Trip report UAE: 14 February to 4 March 2000

General remarks

We do not think necessary to give a long introduction. Just a few things that happened to us. Travelling by car is easy and comfortable in the UAE. You will certainly learn to drive through roundabouts as every little road or even track has got its own... Most of the nights were spent outside. Wild camping is allowed in the UAE and normally no problem. One night we spent near Al Wathba lake. The area is fenced-off for its protection. Of course we didn't climb in, but even sleeping outside seemed to be a problem. In the middle of the night we were asked to leave and shown another place 500m further up by a policeman. As he spoke only Arabic, we still don't know, what we've done wrong. Anyway he was calm and very friendly. As to finding our target species, we had a major problem: Plain Leaf Warbler. According to what we understood from the drawing and the text in Hollom et al. (1988) we were looking for a warbler similar to Bonelli's: slightly greenish upperparts, pale underparts, open-faced expression, somewhat smaller. This is totally wrong: Plain Leaf Warbler is most similar to Chiffchaff: rather dark brown, hardly any green in plumage, prominent dark eye stripe, also on lores. We only found out about this, when we had Plain Leaf Warblers singing at Masafi, and the song is totally different from Chiffchaff's. We think that some warblers we had seen on our first visit in the Hanging Gardens were Plain Leafs as well, but we cannot be sure about this. This is one of several reasons, why you should have the 1996 edition of Hollom et al.

Other areas

Umm Hisin (in the south of Abu Dhabi Emirate)

We decided to go to Umm Hisin for two reasons: First because we thought it might be good for migrating birds, because they might land on the first occasion where there is shelter and water after having crossed the desert. This is the case in Liwa oasis, on the western edge of which Umm Hisin is situated. And second there should be the possibility of finding Sandgrouse which come to drink at the edge of the oasis. Perhaps species that are rare in the UAE like Spotted Sandgrouse could occur, because Umm Hisin is closer to the middle of the Arabian desert. We were there before migration had really started, but the observation of three Namaqua Doves is a hint, that Umm Hisin could really be good for falls of migrants - try yourself! As to Sandgrouse we have only seen a distant flock of probable Chestnut-bellied but not certainly identified Sandgrouse. There is one main road in Liwa Oasis, which is easily driveable. As soon as you turn off onto a side road it will get more difficult and often it will become a very sandy track driveable only with a 4WD.

The puplic garden of Madinat Zayed (70km north of Liwa Oasis)

From Liwa Oasis in the south to Madinat Zayed in the north there are large irrigated fields and plantations along the road. Almost all of them are fenced-off and we therefore tried the public garden of Madinat Zayed, which is indicated from the main road. In the public garden there are several lawns, most of them shaded by trees. The numbers of Tawny Pipits and White Wagtails were very impressive. Was this already migration? It seems they were too numerous to have all overwintered here. A real fall out then!?

Ash Sham

At Sham, two major migration routes of the UAE come together: the Gulf coast and the western edge of the Hajar mountains. Raptors as well as songbirds and others should be concentrated here at migration times. We had some evidence that this is actually true, like a Marsh Harrier and a Sparrowhawk migrating through or an obliging flock of about fourty Pale Rock Sparrows, but on the other hand, this is not much more than we saw in other places… There certainly is some concentration of migrators, but is it strong?

Itinerary

We arrived in the UAE on 14 February 2000. After arriving the very first thing to do is to pick up your visa at the counter on the airport. But our visa were not there and we waited the whole Monday for them! If you plan a trip to the UAE ask for your visa as early as possiple and even then you may have proplems since the officials are very keen on having a valid visa. But besides this people (even policemen) are very kind and ready to help. Normally your hotel gets hold of the visa, but for this you must reserve a room for every night in advance. Doing so it is very easy. But if you want to be free and plan your trip spontaneously you neeed a sponsor who is responsible for you and who will organize the visa and the hotels for you. Without a hotel or another sponsor you will never receive a visa. Our sponsor was: ZAS Emirates, P.O. Box: 1969, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, Fax: +971 6 5597755 Besides the story with the visa at the beginning they did a very good job. We phoned them when we needed a hotel and they reserved a place. The good thing was that they always made a very good prize which was much lower than the normal prize. The only problem is that you should make very clear that you do not need a hotel for each night or that you want to decide spontaneously. If they accept this they can be very helpful.

Literature

1. Grimmitt, Inskipp, Inskipp: Birds of the Indian Subcontinent, 1998
2. Forsman D.: The Raptors of Europe and Middle East. Poyser, London, 1999
3. Harris, Shirihai, Christie, The Macmillan Birder's Guide to European and Middle Eastern Birds. Macmillan, 1996
4. Hollom, Porter, Christensen, Birds of the Middle East and North Africa,1988 (It would have been wise to purchase the much better 1996 edition)
5. Richardson C., S. Aspinall, The Birds of the United Arab Emirates
6. Svensson, Grant, Mullarney, Zetterström, Der neue Kosmos Vogelführer. Kosmos, 1999 (=German version of the Collins Guide by the same authors)