Dubai UAE – Trip Report (late March 2018)

Hi all
I return to the UK reasonably frequently for family visits and although I have transited through the Middle East several times in the past, I have never stopped for a proper look (I don’t count an hour walking around the car park at Abu Dhabi Airport in 2008). Hence, on the last weekend of March 2018, I took the opportunity when I was returning from a family event in the UK to stop in Dubai for a couple of days. When I booked my fare, I considered both the airlines’ offerings and the birding opportunities. An RFI to birding-aus indicated that the UAE was better than Qatar and Dubai probably better than Abu Dhabi so Emirates got the gig. (I also was advised that Oman is pretty for birding good too, but not sure if I could get there from Sydney and then onto London). The UAE has an active birding community, albeit quite small. They have an excellent website (www.uaebirding.com) that is packed with good information on a range of sites, but also gives details of people that provide guiding services. I felt that a guide would be useful here, not only because they know the birds and the best places to see them, but also because my research indicated that often a knowledge of the etiquette for access to some sites could be important (and in retrospect so the guide can do the driving – UAE drivers can be more than a touch frenetic). Through a recommendation received to my RFI (Thanks Rob H), I ended up engaging the services of Stewart Kirkaldy for a day. I was hoping for 2 days but sadly that wasn’t possible. Stewart had been out the week before with another visiting birder so had worked out some good sites for a range of birds and confirmed that my prime target- Crab Plover – was still around. It was migration time, so as well as the residents there would be quite a few birds moving through.

I planned my trip for Friday/Saturday, as that is the weekend in the UAE. I arrived in Dubai late Thursday evening and stayed close to the airport at the Holiday Inn Express. This was quite comfortable and was a good base as it was close to Stewart’s house. The hotel isn’t in the super luxury bracket but it had good amenities – notably a cash machine on site and a little shop that sold food and cold drinks – the bed was comfortable and the room allowed space to spread out.

Stewart picked me up at 6am on the Friday morning and we headed north through Sharjah to an estuary called Khor al Beida in the Umm al Qaiwainn emirate. The estuary/inlet is fed by the waters from the gulf and is a huge expanse of mud. The tide was out and the visit was timed so that the incoming tide would push the birds towards us. This was very much to assist with my target bird – Crab Plover – which at high tide can disappear into the mangroves. We viewed the estuary from a rough road across the sandy foreshore but also made use of the higher vantage points offered by some half built palaces/mansions on the dune tops. We saw a distant Crab Plover, and then a closer one, almost immediately so we started on sorting out the remaining waders – and there were thousands to sort out. Other species seen included Greenshank and Redshank, Godwits, Eurasian Curlew and Whimbrel, Grey, Golden, Kentish, Lesser Sand, Greater Sand, Ringed and Little Ringed Plovers (7 plover species), Terek and Curlew Sandpipers, Dunlin, Western Reef Egrets, Grey and Purple Heron and Greater Flamingo. (Photos unfortunately confirmed that a suspect Red Knot – a good bird for UAE – was actually a Curlew Sandpiper.) In the mangroves and flying above us we had Pallid Swifts, Pale Crag Martin, Purple Sunbird, Graceful Prinia, Crested Lark, Green Bee-eater and Southern Grey Shrike. The three birds seen everywhere – Laughing Dove, Collared Dove and House Sparrow – were abundant here. As we motored along, we also found a group of dens with desert foxes looking out at us – an unexpected sighting. We spent a couple of hours here and the tide had pushed the birds well up as we finished, so we got a close up view of an immature Crab Plover and great views of the male Sand Plovers colouring up. We also found about 15 Crab Plover on a very distant sandbank, so all up I saw about 20 of them.

After a short but very nice breakfast stop just up the coast, we made a short detour to the Umm-al Qaiwainn Breakwater. Before we set off along the beach, Stewart scanned the (very flat) sea and found a very distant Pallas’ Gull sitting on a buoy, which saved us a long hot walk across the soft sand. As well as the gulls, we saw some big flocks of cormorants (which may have contained Socotra Cormorants, although we couldn’t be sure at the distance). There were also Gull-billed, Crested and Lesser-crested Terns out over the water. We looked at the inlet that is protected by the breakwater and found some very smart White-cheeked Terns fishing – they look a bit like Whiskered Terns in breeding plumage but the swallow-tails were a useful feature.

By now it was about midday and starting to get rather hot. The weather had been a bit milder the week but the heat had come in over the week, which made the next few stops a bit more challenging. From Umm al Qaiwainn, we drove a reasonable way south and inland (which was my choice from the options that Stewart gave) to the Abu Dhabi emirate sites of Green Muzzabarah and Jebel Hafit (near the city of Al Ain) hoping for a good range as observed there the week before, but the increase in heat duffed us over a bit. Green Muzzabarah is a well watered park with space for barbecues, as well as lots of rocky outcrops. Despite the heat, which made the birds less active, we saw more good birds, including Arabian Partridge, Arabian Babbler, lots of Hoopoes, a Clamorous Reed Warbler (seen as well as heard which is not easy apparently), distant Egyptian Vultures, lots of Grey Francolin, Red Wattled Lapwing and Pied Wagtail. A wheatear of some ilk made a fleeting appearance at the historic dam site but then disappeared before we could get a good look at it.

Up on Jebel Hafit, which is a big mountain that rises up from Green Muzzabarah, we stopped at a couple of spots, including at the hotel close to the summit and the summit itself. The hotel grounds are well watered and are attractive to birds – we saw Hume’s Wheatear, Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Egyptian Vulture, Wryneck, Blue Rock-thrush, Spectacled, Red-vented and White-eared Bulbul, Indian Silverbill, more Arabian Babblers and a very dark “sylvia” warbler later confirmed as a Lesser Whitethroat. Closer to the summit we got fleeting views of a Desert Finch, distant views of Brown-necked Ravens and closer views of the vultures, including several young birds. They roost on the communications towers at the summit and could be seen settling down on the platforms as the sun set. A couple of good buntings seen the weekend before (Cinereous and Striolated) declined to put in an appearance and we couldn’t find the Trumpeter Finch at its normal spots. Try as we might, none of the House Sparrows were willing to be Pale Rock Finches either, so a few good species were left on the table for my next visit. We finished up at Jebel Hafit as the sun set and drove back to Dubai in the dark, finishing at the hotel at about 9pm.

I went solo around Dubai on my second day, visiting Ras al Khor Wetland Sanctuary (morning) and Mushrif Park (mid-afternoon/evening). (I used taxis and ubers to get around – in retrospect I should have probably hired a car as it would probably have been cheaper but the Mushrif Park visit was a spur of the moment thing after deciding that huge skyscrapers and shopping malls were not really my thing after all). Ras al Khor is a lagoon off Dubai creek and is in the middle of teh urban area – teh famous skyscrapers are visible from the hide. There are two hides at the reserve, although I only visited one (think it was the lagoon hide – not the flamingo hide where the flamingo hordes are bigger). The hides are built into the reserve’s perimeter and I don’t think one can walk around inside the reserve. The reserve had a good range of birds but patience is definitely required at the hide as the birds move in and out of view – the Greater Spotted Eagles (7 separate birds) were responsible for some of this movement. There was a Great-billed Pelican there (a UAE rarity) as well as hordes of Greater Flamingos, herons/egrets (7 species + Glossy Ibis) and lots of waders. I also saw a Booted Eagle, a pair of Shikra, Ospreys and Western Marsh Harrier (so it seems a good spot for raptors) and two large dark-backed gulls with dark yellow legs (which I think were Steppe Gulls). I spent about 3 hours there and returned to my hotel (where I changed my plan on what to do in the afternoon following a conversation with another birder at the hide.

Mushrif Park is a bit further out from the centre but still not an expensive taxi ride away. Birding here is in scrubby desert country, although teh park has a more cultivated/green central area as well. Birding here was harder work as it was hot in the afternoon but saw some nice Southern Grey Shrikes, plenty of Hoopoes and 2 female Menetries’ Warblers (away from the central area in the scrub near the perimeter fence). I got better views of Arabian Babblers than the day before near the spot mentioned for them on the UAE Birding site guide and also saw another Shikra and a Honey Buzzard cruising overhead. Mushrif Park is famous in birding terms for its Pallid Scops Owls which like to hunt on some floodlit grassy areas near the mosque. As I wasn’t flying out until early Sunday, I hung around until after dusk hoping they would oblige – I heard and saw them but in a very dim part of the park away from the normal area for them. I think Saturday evening is not a great day to go looking as the park was too busy and noisy for the owls to visit their preferred floodlit areas.

After that slightly disappointing finish, I returned to my hotel, freshened up and headed for the airport before I flew back to Sydney. I know I left some good birds for another visit and I would want to visit some desert areas next time to try for some other regional specialities such as Cream-coloured Courser and Hoopoe Larks and a visit to the East Coast for Sooty Gulls. I can highly recommend the sites I visited and Stewart as a guide. If you’re thinking of a visit, remember that the UAE weekend is Friday/Saturday and schedule accordingly. Birding in the summer months would be very hot but I understand that there are some good species to be had at all times of year.

Cheers
Tom Wilson

Cheers
Tom