Abu Hassania beach is on the other side of the freeway from my apartment, so I decided to check it out in the late afternoon to see what was foraging on the inter-tidal zone before sunset. Since the weather has cooled down a little, there were a lot of people enjoying the beach - but I found a spot near the high tide mark where I had seen some shorebirds and sat down amongst the rocks and waited.
Sure enough, once I was no longer considered a threat, the shorebirds returned and foraged around me and I enjoyed a few different species until after sunset.
The most abundant were Sanderling and a small flock seemed to race around from place to place seemingly competing for food. Trying to capture one at speed with both feet off the ground was a challenge, but I did manage one of these images
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| Sanderling (Calidris alba) |
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| At speed.... |
Common Ringed Plovers were next up and I was quite surprised at the variability of the depth of the chest band on a few of the birds
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| Common Ringed Plover (Charadrius hiaticula) |
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| This bird with a thinner breast band.. |
Of course Greater Sand Plover are present in small numbers all year round and in September these are all in non-breeding plumage
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| Greater Sand Plover (Anarhynchus leschenaultii) |
The odd man out was a single Dunlin and there was some interaction when it pulled a worm out of a hole and suddenly he was quite popular
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| Dunlin (Calidris alpina) |
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| Early bird get's the worm! |
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