfowl with 7 Northern Pintails and a single Shoveler as well. It did make us wonder how these birds find water in a place you wouldn’t expect it! Further scrutiny revealed a Terek Sandpiper, Tibetan Sandplovers, Little Stints, Kentish Plovers and Common Greenshanks, as well as several Brown-necked Ravens. It was a good spot for a picnic breakfast, which we thoroughly enjoyed along with hot coffee and tea.
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| There's a RB Fly in there somewhere |
Along this new route there are several green patches to check for migrants and at one of these seemingly random roadside parks out in the desert we found a few Common Chiffchaffs and a Red-breasted Flycatcher. At the next stop, an eBird location called Highway 31 Desert Park we had another Red-breasted Flycatcher and an Isabelline Wheatear, the latter is a species that would become an increasingly common sighting for the rest of the trip. Next up was Haima Park (it became famous last year for a Forest Wagtail) where a Glossy Ibis and Indian Pond-Heron looked rather incongruous strutting around the well-watered lawn. We had a good look around here but our only other sightings of note were a pair of Indian Rollers and a Daurian Shrike. Lunch was taken here before we continued driving to our digs for the night at Al Ghaftain Resthouse. After checking in we explored the garden and turned up an Eastern Black Redstart (semirufous), Bluethroat, the 2nd Omani record of European Pied Flycatcher, and at least 3 Red-breasted Flycatchers. Not a bad haul at all. And as it was still mid-afternoon we decided to forego the pleasure of a 3am departure tomorrow and head down to Muntesar Oasis now – a drive of just over an hour. The main target here are the Egyptian Nightjars, but we arrived with an hour of daylight which gave us enough time to find a few good birds. An aucheri Great Grey Shrike looked stunning in the scope, and I much prefer the title Arabian Grey Shrike…There was also an Indian Pond-Heron, Daurian Shrike, several Brown-necked Ravens, and as we walked around flushed a Common Quail and had two Red-throated Pipits fly over calling. It was very pleasing to see the previously reported Pied Wheatear here as well.
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| Sunset at the oasis... |
Once the sun had set we had good flight views of a pair of Egyptian Nightjars and a single European Nightjar as well. In hindsight, it would have been good to explore the area a bit more as a few days later a Sykes’s Nightjar was found here (2nd for Oman) and it’s a species that has been suspected being here far more regularly than recorded. Well, who needs sleep or dinner huh?!
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