Wild Images, a division of Birdquest, specializes in wildlife photographic tours worldwide. Wild Images' exciting programme of tours includes both group and individual departures, and features such destinations as Hungary, Spitsbergen, Tanzania (Serengeti & Ngorongoro), India, Japan, Baja California, the Galapagos, Antarctica, South Georgia & The Falklands and the Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand & Australia. Click on the picture above to visit the Wild Images website.
Ocean Adventures, a division of Birdquest, specializes in wildlife-orientated expedition cruises all over the world. As well as our Birdquest/Ocean Adventures group trips, there are many cruises available for individual bookings. These feature Spitsbergen, Greenland, Iceland, the Scottish Islands, Siberia (including the Kurils, Commanders, Kamchatka, Chukotka and the Bering Strait), Antarctica, South Georgia, the Falklands, the South Atlantic Islands, the Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand & Australia, the Western Pacific and many other venues. Click on the picture above to visit the Ocean Adventures website.
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OMAN & BAHRAIN
Friday 26th October - Sunday 11th November 2007
Mike Watson
Our fourth tour of Oman and Bahrain was another great success with a new record total of 253 species seen, plus another two heard. The tally included 56 Birdquest ‘diamond’ species, exactly the same as the last two years and a reflection of the high proportion of the region’s specialities we see on this tour. Highlights included: spectacular encounters with numerous Jouanin’s Petrels and Persian Shearwaters at sea; the sought-after Red-billed Tropicbird; Masked Booby; Socotra Cormorant; over 50 screaming Sooty Falcons; Barbary Falcon; Lanner; both Arabian and Sand Partridges; Spotted, Little and Baillon’s Crakes (all three species on the same day!); the ever-elusive Macqueen’s Bustard in a remote desert wadi; over 1200 Crab-plovers (including one roosting flock of over 900); elegant White-tailed (one) and Sociable (three) Lapwings; Great Knot (11); plenty of close views of Broad-billed Sandpipers; a lone Jack Snipe; thousands of Sooty Gulls; White-cheeked and Saunders’s Terns; Lichtenstein’s and Spotted Sandgrouse; Common Wood (of the Central Asian form casiotis) and Bruce’s Green Pigeons; African Scops and Hume’s Owls; superb views of Egyptian Nightjar on the ground; the little-known ‘Dhofar’ Swift; Greater Hoopoe and Dunn’s Larks; Sykes’s and Masked Wagtails; Grey Hypocolius (in both Oman and Bahrain); Blackstart; Rufous-tailed, Variable, Mourning, Arabian and Hume’s Wheatears; the perky Scrub Warbler; Sykes’s, Ménétries’s, Asian Desert and Arabian Warblers; Desert Whitethroat; Arabian Babbler; both Shining and Palestine Sunbirds; Steppe Grey Shrike; bat-like Fan-tailed Ravens; Tristram’s Starlings; Rüppell’s Weavers; the localised Yemen Serin and Striolated Bunting. We also recorded an extraordinary number of migrants, especially in the south of Oman, which included some genuine Middle-Eastern rarities such as Pectoral Sandpiper, Oriental Skylark, Olive-backed Pipit, Yellow-browed Warbler and an amazing total of three Forest Wagtails. Other interesting transients included Abdim’s Stork (eight), White-breasted Waterhen, Pied Cuckoo (four) as well as wanderers from Central Asia including Black-winged Pratincole and Oriental Turtle Dove (two of each). Our totals of 22 species of raptor, 45 species of shorebird, eight species of wheatear and 20 species of warbler give an indication of the stunning variety of this tour, which seem to get better every time we operate it.
The air holidays shown are ATOL Protected by the Civil Aviation Authority. Our ATOL number is ATOL 2937.
ATOL protection covers those booking a tour with us that includes a flight from London or elsewhere in the United Kingdom, regardless of where in the world you live.
Birdquest Ltd is Registered in England, Company No. 01568270. The address of our registered office is Two Jays, Kemple End, Stonyhurst, Clitheroe, Lancashire BB7 9QY
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