I have finally waded through the pictures from Oman. Here are a few more pictures, and there are many more on my OneDrive, on my Oman 2023 page.
Into the desert
The hunt for the Omani Owl turned into something of an epic, involving a post-midnight finish, followed by a 0130 start the following day. We didn’t see it, but we did hear it.
After we left the plateau we had a long drive down to the coast for a night to see some waders, including about 1000 Crab Plovers. Our efforts were hampered by taking an hour to remove two of our cars from the deep mud they had gone into. This was followed by a very long drive into the desert, which is largely flat, barren, featureless sand and grit, but we did see some impressive dune systems. A long day ended with us going out to a local oasis for some Nightjars, with amazing results. We had ultra-close views of European and Egyptian Nightjars.
This morning a return to the same oasis found classic desert birds, such as Greater Hoopoe Lark and Cream-coloured Courser, both of which dash around on the ground like mad.