Jordan, December 2018
As the year draws to a close, a little bit of birding last week has given me a couple of new species. Well ok maybe more than a little bit of birding and more than a couple of species
.
I took advantage of some cheap flights on budget airline Ryanair’s new direct Warsaw-Amman route to spend a week from the 21st-28th in Jordan! The birding was excellent and I did better than I would have anticipated, although the mammalwatching was rather poor. Overall extremely pleased with the trip though with some brilliant birds that I was really hoping for.
All these species are from the one week in Jordan with visits to: various sites around the Dead Sea, Dana Biosphere Reserve, Aqaba, Wadi Rum, Azraq Wetlands, and Shaumari Wildlife Reserve.
Totals for the trip: in 7 days of birding (22nd-28th inclusive)
Trip list: 117 bird species
Year list birds: 74
Lifers: 52
1072) White-spectacled Bulbul
1073) Red-rumped Swallow
1074) Spur-winged Lapwing
1075) Namaqua Dove
1076) Arabian Babbler
1077) Siberian Stonechat
1078) Dead Sea Sparrow
1079) Blackstart
1080) European Bee-eater
1081) Crested Lark
1082) Arabian Green Bee-eater
1083) Greater Hoopoe-lark
1084) Calandra Lark
1085) Long-billed Pipit
1086) Brown-necked Raven
1087) Tristram’s Starling
1088) Pale Crag Martin
1089) Fan-tailed Raven
1090) Arabian Warbler
1091) Sand Partridge
1092) Lanner Falcon
1093) Finsch’s Wheatear
1094) Southern Grey Shrike
Heard only:
Hume’s Owl
1095) Blue Rock-thrush
1096) Syrian Serin
1097) Chukar
1098) Eastern Mourning Wheatear
1099) Sinai Rosefinch
1100) Rock Sparrow
1101) Desert Wheatear
1102) Palestine Sunbird
1103) Scrub Warbler
1104) Graceful Prinia
1105) Bonelli’s Eagle
1106) Long-legged Buzzard
1107) Lichstenstein’s Sandgrouse
1108) Striolated Bunting
1109) Sardianian Warbler
1110) Hooded Wheatear
1111) Trumpeter Finch
1112) Pale Sparrow
1113) Rock Bunting
1114) White-eyed Gull
1115) Bluethroat
1116) Rufous-tailed Scrub-robin
1117) Slender-billed Gull
1118) Ferruginous Pochard
1119) Eurasian Crag Martin
1120) Alexandrine Parakeet
1121) Indian Silverbill
1122) Pallas’ Gull
1123) Armenian Gull
1124) Spotted Redshank
1125) Lesser Short-toed Lark
1126) Verreux’s Eagle
1126) White-crowned Wheatear
1127) Barbary Falcon
1128) Greater Flamingo
1129) Marbled Duck
1130) Northern Pintail
1131) Lesser White-fronted Goose
1132) Ruff
1133) Common Redshank
1134) Water Pipit
1135) Citrine Wagtail
1136) Steppe Buzzard
1137) Golden Eagle
1138) White-eared Bulbul
1139) Moustached Warbler
1140) Cetti’s Warbler
1141) Western Great Egret
1142) Thick-billed Lark
1143) Basalt Wheatear
1144) Steppe Eagle
1145) Pallid Harrier
197) Egyptian Fruit Bat
198) Golden Jackal
199) Lesser Egyptian Jerboa
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+ 2 more from a 22 sq. km. reserve where gazelles, oryx, bustard, and onager have been reintroduced. Initially I wasn't intending to count these but now I'm not sure because there are decent populations of them with the fence being to segregate an area where goats and camels are kept out to stop them overgrazing the vegetation and there's no supplementary feeding with monitoring rather than more active management (they do fill a couple of water holes at certain times of year though). I'm counting them for now but might remove them later.
200) Arabian Oryx
201) Onager
And now that’s me done for intercontinental birding trips for the year now, I promise!
I'm still in Jordan as I write this, but have finished with wildlife opportunities and am currently heading back to the airport to fly back to Poland this evening. So I expect this is it for the year. Quite a good year for wildlife I'd say.
