Abu Dhabi Frustrations!
Hi everyone . Its been a while ..., Sorry about that.
Having been super busy on a design project I am involved with, I havn't
had time to check in and update this thread.
That however changed becuase of said design project moving on to
its next stage. I had to go to Abu Dhabi at the begining of last week to
meet with the clients and so had an opportunity to possibly see
some foriegn species. I tried to track down someone to meet
whilst over there but because of the tight scedule I was on
it was difficult to find any windows of useable free time to go
birding.
I had alot of time to kill hanging around in the Hotel which was frustrating
as hell!! knowing that there were all those fabulous Middle eastern
gem's out there, and the autumn migrants coming to the area.
Having said that I did get a small amount of sketching done from the
the boundries of the hotel and a brief trip to Al Ain to get references
for a commission. It was a successful trip on many fronts and I got
to see old friends again. It was'nt without incident either, I managed to get
blood poisoning from a mosquito bite on my finger! My hand swelled
up and I had a track line running up to my armpit!!
To say my manager ,who was with me was concerned is a bit of an understatement.:eek!:
All turned out fine and Loaded with antibiotics and a few painkillers it went down in no time
Here are some of the sketches.
These were done through the scope from my room balcony looking
across a tidal river and from around the hotel gardens. Lots
of small,Kentish, Ringed , Grey and lesser Sand plovers and other waders,
Herons and Egrets. Also a number of gulls that I think were
winter Great Black headed gulls...?
The estuary birds were at a real distance which was'nt ideal.
The last page of this set was at a fort near Al Ain .
The Little Green Bee eaters were an absolute joy to watch.
A lovely Great Grey Shrike. Lots of Doves , sparrows and a noisy
bunch of Grey Francolin.