AJDH
Thursday 19th January 2006, 07:59
I had been looking at Howard King’s website http://www.hawar-islands.com/hypocolius.html and I contacted Howard to find out more about the roost site as my wife and I would be visiting Bahrain from Saudi Arabia on Thursday and Friday 24th / 25th November. Howard advised me that Brendan Kavanagh, who is the Senior Lecturer in Biology and Anatomy at RCSI Medical University of Bahrain and Juhani Kyyro, who works for the Ministry of Education, would be attempting to net and ring some birds. I emailed Brendan who is a licensed BTO Trainer A ringer and arranged to meet them. Brendan is conducting a study of the hypocolius which is being supported by the Bahrain Natural History Society.
At 3pm on Thursday we met at the site where Brendan and Juhani supervised the erection of the nets next to stunted palms that the birds prefer. I had hoped to get some pictures of the birds perching so Juhani, who is a keen photographer, placed me at what was usually the best position. Unfortunately the
area had seen a lot of mechanical digger activity since their last visit and this had upset the birds. When they arrived they kept well away from the usual area, perching in bushes away from the nets. We were beginning to think we would be unlucky and besides me not getting any pictures, it looked like we would not net anything. Just as we were about to give up, Juhani and I noticed a small group of birds settling in a bush away from the nets. As I kept vigil, Juhani went for a mobile net. When he arrived back with Brendan I'd noticed some of the birds had moved from the bush over to the farthest stunted palm where we had set a net at earlier. When we checked the net, there were five birds trapped. Brendan carefully removed the birds and bagged them ready for ringing. He was delighted because what had seemed like a disappointing outing, had netted his highest total. After the usual measurements and weighing the birds were released. One of them had been netted the week previous so it was interesting to note if the weight had altered. One of the birds was in definite moult what led us to surmise that they moult after migration. These birds probably came from Kuwait or Iraq. They tend to feed on around date palms, where they skulk most of the day.
The pictures show the setting up of a net, a male in the net, Brendan carefully removing the birds, a male with the darker headand a female.
At 3pm on Thursday we met at the site where Brendan and Juhani supervised the erection of the nets next to stunted palms that the birds prefer. I had hoped to get some pictures of the birds perching so Juhani, who is a keen photographer, placed me at what was usually the best position. Unfortunately the
area had seen a lot of mechanical digger activity since their last visit and this had upset the birds. When they arrived they kept well away from the usual area, perching in bushes away from the nets. We were beginning to think we would be unlucky and besides me not getting any pictures, it looked like we would not net anything. Just as we were about to give up, Juhani and I noticed a small group of birds settling in a bush away from the nets. As I kept vigil, Juhani went for a mobile net. When he arrived back with Brendan I'd noticed some of the birds had moved from the bush over to the farthest stunted palm where we had set a net at earlier. When we checked the net, there were five birds trapped. Brendan carefully removed the birds and bagged them ready for ringing. He was delighted because what had seemed like a disappointing outing, had netted his highest total. After the usual measurements and weighing the birds were released. One of them had been netted the week previous so it was interesting to note if the weight had altered. One of the birds was in definite moult what led us to surmise that they moult after migration. These birds probably came from Kuwait or Iraq. They tend to feed on around date palms, where they skulk most of the day.
The pictures show the setting up of a net, a male in the net, Brendan carefully removing the birds, a male with the darker headand a female.