Ok, where to start? Let me see, I arrived in Iraq August 09. My first camp was camp Taji around 20 miles north east of Baghdad. This area wasn’t very bird friendly, plenty of sparrows everywhere, collar doves and an abundance of black headed gulls. The gulls really surprised me being out in the desert, but I suppose we weren’t very far from the Tigris River. Now on occasion here, we also had visits from common Turns and the odd Little Tern. All of these we around the rubbish tip area of the camp. Further to the back of the camp we had water ponds. Here we had Mallards, Teal’s, Pochard’s , Coot’s and Moorhen’s. We had Lapwings and Plovers, but I couldn’t identify them exactly, they were very similar to the UK versions but just not the same if that makes sense? Lots of Crested Larks and Hooded Crows with the odd Rook. I suppose it wasn’t too bad for birds.