A Couple of Trips to Ha'ir

Over the National Day holiday weekend here in Saudi Arabia I drove down to Ha'ir pivot fields for a couple of half day trips.

The first day was an early start and I was at the fields by 6 a.m. to find large mixed flocks of barn swallow and sand martin hawking for insects over the fodder fields. They tend to drift off higher and then disappear altogether by lunch time. Three species of bee-eater are still around in reasonable numbers, blue-cheeked bee-eater are a summer visitor, european bee-eater pass through on migration and green bee-eater are resident.

Juvenile blue-cheeked bee-eater

White-throated kingfisher and marsh harrier are winter visitors and the fields contained three of each.

One colourful passage migrant is the european roller and I saw my first two for Saudi Arabia perched on the irrigation machinery.

Shrikes are arriving or passing through, the immatures making identification a little more difficult. Red-backed shrike, southern grey shrike and isabelline shrike were all present.

Smaller passerines were represented by a couple of hundred yellow wagtail feeding in the short grass and large numbers of post breeding streaked weaver dispersing to the reed beds.

Juvenile yellow wagtail

There are trees around the fence line of the fields and these held several spotted flycatcher and olivaceous warbler.

I didn't drag myself out of bed quite so early the second day but the hot weather seems to be over, or at least down to a semi bearable 30 c so it was still fairly pleasant when I arrived late morning.

The first birds of note were on the drive down.  A flock of 55 brown-necked raven were circling over the entrance to Wadi Ha'ir. I stopped at Ha'ir rubbish tip and found my first white-tailed wheatear of the winter together with two blackstart.

Almost the first bird I saw at the pivot fields was a ring-tail harrier, a juvenile pallid harrier showing its wide dark secondary band. A second ring-tail harrier was too far off to identify but appeared good for a Montagu's harrier. Again there were a couple of sub-adult male marsh harrier too.

'Bush bashing' is the name of the game during migration and I tried to have a good look at every acacia and gaff tree. The first I grilled held two barred warbler and after checking a few more I added male blackcap, lesser whitehroat, common whitethroat and a smart orphean warbler (a KSA tick for me).

The shrikes were similar to the day before except a juvenile masked shrike was a first for the site. Short-toed lark numbers were also high with one flock of about 60 birds.

Juvenile masked shrike

These are the 51 species I saw on the two trips:

Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos)
Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea)
Purple Heron (Ardea purpurea)
Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis)
Squacco Heron (Ardeola ralloides)
Eurasian Marsh-Harrier (Circus aeruginosus)
Pallid Harrier (Circus macrourus)
harrier sp. (Circus sp.)
Common Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus)
Collared Pratincole (Glareola pratincola)
Rock Dove (Columba livia)
Eurasian Collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto)
Laughing Dove (Streptopelia senegalensis)
Namaqua Dove (Oena capensis)
White-throated Kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis)
Green Bee-eater (Merops orientalis)
Blue-cheeked Bee-eater (Merops persicus)
European Bee-eater (Merops apiaster)
European Roller (Coracias garrulus)
Eurasian Hoopoe (Upupa epops)
Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio)
Isabelline Shrike (Lanius isabellinus)
Southern Grey Shrike (Lanius meridionalis)
Masked Shrike (Lanius nubicus)
Brown-necked Raven (Corvus ruficollis)
Greater Short-toed Lark (Calandrella brachydactyla)
Crested Lark (Galerida cristata)
Sand Martin (Riparia riparia)
Rock Martin (Ptyonoprogne fuligula)
Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica)
White-eared Bulbul (Pycnonotus leucotis)
Eastern Olivaceous Warbler (Iduna pallida)
Eurasian Reed-Warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus)
Graceful Prinia (Prinia gracilis)
Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla)
Barred Warbler (Sylvia nisoria)
Eastern Orphean Warbler (Sylvia crassirostris)
Common Whitethroat (Sylvia communis)
Lesser Whitethroat (Sylvia curruca)
Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa striata)
Black Scrub-Robin (Cercotrichas podobe)
Rufous-tailed Scrub-Robin (Cercotrichas galactotes)
Blackstart (Cercomela melanura)
White-tailed Wheatear (Oenanthe leucopyga)
Isabelline Wheatear (Oenanthe isabellina)
Common Myna (Acridotheres tristis)
Western Yellow Wagtail (Motacilla flava)
Spanish Sparrow (Passer hispaniolensis)
Streaked Weaver (Ploceus manyar)
Red Avadavat (Amandava amandava)
Indian Silverbill (Euodice malabarica)