Very few migrants – Salwa

We visited the areas in southeast Saudi Arabia near the Qatar and United Arab Emirates boarder to see if we could find anything unusual. After setting off at 02:45 we made it the areas the sun was rising at 06:00 hrs. We visited a few small allotment areas looking for migrants but only saw a two Great Grey Shrikes and a Common Chiffchaff, with virtually no birds present except White Eared Bulbul and House Sparrow. We then went to look at a couple of wet areas to see if we could locate any Prinias, which we had failed to do in the past. This time we also didn’t find anything but did record Clamorous Reed Warbler for the first time in the area as well as a few Common Chiffchaff, three Common Snipe and a Pied Wheatear. On the way onto one site, I saw a nice male Desert Wheatear but otherwise it was very quiet. We found a small lark that was very elusive but appeared to be either a Greater Short-toed Lark or Lesser Short-toed Lark and a warbler calling like a Lesser Whitethroat but very little else.

Great Grey Shrike