For the first time in more than seventy years, greater flamingos,
Phoenicopterus ruber, bred in Arabia in the summer of 1993, with
the formation of a small colony on a saline lake at Al Ghar, around
40 kms inland from the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi. The record was
the first ever on the mainland of the Arabian Peninsula, and the
first in the Gulf since one on the Kuwaiti island of Bubiyan,
in 1922.
Peter Hellyer, Managing Editor of Emirates News and a former chairman
of the Emirates Natural History Society, tells the story, exclusively
for readers of Arabian Wildlife.
The Al Ghar Lakes form annually after rainfall on a large area
of inland sabkha salt-flats, in an area that was, until early
1992, also fed by occasional discharge from a nearby sewage treatment-plant.
Depending upon the amount of winter rain, the lakes can cover
an area of several hectares in the middle of otherwise largely
barren dunes, and gradually reduce in size during the course of
the summer months, nearly disappearing in some autumns. The construction
of embankments across the sabkha in order to allow access to nearby
government facilities and the construction of a road has helped
in recent years to ensure that at least some of the water remains.
Greater flamingos have for many years been recorded wintering
in shallow lagoons and creeks along the UAE’s Arabian Gulf coast,
with numbers of up to 800 being seen in Khor Dubai, and lesser
numbers of a hundred or more at Ramtha, in Sharjah, Abu Dhabi
and the western island of Sir Bani Yas. Believed from occasional
recoveries of ringed adults and immatures to come from colonies
in northern Iran and the Caspian Sea, their numbers decline during
summer, although some birds have been recorded in all months of
the year.
The species was first seen in the Al Ghar Lakes in March 1990,
and, apart from a temporary disappearance caused by the virtual
drying up of the main lake in late 1992, varying numbers have
been seen throughout this period. Until the summer of 1993, however,
there had been no apparent attempt at breeding. At the beginning
of June, however, ornithologists from the Emirates Natural History
Group and the National Avian Research Centre noticed an incipient
colony of flamingos on a small island in one of the sabkha lakes,
which upon closer inspection, proved to contain several birds
sitting on eggs and others building nests.
Over the course of the next month, the size of the colony grew,
with up to 22 nest mounds being used by incubating birds, and
a total of nearly eighty mounds completed or being built. Although
non-breeding birds, which at one time totalled around 500, moved
away to another lake as water-levels fell around the breeding
island, connecting it with the rest of the ‘dry’ sabkha, the incubating
birds continued to sit, and the first two chicks were seen on
July 5th, confirming breeding.
Unfortunately a few days later, the colony was found deserted,
with only one dead chick and one abandoned egg being seen when
the site was closely inspected. The presence of human footprints
suggested that nest-robbing might have occurred, although the
falling water levels, coupled with the earlier move of non-breeding
birds to a deeper lake nearby prior to the colony’s desertion,
indicated that other factors may have contributed.
Initial investigations suggested that the birds may have been
feeding on midge larvae, common in the lakes, although brine shrimp
have been found in other UAE sabkha lakes, and may also have been
present at this one.
Ornithologists from the National Avian Research Centre suggested,
subsequent to the colony’s desertion, that the Al Ghar area could
be managed with relative ease to provide a permanent supply of
water in an attempt to encourage greater flamingos to nest again
during 1994, and plans are being drawn up with the UAE’s new Federal
Environmental Agency, to see whether the site can be given proper
protection and if it can be designated as a national park.
Besides flamingos the Al Ghar Lakes also hold substantial numbers
of breeding Kentish plovers (Charadrius alexandrinus), as well
as up to two hundred pairs of black-winged stilts (Himantopus
himantopus) the largest breeding site known anywhere in Arabia.
Nearby, the fodder fields at the Al Wathba Camel Track and a sewage
outlet stream, also attract large numbers of migrant waders and
passerines, including the UAE’s (and Arabia’s) first buff-bellied
pipit, Anthius japonicus.
Consideration is being given to management of the whole area as
one of the UAE’s prime birding sites.