Oman Day 8 Crested Honey Buzzard at Saadah Park

After finding 2 Crested Honey Buzzard in Kuwait with Mashuq Ahmad over a week ago, I wasn't expecting to find this male Crested Honey Buzzard in a local park!

 Didn't really get out until gone 14.00 and stuck on the outskirts of Salalah but did first make a short drive up into the mountains. I was only there for an hour and of note I saw Blue Rock and Rock Thrush and good numbers of Arabian Wheatear and a single Pied Wheatear.

Pairs of Arabian Wheatear were regularly seen along the mountain road

Male Pied Wheatear

Isabelline Wheatear were all over the shop

  

Male Rock Thrush

Daurian Shrike below with a pair of Namaqua Dove giving you an idea of how small these doves really are. I've seen quite a few pairs of the latter species in most places I've visited.

Female Tristram's Grackle

  Returning back to the digs I thought I would take a look at a small Saadah Park on the NE of Salalah. My forth park I've visited in three days and this time it payed off! There are certain species that I've noticed that you always see in parks in Salalah. Shinning Sunbird, Desert Lesser Whitethroat, Glamorous Reed Warbler, Hoopoe, Skye's Wagtail and shrikes. All these species were in park except there was no species of any shrike. However, there were 10 Tree Pipit feeding with a male Grey-headed Wagtail, a single Wood Warbler moved through and there was a single Scaly-breasted Munia. I cheeked all the pipits and couldn't turn one into a OBP. Before I even saw all these species, I flushed a large raptor very briefly out of the tall trees but couldn't get anythin on it, except that it was a buzzard or small eagle. It landed at the south end of the park and I just caught it again go behind the trees and glimpsed it as it flew off out of the park. That was enough to tell me that it was a Crested Honey Buzzard!! Very good but I only saw it for a few seconds in flight. I returned to the north of the park and flushed the bloody thing at close range again but this time I saw where it had landed and was able to identify it as a male. I crept up to him until he was just above me and he turned out be very tolerant of my presence. However, two loud gardeners came along and he flew off back to the south end of the park. I spent a good half an hour with him and also observed 2 Booted and a single Eastern Imperial Eagle overhead.

This is only my firth Crested Honey Buzzard that I've seen but by far this male was top notch out of all of them!

He was always keeping a close watch on me

Wood Warbler

Male Grey-headed Wagtail

Up to 10 Tree Pipit were in the park

2 dark phase Booted Eagle flew over the park

Remember that time when 'Akala' pulled that racists, if you didn't know, funded by the Israelis, Tommy Robinson apart on live TV. From one amazing talented great British rapper, Riz MC that I put on my blog yesterday, to another, 'Akala' 

This song is from his third album Doublethink was released in 2010, and holds a strong theme of George Orwell's popular novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Doublethink contained tracks such as "Find No Enemy" and "Yours and My Children" He chose the stagename Akala, a Buddhist term for "Immovable",^[5] and started releasing music in 2003 from his own independent music label, Illa State Records. He released his first mixtape, entitled The War Mixtape, in 2004. Kingslee James McLean Daley (born 1 December 1983), better known by the stage name Akala, is a British rapper, journalist, author, poet, and political activist.

Originally from Kentish Town, London he is the younger brother of rapper/vocalist Ms. Dynamite. In 2006, he was voted the Best Hip Hop Act at the MOBO Awards.^[1] He was awarded an honourary doctorate by the University of Brighton in 2018.