Beach Bird morning

Spent some time at the beach this morning. Nice bird flybys and nice sunrise

From Birds Kuwait 2011

From Birds Kuwait 2011

I watched a family of Common Mynas take a McD breakfast and sip some water – at least trash and Leftovers seem to be good for some and something, sometimes.

From Birds Kuwait 2011

King won a fight with a stray who wanted to show his female companions who’s the owner of the beach. No dogs got harmed & they went back to their own stretch after a while.

From The kids

From Birds Kuwait 2011

From Kuwait

Birdcount: 64 Greater Cormorants, 75 Black-headed Gulls, 1 Grey Heron, 5 Common Myna, 2 Greater Sand Plover, 1 Kentish Plover, 3 White Wagtails, 9 Yellow Wagtails, 1 Northern Wheatear, 15 Slender-billed and one possible Caspian or Heuglin’s Gull, 1 White-eared Bulbul, 23 House Sparrows on my way home 2 Rose-ringed Parakeet

Osprey, Fischadler, Pandion haliaetus

Some of you might remember these photos from my crashed blog.

Inspired by Mike’s blogpost over at 10.000 birds, I decided to dig them out and post them again.

More Info about Ospreys

Photos were taken in South Sinai, Egypt 2009 & 2010

From Birds Egypt 2009

From Birds Egypt 2010

From Birds Egypt 2010

From Birds Egypt 2010

From Birds Egypt 2010

From Birds Egypt 2010

From Birds Egypt 2010

From Birds Egypt 2010

Um Al Maradin, Island beach clean-up, Dec 9th 2011

First clean-up for me since I am back and I lucked out to get a place on the island trip to Um al Maradim (uhoh, there's even an entry on wiki :)). A tiny speck of land in the middle of nowhere, serving as a Coastguard post and can be visited only with a special permission. That doesn't stop a bunch of fishing boats from circling the island, there were at least 15 of them.


The island is quite important for migrating birds as a stopover and for some birds as a breeding ground.


This was the second clean-up on this island. Due to the currents (I guess) and the visiting boats, a lot of trash gets on the beaches with the tide. Including dead sheep, 7 of them. Dumped, most likely, by big animal transports who don't want to have sick or dead sheep aboard when they reach port. It's scary to think of all the trash floating in our oceans... We also found 3 dead birds. Two in a state of decay beyond ID-ing and 1 a possible Steppe Buzzard.


We collected altogether 33 big black trash bags full of plastic bottles, Styrofoam, cans and other plastics, household stuff, fishing lines and hooks, kids balloons (I know why I don't like those things), ropes and half a rubber boat. There's also tires and a big pile of pallets that we couldn't remove.


The Kuwait Dive team took us to the island. They helped burying some of the sheep above the tide line. The team of K's Path, including John the manager whom I met for the first time, was there and the girls did a good job organizing the whole trip. Thanks for doing this! A big thanks also to the chief (?) of the Coastguards who had a big, yummy Lunch prepped for us when we were finished with the clean-up :)

Birdcount:


At the Marina


8 Cormorant, 2 Slender-billed Gull, 4 Black-headed Gull, 3 White-eared Bulbul




Um al-Maradim island


1 Northern Wheatear (1st wt), 3 Greater Sand Plover Plover, 6 Kentish Plover, 15 (Great) Cormorant (6 Juv.) - flying over, 9+ House Sparrow, 1 1st wt Caspian Gull (possibly more), 4 Black-headed Gull, 1 White-eared Bulbul (voice)

A morning at the beach, Dec 8th

Caught my first sunrise at the beach this morning. Was up way too early and had to kill time at home (you don’t want to be at the beach in the dark…), check the sunrise times and then almost missed out on the glorious pre-sunrise colours 

Most exciting sightings were a Flamingo flyby and a Grey Plover.

Sadly the birds were all gone (thanks to someone walking around) when the light finally got better for my lens & camera skills  - I hope you can enjoy them anyway.

From Kuwait

From Kuwait

From Kuwait

From Kuwait

From Birds Kuwait 2011

From Birds Kuwait 2011

From Birds Kuwait 2011

From Birds Kuwait 2011

From Birds Kuwait 2011

From Birds Kuwait 2011

From Birds Kuwait 2011

From Birds Kuwait 2011

Bird count:

2 Cormorant, 2 Reef Egret (dark and white morph), 31 Black headed Gull (at least two oiled), 2 Caspian Gull, 1 Flamingo (flyby), 2 Greater Sand Plover, 2 Ringed Plover, 1 Kentish Plover, 1 Grey Plover, 10 White Wagtail, 2 White-eared Bulbul, 9 House Sparrows, 17 Laughing Doves, 2 Common Myna