A quiet morning in the South

Week 11, 14 March 2013 - Sabah Al Ahmad Sea City (Click to enlarge image)

I was back at Sabah Al Ahmad Sea City and spent some time off-shore and exploring the lagoons in Phase A2.

The numbers of Great Cormorants and large White-headed Gulls have reduced dramatically in the last week and I'm sure almost all will have headed north in the coming week or two.

A single Sandwich Tern was seen close to the Harbour.

Sandwich Tern (Sterna sandvicensis)

A flock of 9 Squacco Herons looking for a place to roost provided some good images and a challenge for the auto focus when they were flying toward me.

Squacco Heron (Ardeola ralloides)

Once I had finished on the boat, I explored some desert areas, but already the heat haze playing havoc on image quality. A distant Northern Wheatear was seen

Male Northern Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe)

As was this wounded Pied Wheatear

Male Pied Wheatear (Oenanthe pleschanka)

Red-throated Pipits were my first for this Spring

Red-throated Pipit (Anthus cervinus)

It was despairing to come across these 36 Stingrays (3 species) that were dumped in the car park of the slipway near the harbour by local fisherman - just an unwanted casualty of the nights fishing.

3 Species of Stingray in the 36 dumped in the car-park after a nights fishing

This sighting on top of news that the annual Spring carnage of indiscriminate shooting, maiming and killing of migrants is also in full swing in the north of Kuwait (where there are still many desert camps) and out of the public eye. News has filtered through of 3 Critically Endangered Sociable Plovers being shot and killed for fun, as well as hundreds of Caspian Plovers, Bimaculated Larks and Skylarks - and that was just this week, at the start of Spring migration. This has been raised to OSME and Birdlife International in the hope that we can raise this to the relevant authorities so that changes can be made to legislation to limit and curb this annual massacre!