UNITED ARAB EMIRATES FEBRUARY 2005 TOUR NEWS Leader: Vaughan Ashby

Birdfinders first United Arab Emirates tours was an outstanding success with a total of 186 seen during the week. Numerous special birds were seen as we covered all the major birding sites in the country with excitement from the very first morning when Spotted Eagle was seen to the last evening with two delightful Striated Scops-owls performing under the lights of the administration centre of Mushrif Park.

Some of the other most outstanding birds seen included 100s of Persian Shearwaters, Brown Booby (11th record for the UAE), Socotra Cormorant, Indian Pond-heron, Sand Partridge, Grey Francolin, Crab Plover (bird of the trip for most), Red-wattled, Sociable and White-tailed Lapwings, Pintail Snipe, Sooty Gull, Caspian, Heuglin's and Steppe Gulls of the "Yellow-legged" Gull complex, Lesser Crested, Saunders's, Swift and White-cheeked Terns, Chestnut-bellied and Lichtenstein's Sandgrouse, Namaqua Dove, Egyptian Nightjar, White-collared Kingfisher, Blue-cheeked Bee-eater, Indian Roller, Black-crowned Finch-lark, Desert, Greater Hoopoe and Bimaculated Larks, Pale Crag-martin, Blyth's, Buff-bellied and Long-billed Pipits, Red-tailed (Persian) and Hume's Wheatears, Clamorous Reed, Sykes's, Ménétries', Asian Desert, Eastern Orphean and Plain Leaf Warblers, Trumpeter Finch and House Bunting. All these in perfect birding weather with warm daytime temperatures and no rain!