It hurt waking up so early this morning. My alarm sounded like Big Ben chiming inside my head at 03:30am and I fumbled around the apartment trying to figure out where my gear was. Clothes on, bins, scope, camera, batteries, baseball cap, car keys, sandwiches, flasks of hot water.... I did boil the kettle right? Think, i've got everything then realise i've left the milk in the fridge.....! Eventually everything came together and the 5 of us left at 4am, reaching the port at 4:50am. We weren't totally sure as to the procedure but it all worked out and we boarded eventually, after the car was x-rayed via a large truck carrying an x-ray machine.... Yeah i know! So we got some seats by the windows on the right hand side of the ship, with some of us standing to look out of the one window that was reasonably clean and you could see out of. Couldn't go to the left side of the ferry as that was female only!!! The ferry left a little later than the scheduled 7am and we were off.
Pretty quickly we were seeing numerous terns flying by, with several large flocks. Most of them seemed to be White-cheeked, but the odd Lesser Crested and Greater Crested Terns joined in. And the boobies..... Man, there were stacks of them, We passed numerous buoys with 4,5,6,7 Brown Boobies on them and we must had seen several hundred by the time we reached the port on Farasan Island. Upon arrival our boat contact was waiting for us and took us to the nearby marina, after some more formalities logging in our passports. Anyway, eventually 2 Brits, 1 Dutch and 2 Swedes boarded a nice little boat in the soaring heat and we were off. Had Sooty Falcon arrived yet? They should have, we hoped and with fingers and everything crossed we started cruising around the first couple of islets, stopping to get some really nice close-ups of Brown Booby and a Bridled Tern.
Bridled Tern
Brown Booby
It was fantastic to get so close to these birds, but we had one eye falcon-watching and we carried on around the small, rocky island. Nothing. we just started to leave to head over to another larger group of islands when a rocket-propelled Sooty Falcon shot across our bow and up into the sky. Wow! Just then, another Sooty Falcon appeared and the pair soared around above us in the clear blue sky and circled, swooped, and gave us the full range of their flying skills for what must have been a good 10 minutes.
The incredible Sooty Falcon....
We had a fantastic time watching this dashing species and what a relief it was. High-fives all round and smiling faces. Result! We then spent the next 3 hours cruising around the islands and mangroves enjoying the experience. And boy there were lots of seabirds and we filled our boots with numerous photos as we sailed up close to them.....
Having fun on the water...
A typical Farasan Scene
We also cruised along the mangroves...
Species such as Bridled and White-cheeked Terns were abundant, Lesser Crested and Greater Crested Terns less so, Brown Booby was everywhere, White-eyed Gulls were on most islets and the odd Common Noddy was also present.
Bridled Tern
Brown Booby
Brown Booby & White-eyed Gull
Brown Booby
Lesser Crested Tern
More seabirds....
White-cheeked Terns
White-eyed & Sooty Gull
White-eyed Gull mobbing a Brown Booby
White-eyed Gulls
Sailing in to one picturesque bay we found a flock of Crab-Plovers....
Crab-Plovers
And as we neared the marina a Goliath Heron was an unexpected bonus, stood next to a Pink-backed Pelican.
Goliath Heron & Pink-backed Pelican
But boy it was hot - like 48 degrees Celsius hot, so I wasn't sad to get back on the ferry and return to Jizan. An hour and a half later we were back on the mainland and returned to our apart-hotel for dinner and a well deserved rest. What a day!
Raidah Preserve is a very interesting site to visit.... Just for the extremely hair-raising drive down the steepest drivable tarmac road in the world and the return journey up is something else. Our journey down had a nice background of burning brakes and we had to stop half way down to let them cool off, but that happened to be at a spot for Black-crowned Tchagra, really our main target bird here as it's a potential split (possibly, maybe, who knows...?) Yet Raidah Preserve is full of birds and at 5.30am we were driving down the precipitous road, dodging Arabian Partridges along the way that simply wanted to walk out right in front of the car.
Anyway, we eventually found a tchagra but not everyone got on it, but there were some really great birds here such as African Grey Hornbill, Dusky Turtle Dove, White-throated and Arabian Green Bee-eaters, 2 Shikra, Grey-headed Kingfisher, Arabian Sunbird, more babblers, more Blackcaps, more Willow Warblers etc etc.
Shikra
African Grey Hornbill - we saw 3 pairs at Raidah Preserve
We returned to the hotel in Abha, loaded up and drove 90 minutes to an area 50kms north of Jizan to where a colony of Arabian Golden Sarrows had been present last month,. Disappointingly, the colony was deserted, but a search of the area revealed European Nightjar, Black Scrub Robin, Nile Valley Sunbird, and at some pools Red-throated Pipit, several Namaqua Doves, and other common species.
It was roughly an hour's drive south to Jizan in order to purchase tomorrow's ferry ticket to the Farasan Islands, which we made with 15 minutes to spare before the office closed! And then we hit McDonalds for a very late lunch and some cool air, as the temperature had soared to 48 degrees celsius! We reluctantly left here and drove up to North Corniche Park. Here the road runs alongside the Red Sea and there's plenty of parking. The tide seemed to be almost in but there was one area of exposed mudflats still uncovered and we were in wader heaven with 10+ Broad-billed Sandpipers, 37 Crab-Plovers, and a fine selection of other shorebirds such as many breeding plumaged Curlew Sandpipers, Tibetan Sandplovers, Little Stints and many commoner species. There was also a Gull-billed Tern, Caspian Tern, several Little Terns, an Osprey, some Pink-backed Pelicans and more.
Always love seeing Crab-Plovers...
Broad-billed Sandpiper
At one point a couple of Broad-billed Sandpipers flew in and landed directly below us and we ended up with a pair of Crab-Plovers feeding really, really close in front of us with the setting sun creating some magical lighting to end another action-packed day in Saudi Arabia.
Heading out at 6am we had a couple of hours to find Arabian Partridge before breakfast and departing for Abha. Our first stop drew a blank, so we returned to Wadi Dana and scanned from a different location resulting in decent scope views of Philby's Partridge - it's such a stunning bird but ' not the drone we were looking for...' (get the Star Wars analogy?). Anyway, we drove around to Wadi Al Gathal and immediately had the most co-operative and inquisitive Asir Magpie that stalked us the entire time we were here, calling repeatedly.
A true Saudi Arabian endemic - Asir Magpie
The sound after an hour's continuous calling really was like nails down a chalkboard! Anyway, eventually we heard Arabian Partridge in the distance and hiked down lower into the wadi. It was at this point that a really loud local bird photographer approached us and scared the partridges into silence. Apparently he could show us Asir Magpie if we wished, pointedly ignoring the raucous calling of a magpie about 15 feet away from me! Once pleasantries were exchanged, along with phone numbers we continued searching for the elusive partridge. Sure enough, after a lengthy scan Keith spotted a partridge on the skyline and there it was, Arabian Partridge looking stunning in the mighty Swarovski scope. In fact there were 3 of them and we watched them for quite a while, being really appreciative of our success after a tense morning's battle.
A confiding Tristram's Starling from this morning
After breakfast back at the hotel we drove just under an hour and a half to Abha, and called into a supermarket to buy items for our picnic lunch. We survived more or less unscathed from some of the craziest driving it's been my misfortune to experience by the local population and finally turned off the highway onto more sedate roads where people drove a little slower and didn't seem intent on killing us! We ate lunch in the shade of some trees and walked around looking for migrants, the best of which was a Thrush Nightingale skulking in the biggest bush around, but there were also quite a few Common Redstarts, Willow Warblers, Blackcaps and at least 2 Marsh Warblers.
Leaving here it was just a few minutes to get to the rocky Habala plateau where it took maybe 30 seconds to nail Rufous-capped Lark, with one song-flighting right above our heads. We had it on the deck a little later as well and had good views.
Rufous-capped Lark
Our next target was Buff-breasted Wheatear and we pulled up at the gate of my spot but they were locked. Oh no! Disaster! But as I climbed up to look over the wall, I spotted one perched on a mound of earth and with a bit of judicious footholds on the wall everyone managed views of it. But there were no worries as another appeared behind us, and then a short while later another pair were found in a field and everyone enjoyed great scope views.
Great scenery here looking from the edge of the escarpment
Our final target of the day was Yemen Serin, a very tricky bird I think in Saudi. Well, there's a tale about how we discovered a flock of over 30 birds feeding in the same field as the wheatears were in. But we didn't find the flock until much later, after Keith & Bart said they'd observed a few serin sp. feeding in bushes beside the road. We decided to check out the flock of serins a little later and after a confusing spell of initially seeing some with dark streaked crowns and malar stripes, we only saw paler birds without malars.
Not bad for a phonescoped Yemen Serin
After a while it was apparent that we were seeing juveniles as well as adults, and add to the mix a couple of Arabian Serins feeding quietly nearby, it took us a while to work out what was going on. But my, oh my, such a big flock of Yemen Serins was totally unexpected. I've only seen small groups in Oman, so to see such a number was pretty exciting. And that was our day. Dinner back in Abha, was at a nice Italian restaurant next to the hotel. Pizza baby!
We packed up and left the rather drab building that had pretensions of a hotel and drove for about an hour to a nice valley with a few houses dotted around. It was really like going back in time with small grassy fields and hedges and the valley was full of birdsong. We were hoping for Arabian Partridge but drew a blank on that, but we found some really great birds starting with an African Olive Pigeon perched on telegraph wires.
My phone scoped effort at an Olive (Rameron) Pigeon
A White-browed Coucal was picked up by Keith and was scoped, as were 4 Red-throated Pipits on telegraph wires and a Marsh Warbler took a while to reveal its true identity (if you get my meaning??). There was also another Levant Sparrowhawk, a couple of Ortolan Buntings and all the usual suspects. On the way out there were two Bruce's Green-Pigeons on telegraph wires over the road.
Bruce's Green-Pigeon
Leaving here we then drove a couple of hours to Tanomah and continued on to Wadi Dahna, where our two targets of Yemen Warbler and the Saudi endemic Asir Magpie were seen easily.
Asir Magpie
Yemen Warbler
There was also a female Violet-backed Starling, many Blackcaps and Common Redstarts moving through on migration, European Bee-eaters flying over, and both Flava & Feldegg Yellow Wagtails.
Record shot of a male Violet-backed Starling
After checking in to the hotel we headed to Al Mahfar Park and waited until dark when an Arabian Eagle Owl duly showed very well, We heard several Montane Nightjars and a Desert Owl in the distance too. So we returned to the hotel for dinner after a thoroughly enjoyable day with a great group and chew over the day's sightings.
We left at 6am and drove for 20 minutes to the narrow valley we visited yesterday (2200m). The sun was just starting to creep over the surrounding hills as we arrived and the temperature was very pleasant indeed. The valley reverberated to the sound of birdsong, with all the usual culprits adding their input to the dawn chorus. Our first good bird was Philby's Partridge on the hillside above us. And it took several hours of hard scanning before tracking down a single Arabian Grosbeak after several hours of searching and scanning the valley. This is undoubtedly the best place in Saudi Arabia to find this bird, and even so it's not easy.
We also saw Eurasian Hoopoe, a superb Arabian Woodpecker, a pair of Arabian Warblers, Yemen Thrush, Spotted Flycatcher, Little Rock Thrush, several Arabian Wheatears, some more Arabian Waxbills, 2 Long-billed Pipits, Olive-rumped Serin, Yemen Linnet and Cinnamon-breasted Bunting.
One of the valleys we checked out today...
We moved on to another valley and I was really surprised to see a Levant Sparrowhawk circling above us. We saw another one a little bit later in another valley, along with another Arabian Woodpecker, and thankfully our first Gambaga Flycatcher - from looking at eBird this is the earliest recorded Spring arrival in Saudi Arabia (and we saw 2 in the same valley!!). A little later we had another Gambaga Flycatcher, along with another Arabian Woodpecker.
We spent the early afternoon down at 700m at Thee Ain Ancient Village, driving through incredible scenery to reach it.
The route down from 2200m in Al Baha to 700m at Thee Ain
Thee Ain Ancient Village
Here, we notched up Bruce's Green Pigeon, Arabian Babbler, Black Scrub Robin, Arabian Sunbird and 4 African Silverbill.
Black Scrub-Robin
It was so hot here that we decided to return to the hotel (just 35 minutes away) and have an hour off to rest and shower before heading out at 6pm to try for Arabian Eagle Owl.
No eagle-owls here tonight but a nice place to chill....
Arabian Babbler
This was a no-show, although some confiding Arabian Babblers were pretty cool, but in my opinion the crippling views of a Montane Nightjar perched on a dead tree, flying right over our heads and circling us was much better! And to cap it all off, we had a pretty good dinner in an Egyptian restaurant to round of a very successful day.
Took the early morning flight to Al Baha, where a surprisingly quick car rental procedure saw us on the road for 50 minutes to Al Khaira Forest. In the city we spotted a group of 6 Ortolan Buntings on the rocks beside the traffic lights we were stopped at. It was a bit windy and getting quite warm by the time we arrived at a nice vegetated wadi where we scanned the Juniper clad slopes for an hour.
Everyone loves an Eurasian Hoopoe
Things were a little slow to begin, but we eventually picked up Eurasian Hoopoe, Yemen Thrush, Arabian Serin, Brown Woodland Warbler, Abyssinian White-eye, Little Rock Thrush, Arabian Wheatear, Palestine Sunbird, Ruppell's Weavers and a Cinnamon-breasted Bunting. A nice little selection and we'd see most of these species again during the day. At the next stop, a pair of Arabian Warblers showed very nicely indeed on the slope just below us, but better yet was the pair of Arabian Waxbills giving stunning views.
Arabian Waxbill
Masked Shrike
At 2pm we drove back in to Al Baha to check-in to our apartments, seeing a cracking Masked Shrike en-route, and have a nice coffee before returning to Al Khaira Forest. This time we explored the dam where a pair of Red-knobbed Coots was a surprise. There were better views of Olive-rumped Serin and more gorgeous views of the waxbills, but amazingly an Arabian Scops Owl began calling at 4.30pm and we managed to track it down and even scope it!
I phonescoped this Arabian Scops Owl
It's always nice to get an owl in daylight. We ended the day eating Arabic food, local-style on the floor of a restaurant near our hotel.
At 9am i'd been awake 5.5 hours!! And boy it felt like it, but the excitement of birding in the desert was exhilarating. Maybe 20+ Greater Hoopoe Larks were the highlight, some being very, very close, but several Bar-tailed Larks were also pretty cool.
Always a stunner - Greater Hoopoe-Lark
Both Blue-cheeked and European Bee-eaters were streaming north on migration making for a spectacular sight, whilst a female Western Marsh Harrier had other ideas and was heading south! We'd been searching for 5 hours for the elusive, mysterious, enigmatic, nomadic, unpredictable and flipping annoying Arabian Lark..... Needless to say it remains invisible and the news of zero sightings for 2.5 months continues..!!!
But the best birding was an hour away in a narrow wadi. A small pool attracted an Ortolan Bunting, and some lush grasses proved enticing to 6+ Willow Warblers and a female Menetries's Warbler. But the standout species was White-throated Robin, two of which we found without too much effort.
I managed to phone-scope the first White-tailed Robin....
Trumpeter Finch was a good find today...
Add to this Rufous-tailed Bushchat, Red-throated Pipit, Barred Warbler, several Spotted Flycatchers & Common Redstarts, a few White-crowned Wheatears, Brown-necked and Fan-tailed Ravens, Whinchat and even a Trumpeter Finch were all much appreciated. So not a bad day!
I had the opportunity to visit Al Hai'ir this afternoon after collecting our rental car. It's only an hour from the hotel in Riyadh and I was surprised to find an area of marsh, small lagoons and reeds. Amazing. This is where Basra Reed Warbler sometimes breeds, and despite a couple of hours searching all I had were numerous Eurasian Reed Warblers. But it's a great area and after roughly 25 inches of rain here this year, the main channel was full of water...
An adult and immature Purple Heron flew over, along with a Western Cattle Egret and the odd Pallid Swift, whilst trackside bushes held Common Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and a fine Eurasian Wryneck.
Eurasian Wryneck
Purple Heron
I also had a brief glimpse of a sylvia warbler that eluded identification, and a Turkestan Shrike was seen distantly.
Turkestan Shrike
Several Arabian Green Bee-eaters were also present,. along with many White-eared Bulbuls. However, I was particularly pleased to get 3 Saudi ticks: Red Avadavat, Indian Silverbill and Streaked Weaver! Yay!!
Indian Silverbill
Red Avadavat
Not a bad 2 hours birding and I only wished I had longer! So I have 4 hours sleep tonight before starting our Saudi Arabia trip in the deserts north of Riyadh......
It's a 'chicken & egg' scenario with regards to booking a cruise and then flights isn't it? Should I have done it the other way around? Dunno! But i'm pretty sick of the stupidly exorbitant cost of flights being charged these days, especially when you leave it a bit late like i've done for Japan. But anyway it's all done and we are off on 14th June to Tokyo. I think it's a pretty good time to visit, especially for the summer visitors, but I have to check it out as i'm planning to do this next year starting the cruise on 16th May. That may be a better time for seabirds (maybe) but we will see....
Anyway, i'm currently in Riyadh ahead of our Saudi Arabia trip that starts tomorrow. There's negative news on Arabian Lark in that there haven't been any sightings for 2.5 months due to extremely wet weather creating ideal AL habitat for hundreds & hundreds of miles in every direction. So the signs aren't promising but we will try.... And I can get back to posting about birds & birdwatching again....!
It was off. It was on and then off again. And today it's definitely on as we've booked the cruise! Woohoo!! So 22nd June we are off and sailing south from Tokyo to Okinawa and Taiwan. Of course i'm hoping for Short-tailed Albatross but what else is out there? With 2 full days at sea on each leg of the cruise i'm hopeful of some goodies but i'm thinking that next year, mid May should be a better time, so with that in mind.....
Mount Fuji (12,389 feet high)
I'm off to Mount Fuji (Copper Pheasant & Japanese Accentor) for a few days and then taking the ferry over to Miyake-Jima (Owston's Tit, Izu Thrush, Izu Robin, Ijima's Leaf-Warbler & Styan's Grasshopper Warbler. Nice!) before boarding the cruise ship. And afterwards there's a short flight to Hokkaido for Sakhalin Leaf Warbler, Japanese Robin, Middendorff's & Sakhalin Grasshopper Warblers, and maybe a little pelagic too! Oh and would be rude not to have a look at Blakiston's Fish-Owl as well. And i'm planning this around the itinerary for next year's tour..... More info to follow.
Man, I just can't wait! But i've got to tell the wife about the new Japan field guide i've just ordered......!!!
