South of Khartoum on the Blue Nile

Today Terry, Stephen and I headed south along the eastern shore of the Blue Nile on a bit of a random search for a new birding site. Stephen had spotted an island in the river on Google Earth about 70km south of the city, with the nearest named spot on Google earth being Tayyib Al Masas. From the main road we cut across a bit of open desert for about 1km before reaching the farmland bordering the Blue Nile. We saw a Greater Hoopoe-Lark here, plus a Pied Crow. The Pied Crow was my first within the current borders of Sudan, and we had seen a couple a little earlier on the main road, along with several Brown-necked Ravens. The bushes were teeming with Sudan Golden Sparrows, with several nests in each Acacia bush. The most spectacular bird of our walk through the farmland was undoubtedly the Northern Carmine Bee-eaters. There were lots around pools beside the river and we wondered if they were collecting mud for nests.

Northern Carmine Bee-eater, Blue Nile 70km south of Khartoum 28th April 2012

Greater Hoopoe-Lark, Blue Nile 70km south of Khartoum 28th April 2012

Pied Crow, Blue Nile 70km south of Khartoum 28th April 2012

On reaching the river we could see two long sand islands that looked fairly permanent, and which Stephen had spotted on Google Earth as possibly being good habitat. He was right, as there were several groups of birds present. In particular, we saw several small groups of ducks, which seemed very wary of our presence despite our being on the opposite bank and most flew off when we approached. In such a situation, they are probably more likely to stop off on an island where there is less disturbance. One group was only White-faced Whistling Ducks, another had 4 Gargany, a Northern Shovelor and a couple of White-faced Whistling Ducks (plus a couple of Grey herons and an African Spoonbill). The last consisted of just one female Northern Pintail and an odd-looking duck that we had trouble identifying. It had a white speculum, which from flight photos could be seen to match Gadwall very well. As such, I assume it was that species, either being an aberrant or a hybrid with another species. The photo below shows the long wedge-shaped bill which is very atypical of this species.

Pintail (left) and odd Gadwall, Blue Nile 70km south of Khartoum 28th April 2012

Grey Heron, Gargany, Northern Shoveler and White-faced Whistling Duck, 

Blue Nile 70km south of Khartoum 28th April 2012

Also on the sand bank were some Pink-backed Pelicans, some terns and some waders. The terns were mostly Whiskered and Gull-billed, with a few White-winged and a single Little Tern. Although distant, the photo below clearly shows the white supercilium passing behind the eye, thus distinguishing it from the very similar Saunder's Tern. As discussed in a couple of previous posts recently, there are currently no confirmed records of Little Tern from Sudan, but it must now be pretty clear that these inland birds all relate to this species, while the Red Sea coastal birds are probably mostly Saunder's Tern. Also in the tern family, it was very nice to watch three African Skimmers that were also present. Migrant waders included single Little and Temminks Stints. Resident waders included Egyptian Plover, Spur-winged Lapwing and senegal Thick-knee.

African Skimmer, Blue Nile 70km south of Khartoum 28th April 2012

Whiskered, White-winged and Little Terns, 

Blue Nile 70km south of Khartoum 28th April 2012

Senegal Thick-knees, Blue Nile 70km south of Khartoum 28th April 2012

Pink-backed Pelicans, Blue Nile 70km south of Khartoum 28th April 2012

Some migrants at the KICS stables

I made my regular short trip to the riding stables yesterday, and while my son was riding I had a chance to check the birds by the Blue Nile. Most waterbirds had left, but there was still a single Little Stint and one Temmink's Stint remaining on the shore and single Whiskered and White-winged Terns feeding over the water. There have been some hirundines around for a while, but most noticeable today was a number of House Martins which is a species I see less often than the other migrant hirundines.

House Martin, KICS Stables 22 April 2012

Red-rumped Swallow, KICS Stables 22 April 2012

Wagtails are renowned for being early migrants, and by my last visit to Tuti Island it was noticeable that they had gone. I was therefore surprised to see at least 6 Yellow Wagtails still present on the grass at the stables, plus a White Wagtail by the river. There were several unidentifiable female birds and one obvious male of the feldeg form (Black-headed Wagtail). The most common form here in Sudan is beema (Sykes's Wagtail), but the ones in the photo below looked a little bit different to normal. They both had quite a long white supercilium and very little white on the ear coverts. Had it been a single bird I would have put it down to individual variation or hybridisation, but it was odd to see both birds appearing this way.

Yellow Wagtails, KICS Stables 22 April 2012

Wheatears have also mostly left by now, but there were still single Pied and Northern Wheatears present. There have been a lot of European Bee-eaters around the city recently, so it was no surprise to see a big group pass through today. There was also a flypast of a group of Wattled Starlings.

Spring migration at Sabaloka

Yesterday I visited Sabaloka with Eleanora, Juha, Terry and Stephen. There were few passerine migrants present, though we saw our first Spotted Flycatchers of the year. By contrast, non-passerines were undergoing visible migration north with small groups of Egrets, White Storks, Black-headed Herons, African Spoonbills, European Bee-eaters and Little Swifts, plus an individual Marsh Harrier, Steppe Buzzard and Abdim's Stork.

African Spoonbills, Sabaloka 20th April 2012 

Black-headed Herons, Sabaloka 20th April 2012

Cattle Egrets, Sabaloka 20th April 2012

Little Egret and Great Egrets, Sabaloka 20th April 2012

Little Swifts, Sabaloka 20th April 2012

White Stork, Sabaloka 20th April 2012

Whilst eating lunch this Little Weaver flew in and landed on a twig beside us. For all of us it was the first we have seen in Sudan (I have only seen them previously in South Sudan). Nikolaus shows the distribution extending north of here, so it was a bird I have been expecting to see for a while. I have quite often seen small weavers in non-breeding plumage that I have suspected were this species, but I have never been sure. I assume that they have only just moulted into breeding plumage and that I must have missed them this time last year.

Little Weaver, Sabaloka 20th April 2012

Ringing report by Chris and Esmat

Ringing on um Shugeira, March 2012 – Chris & Esmat

Between the 28^th March and 1^st April the two of us (Chris and Esmat) returned to um Shugeira Island in the Blue Nile in Khartoum for a second ringing expedition to follow up on our first in January. Water levels had dropped slightly since January but ringing conditions were much the same although there was less wind overall except for the first night when it was quite strong. In total 172 birds were ringed comprising 15 species. This gave us a grand total of 414 birds ringed for the season, a reasonable total but one that we can hope to improve upon next year. Now what we need is some recaptures from Europe!

Looking toward Omdurman from ringing camp

As before, we kept the nets open 24 hours a day and managed to catch and ring a reasonable number of waders. As before we were surrounded by Ringed Plover on the dried mud near where we were camped, and as before we were frustrated in our attempts to capture any. Again we failed in our attempts to capture any Black-tailed Godwit. In January Curlew Sandpiper had been common and we had ringed a number. This time only a handful was seen and none were captured but Little Stint remained common and a number were ringed.

Two species that were especially numerous were Ruff and Whiskered Terns. In January we ringed a number of Whiskered Terns but only a couple of Ruff. This time we ringed 123 Ruff but no terns at all!

The Ruff were almost all female, only 2 males were captured and ringed, and good proportion of those were first winter birds still with green to brownish green legs.

The sexes of the Ruff normally overwinter separately with the males tending to overwinter closer to Europe so that the further south you go on the African continent, the lower the proportion of males. In South Africa this may be as low as 1:12 to 1:15 males to females. However, this cannot explain the huge discrepancy here and this is more likely to result from males having returned to the breeding grounds to establish their lekking territories.

Pied Kingfisher, Um Shugeira

One interesting occurrence was the ringing of a Senegal Thick-knee. On the last morning I noticed two birds in the net nearest our camp and started toward them.  As I did so the one bird started struggling and in so doing stretched the net and bounced itself into the water. I ran to the net and was there within half a minute, but it appeared I was too late. The Thick-knee lay apparently dead in my hand, its neck flopping loosely. I thought this was surprising but I took it back to the camp and we decided to keep it as the department could stuff it and mount it in a display. We wrapped it in a plastic bag for safe-keeping. Sometime later we heard sounds of scratching and struggling from in the plastic bag. We opened it and found a very much alive Thick-knee. It seems to have been feigning death! We immediately ringed and released it. It flapped its wings a couple of times to check that all was in working order, and then stalked off in what we felt were rather disdainful looks in our direction.

The lone Willow Warbler was captured in entirely unsuitable habitat and it was presumably either migrating north or simply crossing over the Blue Nile from one side to the other.

Overall species richness was higher than in January with 58 species recorded during our stay compared with 33 species during last January. Also waterbirds abundance was higher this time with 5706 birds compared with 4576 last January.

Species	Number	Ringed
Spur-winged Lapwing	80	2
White-faced Whistling Duck	100
White-winged Tern	300
Caspian Tern	10
Whiskered Tern	300
Slender-billed Gull	2
Gull-billed Tern	5
Black-tailed Godwit	150
Ruff	800	123
Fulvous Whistling Duck	340
Common Ringed Plover	900
Little Stint	200	25
Temminck's Stint	100	3
Common Snipe	3	2
Greater Painted Snipe	4	2
Jack Snipe	2	2
Little Egret	3
Pink Backed Pelican	5
Sand Martin	200
Brown-throated Martin	??	3
Northern Shoveller	108
Northern Pintail	300
Pied Avocet	130
Black-winged Stilt	15
Grey Heron	100
Eurasian Spoonbill	13
Marsh Sandpiper	30	3
Wood Sandpiper	1	1
Green Sandpiper	1	1
Kittlitz’s Plover	5	1
Black-headed Gull	120
Great White Egret	2
Collared Pratincole	10
Common Greenshank	2
Openbill Stork	16
Long-tailed Cormorant	25
African Spoonbill	11
Curlew Sandpiper	2
Yellow Bill Stork	1
Greater Flamingo	13
Sacred Ibis	1
Garganey	950
Eurasian Widgeon	50
Lesser Black-backed Gull	4
Great White Pelican	21
Kentish Plover	1
Spur-winged Goose	47
Ethiopian Swallow	100
Pied King Fisher	3
Yellow Wagtail	30	2
White Wagtail	1
Pallid Swift	50
Palm Swift	20
Squacco Heron	3
Purple Heron	4
Senegal Thick-knee	1	1
Common Moorhen	7
Willow Warbler	1	1
Total:	5706	172