Yesterday AbdulRahman accompanied us to Abdali Farms close to the Iraq border. We had two important target species there, Red-wattled Lapwing and Afghan babbler. Both were relatively easy to find, the Lapwing were hiding during the day, but reoccured in the afternoon in the field where they usually reside. Major bonus species was found too, a few days ago, local birder by name of Ouda Al-Bathali found an Indian Roller which we were also able to relocate.
After two days of pretty slow birding, and also just going for birds already found by other birders, we were today eager to bird more actively. We birded parks, and shores close to the city, collecting several easy species. It feels cocky to be able to write that e.g Masked Shrike is easy.
The shores were fantastic, the amount of wintering waders is massive, I know that Oman is supposed to be even better, but I have never before seen this amount of waders before. Thousands of Dunlins, several hundred Broad-billed Sandpipers and best of all, 85 Crab plovers. Finished off the afternoon scanning the flocks of Greater Flamingo, looking for that single Lesser. Apparently the last winters at least one, possibly the same individual, Lesser Flamingo has wintered among the large flocks of Greater Flamingo, and dang, we found it. Apparently it’s the 5th record for Kuwait.
This a proper WP rarity.
There is a friendly WhatsApp group that is being used by local birders, the last thing that happened this evening was that a local birder reported a flock of Rock Martins in Jahra Pool Reserve, but among those martins there was one individual that was different, a pale looking martin with gray/brown throat and no breast band – thus tomorrow morning we’ll go hunting for Grey-throated Martin!!!
😀