Birding Sudan: December 2014

Tuesday, 16 December 2014

December visit to Bahri

Marwa and I were at Bahri Sewage Pools again last weekend. We caught lots of Northern Masked Weavers and Sedge Warblers, plus a few Reed Warblers and other birds. The weavers had all moulted out of breeding plumage and were in bright, fresh non-breeding plumage. A few juveniles were still in the final stages of wing and tail moult.

Freshly moulted Northern Masked Weaver, Bahri Sewage pools 12th December 2014

Little Bee-eater, Bahri Sewage pools 12th December 2014

There were a few other good birds around including four Southern Pochards, a couple of Tufted Ducks, four White-tailed Plovers, some Glossy Ibises, and three Eurasian Coots. A Little Swift was our first at the site.

Southern Pochards and Tufted Ducks, Bahri Sewage pools 12th December 2014

Netting in Sennar

This is a slightly late report of a trip to Sennar on 28th and 29th November. My main aim was to check on the Cinnamon Weaver population there and to try and catch some. The breeding season was clearly over and none of the males were in breeding plumage. Birds were in small to medium sized groups and flying around between the tops of the acacia bushes and were generally quite hard to catch. I caught only 5 birds, all of which were juveniles and 4 of which were undergoing primary moult. I caught a few other good birds, though nothing I haven't caught there before. There were particularly big numbers of Red-billed Queleas around, which limited how many nets I could put up, as I spent most of my time trying to extract them from the nets. I have seen them here before, but never in such big numbers, and this is the first time I have experienced how big a pest they can be.