Beach clean-up Sulaibikhat, July 23rd 2011

Again another successful beach clean-up at Sulaibikhat, for the third time at that long stretch of beach. One group of people (official trash picker – uppers?) must have been there the day before. There were about 18 plastic bags along the fence line.
But no worries, there was still enough left for all of us. We had 4 new Volunteers, one even from Saudi Arabia 
We collected around 16 bags and approx. 200kg of mainly plastic bottles.

It seems that the numbers of birds are picking up already. I don’t know if this is a sign of migration, or just summer visitors.

Birdcount:

Reef Egret 28 (24 dark form & 4 white form), White-cheeked Tern 2, Caspian Tern 1, Little Tern 2

Cream-coloured Courser 2, Slender-billed Gull 3, Sanderling 5, Barn Swallow 3

Terek Sandpiper 4, Curlew Sandpiper 35, Greater Sand Plover 5 (1 oiled)

Kentish Plover 3, Ruddy Turnstone 2, Curlew 1, White-eared Bulbul 2, Gull-billed Tern 1

Flamingos 310

Species Total: 17

Beach clean-up Maternity Hospital, July 8th 2011

We collected around 60kg of waste (which will be recycled) at the clean-up yesterday.

We only had a few Volunteers, but we can call it a successful day.

There’s still more rubbish around, mainly small bottle caps and such – I call this beach now bottle-cap beach.

There were still some birds around. Some are 1st year birds which come for the summer and some are breeding here in Kuwait. Greater Flamingos among them.

 The guy in the last few pics was an official trash picker-upper that came along to do his morning chores (I suppose) and who was obviously flustered at what happened.
The family in one of the shots thanked us whole heartedly and seemed a little embarrassed that we were doing this.

 

 Bird count: White-cheeked Tern (1st summer) – 5 House Sparrow – 26 Common Myna – 2 Greater Sand Plover (1st summer) – 4 Slender-billed Gull (1st summer) – 1 (Eastern) Reef Egret (dark form) – 3 Greater Flamingo – 29 Bar-tailed Godwit – 1 Kentish Plover – 3 Species Total: 9

Beach clean-up Sulaibikhat (2), June 11th 2011

Saturday’s beach clean-up – a collection of around 3oo kg of rubbish went to recycling instead of rotting at the beach. And that was only another small stretch of that area. The beach you see somewhere close to the end is the next one in line waiting for being cleaned, worse than the first two put together. :/

 

 Bird count: (35) Slender-billed Gulls, (1) Grey Plover, (5) Caspian Tern, (4) Night Heron, (2) Gull billed Tern, (5) House Sparrow, (2 dark & 2 white) Reef Heron, (2) Collared Dove), (12 – 1 immature) Flamingos, (4) Little Tern, (2) Grey Heron), (10) Terek Sandpiper), (7) Kentish Plover, (1) Graceful Prinia, (5) Curlew (1) with shot wing feathers, (1) Black-headed Gull, (4) Cream-coloured Courser, (1) fem. Pied Wheatear

Beach clean-up, Doha, Kuwait, May 28th 2011

After a break of one week (due to the weather our island trip had to be cancelled – twice), we were ready for another adventure.

This week we went to Doha beach (one of them) near Entertainment city.

‘We’ is a group of Volunteers (12 this time) with two employees from K’s Path. 
This was the second clean-up at this beach. The first one was approx. 2 months ago.

 At first glance the beach looked fairly clean, except for a few corners where the plastic gathers from the wind.
 But as soon as we started the cleaning, we saw that a lot of plastic had been collected underneath the bushes.
Right next to this beach is a beach that belongs to ‘Entertainment city’.
Angelique told me that they offered them to clean up that stretch of beach, but the company refused.
Nobody is allowed to enter there either.
Well, it was low tide and I had a peek.
They should take up that offer, or clean it up themselves.
In the photos it’s the stretch with the beautiful, small mangroves and the pics before and after show the trash gathered there.

 Some morons did drive their vehicles around at the beach, not realizing how much damage they are doing to the plant Life and the structure of the beach.

One one of the photos you see a factory that’s close by. It’s blowing something nasty in the air.
We actually saw that haze all the way from Mangaf and I thought it’s dust rolling in.
Nah, the wind was blowing that pollution all the way (almost 45min drive) down south.

Today I saw my first Lizard (not sure which type), a Grasshopper (my first around here), some sort of desert rodent, a bunch of varied coloured Dragonflies and a dead beetle that looked almost like the ones I usually see, but this one had hooks all around his ‘armor’.

 

 As far as the birds go, migration is pretty much over. Here’s what I found: Bulbul (4), House sparrow (13), Dunlin (7), Basra Reed Warbler (1), (possible) Graceful Prinia (2), House Martin (12), Kentish Plover (8), Collared Dove (2), European Bee-eater (2), Little Egret (1), Namaqua Dove (1) 11 species Sadly enough I saw a lot of empty shells from ‘hunters’ too Overall it was a great day and a successful one (exact count will come when we get the numbers from the recycling company). It was hot of course (around 100F/40c – today it will be around 110f/43C), but unlike the last time it wasn’t humid and we had some nice wind that was cool for a change and not the hot furnace we usually get.