Oman Day 12 Salalah Big Mistakes!

Glossy Ibis are all over the shop in the wetland areas of Salalah

    My last day was mostly spent, of all  places, in a garage! After seeing 70+Pacific Plover, Lesser Sandplover and Intermediate Egret in the dunes near Raysut, I made the short drive along the beach to Khawr Awqad. Here the 5 Cotton Pygmy Geese were still present with the 7 Tufted Duck. I made my last visit to Raysut Sewage works and it was basically the same species that I observed here before except there more Wood Sandpiper, Whiskered Tern and Ruff. 

There were up to over 70 Pacific Golden Plover in the dunes

With smaller numbers of Lesser Sandplover

Intermediate Heron

An oiled Greater Flamingo

Up to 5 Cotton Pygmy Geese were at Khawr Awqad

 

Pheasant-tailed Jacana

 

Black-winged stilt

 As I was dropping the hired car off tomorrow, nearby is the Raysut Industrial Estate and I thought I better give it a clean to make it look shiny and new. So I took it to a garage. Big mistake!! The car came out from the carwash and as I went towards the car to get in and drive away, I put my hands on my head and shouted 'OH NO!!!'
  The paint had come off below the door on each side from the powerwash. I pointed it out to the manage, whose English was very good, better than mine, and after some discussion he agreed to pay for it to be resprayed. Ok, that's good but my intention was to continue in the field. Anyways, one of the workers took me to one of the network of 100s of auto garages lined up on the estate. Here he left me there and I got to know the mechanics as I had a two hour wait. All five of them were from Bangladesh, all wore sandals and one them, Rash, asked me if I would like some water? That would be great and he got on his rusty old bike and peddled down road in his sandals. If that racist Tommy Robson was in Oman, well the Salalah area any hows, he wouldn't know which way to turn because most folks here are either from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh and the locals have no problem with that and why should they? Rash came back with my bottle of water and wouldn't take anythin for it. It was so hot it was gone in seconds and I didn't have one swig of it. He took the whole lot!. Then they sat down and started having their dinner. I found my hands back on my head and moaned as I wanted them to get started on the car and not on their dinner. They offered me to sit down with them and passed me over whatever they were eating. Oh, Ok, that's different and I got it down my neck. Second big mistake!! 'I got up in a flash shouting 'Water! Water! Quick!' but Rash had drunk it all. My head was just about to explode from how hot the bloody homemade samosas was that I had only took a bite out of. I saw that bike and was gone down the road but I had no idea where I was goin as I didn't know where the shop was where Rash got the water from earlier. It didn't matter because a pendle came off and as I was standing up at the time trying to get some speed and I found myself losing control of the bike and came to a holt! I was still trying to breathe when I returned to the garage without any water. Rash got up and went in the back and passed me over a bottle of water.
  Anyways, they did a great job and two hours later I was back on the road towards Ayn Hamran again. I only had a hour or so and of note I did get the male Turkestan Shrike and a single Long-legged Buzzard and 2 Bonelli's Eagle.

A pair of Bonelli's Eagle and Long-legged Buzzard were overhead

Female African Paradise Flycatcher

The dragonflies are amazing!

Locust sp?

And these snails were tasking advantage of the hot sun on a stump! 

Salalah in the distance

 

Beautiful part of the world but man, they've got some strange animals!