UAE 19 Review (1)

In the interests of trying to remain reasonably topical, I'm starting my review of my recent UAE trip. I get enough positive feedback from people I respect to continue my ramblings and reviews...so here goes...

I found it much more enjoyable this year, mainly due to being more familiar with the Country on my second visit. As last time, the main objective was to spend quality time with my youngest son Robert and his wife Laura who graciously "put us up" or is it "put up with us"! Rob also lent us his rather impressive Jeep Wrangler which came in handy out in the desert...

Definitely away from it all

We arrived early Friday morning November 8th. I realize there will be overlap with my brief posts already made but the idea here is to supplement these with a bit more flesh on the bones. Apologies in advance for any repetition.

My first outing was a Saturday visit with Robert (while the girls went shopping) to the impressive Ras Al Khor reserve at Dubai Creek, smack bang in the middle of the City...

After a sightseeing day on Saturday I was going to try for the Common Crane at Arabian Ranches but my contact Tommy Pederson wasn't available, so we had a run up the coast North of Dubai to Hamraniyah Fields. It was mainly a recce to see what the area was actually like. It had an impressive total of species on eBird but I find it's always best to have a scoot around yourself to gain a proper "feel" for an area. I couldn't find the area I was looking for so I e-mailed my other contact Oscar Campbell who helped out.

I then received news of a MEGA...WHITE-CROWNED WHEATEAR at Al Jaroof Village way up in the Northern Mountains...

I've already written that up but I guess it's another excuse to show my pic of the 14th record for the UAE and the first twitchable record for TWENTY YEARS!

I only saw the bird for 10 seconds in 4 hours! I seem to be lucky with rare Wheatears here. You may remember I found a MOURNING WHEATEAR last year at Jebel Hafeet?



On the way back to pick Robert up from work, we stopped off again at Hamraniyah Fields this time armed with better info from Oscar. He'd seen a CASPIAN PLOVER there recently! With a combination of his directions and co-ordinates we found the site...

I had about an hour before sunset so I started to scan the birds on this Oasis. There was some disturbance as this was a working area. I took a few images before we had to leave in the fading light.

Confession: In the interests of honesty (which I always try to be) I'm looking at my images as I write this post and...blow me down...I appear to have secured a decent image of the said CASPIAN PLOVER...

On the day I remember "snapping" another wader which showed briefly before flying off strongly. Now in my defence I don't spend hardly any time editing photos as it's obviously anti-social when staying at someone's house! You can imagine my delight today when I came across this...

SOCIABLE LAPWING

A retrospective SECOND find of this sadly diminishing species. Rather chuffed! More here if you missed it.

I did get access to try for the Crane but I couldn't find it.