Changaram wetlands, Kerala, India

Today we visited the wonderful Changaram wetlands just south of Kochi. What a place it is, masses of birds on the lilypad covered flooded fields, with people working waist deep in the water, a really evocative scene. One of the many highlights was the large numbers of cotton pygmy geese, a delightful little duck which I have seen before near Brisbane, but not as well or in such numbers. 

Other species included lesser whistling ducks, 100 garganey, stork-billed kingfisher, red-wattled lapwing, oriental darter, Indian cormorant, ashy woodswallow, blue-tailed bee-eaters, grey-headed swamphens, ashy prinia, pheasant-tailed jacana (unfortunately in non-breeding plumage), bronze-winged jacana, clamerous reed warbler, brown-headed gull, black-winged stilts, spot-billed pelican and various egrets and herons such as intermediate egret and purple heron.

Brahminy kites are just everywhere, often 40 or 50 in the sky at any one time. Even in the heart of the city of Kochi you can see them overhead.

Andhakaranazhi Beach and Chellanam Harbour

Andhakaranazhi beach lies about 25km south of Fort Kochi and is a beautiful place to walk along the eastern shore of the Arabian sea. As seems to be the case everywhere here, there are impressive numbers of egrets, but also today small flocks of greenshank and most likely other waders.

House crows and kites are always on hand to scavenge  any scraps which are left on the beach by the fishermen.

Fort Kochi, Kerala, India

I'm in Kerala, India visiting friends and a large part of it is family based activities, but of course never having been to India before, it's a great opportunity to see some new birds. Today we visited Fort Kochi where the birding highlight was the large numbers of kites and egret. Brahminy kites seem about the most common, but there are also large numbers of black kites.

 

Black kite.

A day in Kuwait

I'm on my way to Kerala in India, flying with Kuwait airlines, and about a week before we flew we were told that our two hour wait in Kuwait had now been extended to 19 hours! Not to worry though, under Kuwait law, the airline must provide us with a hotel for free, with complementary meals. I immediately spotted an opportunity to do some birding in Kuwait and see a few really special species.

Sounds good except that once in the free hotel you're not allowed to leave it until two hours before your outbound flight because the hotel is still within the airport security zone. So no chance of a few hours touring Kuwait if you take that option. I decided to decline the free hotel and booked the Holiday Inn just outside the airport at my own expense. No problem leaving the airport, I simply went to immigration when I got off the plane and they took my details and gave me a visa. It took about 10 minutes including queueing, and the hotel sent a driver to pick me up.

The next day my flight was at 17:00 and with my hold luggage still somewhere within the depths of the airport waiting to be tranferred to my next flight, I only had hand luggage with me, so no need to check in and no need to be back at the airport until 15:00. So at 06:30 I was picked up at the hotel by a local birding guide, AbdulRahman, and he took me birding for the eight hours or so that I had available. In total we saw 67 species of which 14 were new to me. 

The main species that I wanted to see was crab plover and we managed to find a flock of 31 birds on the beach at Sulaibikhat Sports Club. For a full list of species seen today click here (opens in a new window)

Crab plovers are absolutely awesome birds, like avocets with a massive, dagger like bills. The greyer looking birds are 1st winters of which there were about eight in the flock.

List of birds seen in Kuwait 13th February 2023

This is the full list of birds that I saw during a brief 8 hour visit to Kuwait on 13th February 2023. The full report with photos is here.

Species	Locations with number of birds seen in brackets
Little grebe	Jahra Pools (20)
Grey Heron	KISR west (3), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (10)
Black-crowned Night Heron	Jahra Pools (30)
Western Reef Egret	KISR west (1), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (5)
Little Egret	Kabd Reserve (10), KISR west (10)
Greater Flamingo	KISR west (200), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (50)
Gadwall	Jahra Pools (50)
Teal	Jahra Pools (20)
Shoveler	Jahra Pools (10)
Pochard	Jahra Pools (5)
Ferruginous Duck	Jahra Pools (10)
Long-tailed Duck	Jahra Pools (1)
Black Kite	Ali Al-Sabah (10), Jahra Pools (30), Kabd Reserve (30), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (5)
Black-winged Kite	Abdullah Al Mubarak (1)
Marsh Harrier	Jahra Pools (4)
Pallid Harrier	Kabd Reserve (1)
Steppe Eagle	Ali Al-Sabah (1), Kabd Reserve (6), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (1)
Eastern Imperial Eagle	Ali Al-Sabah (1), Kabd Reserve (1)
Greater Spotted Eagle	Ali Al-Sabah (3), Jahra Pools (10), Kabd Reserve (5)
Moorhen	Jahra Pools (50)
Grey-headed Swamphen	Jahra Pools (1)
Coot	Jahra Pools (50)
Crab Plover	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (31)
Ringed Plover	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (50)
Kentish Plover	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (10)
Greater Sand Plover	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (2)
Grey Plover	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (1)
Red-wattled Lapwing	Kabd Reserve (8)
White-tailed Plover	Jahra Pools (4), Kabd Reserve (1)
Little Stint	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (10)
Dunlin	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (300)
Snipe	Jahra Pools (2)
Bar-tailed godwit	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (30)
Curlew	Jahra Pools (2), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (10)
Redshank	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (50)
Green Sandpiper	Kabd Reserve (6)
Terek Sandpiper	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (1)
Black-headed Gull	Jahra Pools (300), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (300)
Heuglin's Gull	Jahra Pools (2), KISR west (2), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (50)
Steppe Gull	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (2)
Caspian gull	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (1)
Slender-billed Gull	KISR west (5), Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (50)
Gull-billed Tern	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (2)
Caspian Tern	Sulaibikhat Sports Club Beach (1)
Collared Dove	Kabd Reserve (20), KISR west (30)
Namaqua Dove	Kabd Reserve (3)
Laughing Dove	Kabd Reserve (20), KISR west (10)
Pallid Swift	Kabd Reserve (30), KISR west (2)
White-throated Kingfisher	Jahra Pools (1)
Pied Kingfisher	Jahra Pools (2)
Crested Lark	Kabd Reserve (5)
Swallow	Jahra Pools (20), Kabd Reserve (30)
White-cheeked bulbul	KISR west (5)
Hypocolius	KISR west (12)
Water Pipit	Jahra Pools (3)
White Wagtail	Jahra Pools (3)
Caspian Stonechat	Kabd Reserve (1)
Isabelline Wheatear	Kabd Reserve (10)
Finsch's Wheatear	Kabd Reserve (1)
Desert Wheatear	Kabd Reserve (5)
Persian Wheatear	Kabd Reserve (1)
Chiffchaff	Jahra Pools (5)
Daurian Shrike	Jahra Pools (1), Kabd Reserve (1)
Steppe Grey Shrike	Kabd Reserve (1)
House Crow	KISR west (1)
Common Myna	KISR west (10)
House Sparrow	Ali Al-Sabah (5), Kabd Reserve (20)

Jack snipe

My survey today involved following a preset transect over some marshy ground. It didn't look like anything particularly special but as I walked I started flushing jack snipe from under my feet. In the end I counted 16 birds in a relatively small area. Just shows what is out there but hidden.

Jack snipe of course differ from common snipe in that when they fly it's silently and only for a short distance before dropping down again, whereas their larger cousins tower high into the sky calling, and zigzag away from you.

Shelduck, Pennington Flash

Shelduck and oystercatchers are always one of the first signs of spring that I notice so it was uplifting to see seven of the former at the western end today, on a glorious sunny morning. Also the resident oystercatcher has been joined by two buddies, so hopefully things are starting to look up now.

Grey seal courtship off the Great Orme

These grey seals were playing off the Great Orme today. They're a pair, the larger animal is a male, the smaller one is a female, you can see the difference in head shape. I assume that this is actually courtship and it seemed quite gentle and almost loving at times.

Mediterranean gull on the car park, Pennington Flash

The adult Mediterranean gull which has been coming into the roost all winter was this morning on the car park where it could be seen to be sporting a metal ring on it's left leg. Unfortunately the only number I could see was 7 which doesn't really help, except that the ring does look very like that which was worn by a bird that was first seen at the flash in 2012 and has been thought to return most years since.

Martin Mere

I called in at Martin Mere this afternoon for another look at the warblers at the sewage works. At least one Siberian chiffchaff showed well and a couple of collybita (common) chiffchaffs including a singing bird. The yellow-browed warbler was calling seemingly quite close for several minutes but I couldn't see it, which was ironic because on the other three occasions that I have looked for it I've managed to see it but only heard it once and very briefly.

These Siberian chiffchaffs are cracking birds, with pale plumage and jet black legs, very different to the collybita birds when you see them together. They also have a thin piping bullfinch like call, unlike the "huweet" call of collybita birds.

An awesome spectacle

Adult yellow-legged gull and Mediterranean gull in the gull roost at Pennington Flash this evening.

Very few birders who visit the flash stay to see the great spectacle that is the gull roost. It's just a staggering sight at times. Apart from the thousands of grey and white gulls that cover the water, there is also an impressive jackdaw roost that takes place at dusk, best seen from the boat club. I've never seen so many jackdaws at the roost as there were today, they're difficult to count because they swirl around over the water and dive bomb the gulls, with smaller flocks breaking away and other flocks joining in, but there must be close to 3000 birds. While all of this was happening a lorry drove down to Sorrowcow farm and hundreds (thousands?) of gulls took to the air and swirled around with the jackdaws, an amazing sight.