East Coast with the Twitchers

Another relatively full weekend here in Dubai.

Thursday night out to the nearby Westin Hotel for a buffet dinner and some nice red wine. The buffet there is quite extensive featuring sushi, chinese appetisers, roast, Indian, noodles, pretty well anything and everything. We went there to farewell someone who was flying out that night but ended up not making the plane due to traffic (at 1 am in the morning due to roadworks!).  Just as well too, she later found out that she should have cancelled her trip anyway!

Quiet Friday morning at home including a lovely long call home and then I headed out to the East Coast for some birding. Went to the Dairy Farm first at Dibba where there was a nice patch of waders including my first satellite male Ruff. Ruffs are really interesting with most males creating territories where they display to entice the female. Also present are different looking males (with white heads rather than brown) whose presence increases the chance of successful mating by the territorial male. These males are signficantly larger than the females. Recently discovered are other males who are similar to the females. After the Farm, headed down the coast to Fujeirah for some seabird watching. Got there too late due to traffic on the way and the distance was further than I thought. But I did get there in time to meet some other birders on the beach who were somewhat more professional than me. They had wonderful telescopes, extra magnification lenses, tripods, chairs and eskies full of cold water. One of them spotted a Lesser Noddy out on a buoy hundreds of metres offshore. Through my scope, it was a little speck; through their scope it was a bigger dark speck! But good to meet some twitchers again at last!

Saturday was an easy morning before heading into work to get some fiiles off my USB stick (my laptop’s USB is not working – long story), before heading out to catch up with friends at a nearby coffee shop, and then heading into the Nezesaussi Bar at Al Manzil for the latest Tri Nations game. The venue was filled with SAFAs whose team failed to score. Hopefully, they will have the same result next week against the Aussies!