Little Owl, Wadi ‘Mac’, Al Hajar Mountains.
this and India, and the merchants take hence great numbers of Arab horses to that market, making great profits thereby’. He also noted ‘[the ships] have no iron fastenings and are only stitched together with twine made from the husk of the Indian nut [coconut]’. Realising the imminent threat to his country posed by its warlike communist neighbour, The Peoples Republic of South Yemen, the young (Sandhurst-educated) Qaboos, heavily supported by the British, deposed his father and took control, just as his father had done before him in 1930. The old Sultan spent the remainder of his life in exile as a resident of the Dorchester Hotel in London. Over the next four decades Qaboos has developed his country using its abundant oil and gas reserves and he is responsible for, amongst other things, creating a network of 11,000 km of paved roads. Part of his plan is to develop a knowledge and service economy, which will endure the depletion of Oman’s fossil fuels. Sadly he has not enjoyed good health in recent years and apparently the mood of the National Day celebrations was a little subdued in this knowledge, although reassuringly, he did speak to the nation this year. Without an heir, the sultan has apparently chosen his successor and everyone hopes for a smooth transition when the time eventually comes.
As usual, meanwhile back to 2016 and our hit list. Having breakfast at our hotel next to Muscat’s international Airport we couldn’t help but notice the Indian Subcontinent bird species leaving their roost in the bushes of the car park, Common Mynas, White-spectacled Bulbuls, Purple Sunbirds and Indian Silverbills. The avifauna of Oman’s northern Batinah coast is distinctly Oriental in origin and, for this reason, some authors have proposed not to include this part of the country in a redrawn Western Palearctic. However, we favour including the whole of the Arabian Peninsula for the sake of simplicity, there will always be a degree of overlap. The main focus of this custom tour was Omani Owl and we had already shown it on three consecutive tours, the first birding tour operator to do so but as time goes by no one wants to become the first to miss it! As you now know, we did see it again making it four out of four attempts but this time it was far from easy. Since we last visited Wadi ‘Mac’ in October 2015 (coined by the Sound Approach after Johnny ‘Mac’ McLoughlin, who first heard the owl here in 2014) there had been no news of anyone trying for the owl, although by now quite a few folks know its whereabouts. Although I’ve now seen Omani Owl nine times there is still so much to discover about the best way to set eyes on it. We think they quickly become wary of playback, which might explain the lack of success for many visiting the ‘type locality’
5 BirdQuest Tour Report: Oman (Custom Tour) 2016 www.birdquest-tours.com