SlowLowFlyingTurkey
Well-known member
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.
View attachment IMG_6609.JPG
View attachment IMG_6653.JPG
View attachment IMG_6679.JPG
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.
View attachment IMG_6609.JPG
View attachment IMG_6653.JPG
View attachment IMG_6679.JPG
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