Urban Birding in Kuwait - November 2023 (1 Viewer)

[SlowLowFlyingTurkey]

26th Nov 2023

Kuwait is good for birds but not so good for independent birders. It seems like most of the best locations require permits or, for some of the more localised species, a bit of local knowledge. Despite this, it is still possible to find decent birds in Kuwait City using the extensive, cheap bus network and a bit of prior research on ebird. With your own transport a few more species can almost certainly be seen outside of the city. This four day visit wasn’t intended specifically as a birding trip, but inevitably I ended up doing quite a lot of birding anyway.

The first bird on the list was Laughing Dove, spotted through the window of an airport coffee shop shortly after arrival. Alongside Feral Pigeon, Eurasian Collared Dove, and House Sparrow, these were seen everywhere, every day. Kuwait holds a handful of Western Palearctic Cat C species and the first of these, seen from the airport bus, was Common Myna.

My hotel was located just outside the long, curving Al Shaheed Park – a very pleasant, well-manicured park with water features and extensive vegetation. Open from 5am until midnight, and with no entry fee, this park became something of a local patch and I visited three times in all. My first visit was from 11.30am until about 1pm while I waited for my hotel check-in time. As well as the species already named above, I added more West Pal Cat C ticks in the form of many White-eared Bulbuls (another very common bird in the city wherever there was a bit of vegetation) and five Indian Silverbills. Two Scaly-breasted Munias were escapes and probably not yet classed as Cat C. Native species were represented by a European Robin, a female Red-backed Shrike, and a female Common Whitethroat.

After checking in I returned to the park from 2.30pm until 3.45pm and was surprised to find two female Eurasian Siskins, which I found out later are a very scarce winter visitor, and, more expected, a male Blackcap. On the lawn just outside the park a first winter Bluethroat showed really well while, at the same time, a first winter Barred Warbler foraged above in a tree.

Just before dusk I walked over to Kuwait Towers on the coast, then later visited a nearby McDonalds. The outdoor seating area overlooked an area of mudflats, on which I found a Kentish Plover, three Tibetan Sand Plovers, two Common Redshanks, and a Common Ringed Plover. A distant white egret was either a Little or a Western Reef, and a group of small gulls gathering on the sea were assumed to Black-headed. I walked a bit further around the coast and, as I turned inland back towards the hotel, I counted nine Grey Herons flying overhead at dusk, from the sea to an inland roost.

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[SlowLowFlyingTurkey]

27th Nov 2023

The next morning I set off fairly early and walked to Green Island (which isn’t actually an island) for a slim chance at Grey Hypocolius. This park doesn’t open until 9am, but some trip reports speak of being let in early to look for birds. On the way there seven Pallid Swifts flew over and, arriving at 7.30am, I wasn’t allowed in early. Instead I scanned the mudflats either side of the entrance causeway and found a white phase Western Reef Egret, at least three Great Cormorants, three Grey Herons, and a few White Wagtails. A flock of about fifty ‘Black-headed Gulls', turned out to be mostly Slender-billed Gulls with only a few Black-headed Gulls mixed in – a good reminder to double check everything on an overseas birding trip and to never assume.

After a coffee and a sandwich nearby, I headed back to the entrance for 9am but still couldn’t get in until 9.20am as the cashier had gone AWOL. My chances of finding Hypocolius had slipped away as they roost in the park but mostly fly off elsewhere during the day. I also had no luck with another pair of Cat Cs in the form of Red-vented Bulbul and Rüppell’s Weaver, which both used to be found here but, according to ebird, haven’t been recorded for a couple of years.

Green Island was still a pleasant place to wander around and, this being a Monday, I had it to myself. I had read that it can get busy at weekends. Walking a couple of circuits, I found another Western Reef Egret (grey phase this time), sixteen Kentish Plovers, a Common Sandpiper, two Isabeline Shrikes, six Song Thrushes, and a Water Pipit of the Middle-eastern coutellii ssp.

I spent the rest of the day walking along the coast – first along The Corniche to Kuwait Towers. This stretch is pretty much a building site at the moment as they create an attractive promenade and cycle path. There was no mud exposed outside McDonalds this time, so few birds, but a House Crow flew by and added to the Cat C list.

Continuing along the sea front I saw a Grey Plover and then my first lifer of the trip in the form of an Asian Desert Warbler hopping around in the bottom of a hedge. This is a common winterer in Kuwait, but I wasn’t expecting it in such an urban setting. After watching it for a while it occurred to me that a ground-foraging bird I had briefly seen yesterday, and dismissed as a Common Whitethroat, may actually have been this species. Again… never assume!

Passing through Souk Sharq Marina, a boarded up Debenhams store felt like a taste of Britain, and then I got great views of an adult Masked Shrike in some car park trees. I then detoured through the fish market where I was accosted by an irate security guard who thought my scope was a camera and that I was filming the fish sales (apparently not allowed). It took a while to convince him that it wasn’t a camera before he finally let me go. Somehow he completely missed the actual camera that I was literally still holding in my other hand, having just been taking photos of the fish market.

I walked as far as Shuwaikh Beach where the tide was just starting to ebb and waders were appearing on the mud: seven more Common Sandpipers, many Kentish Plovers, two more Grey Plovers, eight Tibetan Sand Plovers, and two Curlew-sandpipers. I also had another white Western Reef Egret, three more House Crows, three more Pallid Swifts, and more Slender-billed Gulls and White Wagtails. Other new birds were a Gull-billed Tern flying back and forth offshore, a Lesser Black-backed Gull past distantly, and some pale ‘herring gull’ types too distant to get a good look at. After sunset I headed off for a look around the souk and some dinner.

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[SlowLowFlyingTurkey]

28th Nov 2023

This was mostly a sight-seeing day, visiting a couple of museums and the aquarium, but I managed an early morning visit to Al Shaheed Park where, as well as all the usual common birds, I also saw two Lesser Whitethroats, two Hoopoes (one inside and one just outside the park), and a juvenile Masked Shrike.

 

[SlowLowFlyingTurkey]

29th Nov 2023

On the final day I caught a bus out to Sulaibikhat Beach in the south of Kuwait Bay, just outside the city and on the way to the birding hotspot of Al Jahra. This was a slightly unattractive, scrub-covered beach backed by a thickly tree-lined road. The tide was all the way out exposing a large extent of mud and abundant Mudskippers. The most obvious birds were Greater Flamingos, 483 of which I counted in a single scan. Some were close in and many more in the distance. Later in the afternoon, when the tide had risen, their numbers were in the thousands all the way around the tide line and stretching off into the distance towards the city.

Waders were abundant, particularly Kentish Plovers, Tibetan Sand Plovers, Common Ringed Plovers, Common Redshanks, Grey Plovers, Dunlins, Little Stints, Eurasian Curlews (including some impressively long-billed orientalis ssp.). I also counted three Common Greenshanks, a few Greater Sand Plovers, two Curlew-sandpipers, and a Common Sandpiper. The real prize, though, were the Crab Plovers. Another lifer for me, they started out fairly distantly but were eventually pushed closer by the tide and I had great views of at least 34 birds, with adults catching crabs and Mudskippers to feed to their attendant juveniles. Many small waders were too distant to identify and I failed to find any Broad-billed, Marsh or Terek Sandpipers, all of which are frequent here.

Other water birds seen were a Squacco Heron, a Little Egret, many Western Reef Egrets and Grey Herons, Black-headed and Slender-billed, and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, twenty plus Gull-billed Terns and a single Whiskered Tern. Two different Marsh Harriers flew over and a female kestrel species that could have been common or lesser.

In the beach scrub I found my third and final lifer: a Delicate Prinia that popped in and out of the vegetation and made me feel like I was watching Dartford Warblers on Dunwich Heath. Also on the beach I had three Water Pipits, an Isabeline Wheatear (as well as a second, unidentified wheatear), a Crested Lark, a male and a female Isabeline Shrike, and a male European Stonechat.

In the afternoon I had planned to continue on to Al Jahra for another try at Hypocolius, but the day had slipped away from me and I now didn’t have time. I walked back in the direction of the city, had some food, and then re-joined the beach further away near Sulaibikhat Nature Reserve. I saw a first winter Red-backed Shrike along the roadside and then, at the entrance to the beach, a huge flock of Spanish Sparrows (males and females) in some brambles along a fence line that must have numbered well over 500 birds. Another Isabeline Shrike perched on the fence nearby and, on the remaining mud I caught the last new birds of the trip – a White-throated Kingfisher, and around ten Bar-tailed Godwits. It was from here that I also saw the huge numbers of Greater Flamingos, as well as 150+ Grey Herons, and 50+ Western Reef Egrets in both colour forms.

The next morning I flew home having learned two valuable lessons: always double check the identity of a ‘common’ bird when away from home, and never take a telescope into a fish market.

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

If you were at Sulaibikhat Bay at the outflow where the flamingos are visible, it's a shame you didn't get Hypocolius there. I had several at that site last week.

You did much better than I did on shorebirds, though, as well as in Al-Shaheed park.

 

[SlowLowFlyingTurkey]

If you were at Sulaibikhat Bay at the outflow where the flamingos are visible, it's a shame you didn't get Hypocolius there. I had several at that site last week.

You did much better than I did on shorebirds, though, as well as in Al-Shaheed park.

I'm not sure exactly where I was. It was the nearest bit of beach to the bus stop and I could see Flamingos all across the bay. I know there's the Al Jahra outflow and then a Flamingo watchpoint nearer Kuwait City. I would have been somewhere between those two points.

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

I'm not sure exactly where I was. It was the nearest bit of beach to the bus stop and I could see Flamingos all across the bay. I know there's the Al Jahra outflow and then a Flamingo watchpoint nearer Kuwait City. I would have been somewhere between those two points.

Gotcha. I think you were too far west, then.

The point that shows up as "Flamingo Birds" at 29.335147, 47.902796 in Google Maps is essentially the place.

 

[PhilSteiner]

Is the Al Jahra outflow still accessible? I have a day in Kuwait next month and would go there except I've read it's now a part of the nature reserve and requires a permit.

 

[SlowLowFlyingTurkey]

Is the Al Jahra outflow still accessible? I have a day in Kuwait next month and would go there except I've read it's now a part of the nature reserve and requires a permit.

Sorry, I didn't get as far as Al Jahra so I'm not really sure. Looking on ebird hotspots, it says Al Jahra requires a permit but doesn't say anything for the outflow.

 

[MKinHK]

Some decent birds there - especially gripped by your Crab Plovers.

Cheers
Mike