How many different types of birds occur in the UAE? The answer might surprise you
Many people who are asked that question guess 30, perhaps 50. If you answered 80 or 90, that would be the correct answer to a different question: how many species of birds breed in the UAE each year?
The number of species ever recorded, however, is over 450, and well over 300 occur annually. The majority of birds occurring here visit to either spend the winter (an obvious thing to do, given our pleasant weather compared to conditions in central Asia or Siberia, where those birds breed) or transit the UAE, pausing for just a few days on journeys that span the globe.
Such movements stretch one’s incredulity with regard to what a ball of feathers, muscle and hot blood weighing the equivalent to a small chocolate bar can accomplish, to breaking point.
Bird migration has astonished and enthralled people for centuries and early theories to explain it seem pretty crazy now. Those include the belief that Barn Swallows, common in summer across Europe, vanished by hibernating all winter in mud in the bottom of ponds, or that Redstarts, a summer visitor to Greek woodlands every October, changed into Robins, a completely different species and winter visitor.
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However, such ideas are not much more incredible than the actual feats of endurance and navigation are undertaken twice yearly by billions of migrant birds. The entire Middle East is the ultimate intercontinental steppingstone and a superlative place to witness bird migration.
It links the vast landscapes of Asia and Europe (full of food in summer, perfect for raising a family) with warm, wet tropical Africa (full of food in winter). Harsh, unforgiving landscapes mean that many migrant birds, tired and dehydrated after flying hundreds of kilometres in spring through the Empty Quarter have no choice but to stop for shade, rest and refuelling once they reach the Arabian Gulf coastline.
Golf courses, farms, city parks and even the smallest gardens can all provide welcome relief for weary travellers, as vital as service stations are on long car journeys. And, as at a service station, the stopover is short before the journey resumes.
Bird migration is a lot less obvious in eastern Arabia than along the Red Sea, where large numbers of large soaring birds, raptors and storks concentrate. Such species are reliant on rising thermals of warm air, so they migrate during the day and avoid sea-crossings such as the Arabian Gulf.
Instead, the vast majority of our UAE migrants are active flyers which, to stay cool and avoid dehydration (generally a bigger problem than starvation), migrate unseen at night and over a much broader front.
The species involved are mainly small songbirds, including multiple species of warblers, redstarts, nightingales and wheatears. They move silently and singly, forced onwards by genes honed by millions of years of natural selection. They sense day length (and hence seasons) via photoreceptors in their brains and navigation, in as much as we understand it, involves a combination of magnetoreception and deducing direction from the position of the sun and stars (yes, both of which rotate – but birds factor that in!).
Numbers of migrant birds, even in a small area, can be immense; a study carried out using radar technology to scan the night skies of western Arabia estimated that nocturnal migrants passed at a rate of over four million individuals per night across a transect of 100km.
Numbers traversing UAE airspace are lower but still overwhelming. After dawn, rising temperatures force birds to descend and land, where they spend the day feeding and resting, many departing again soon after sunset.
The majority of migrants passing through the UAE have spent the winter in East Africa, but some travel from as far as South Africa; depending on species, they are bound for destinations ranging from anywhere between western Europe, the Siberian tundra, China and even, in the case of some individuals of the Northern Wheatear, Alaska.
So, when you are next in the local park during spring, try to look past the local sparrows, mynas and parakeets. The warbler hiding in the flowerbed or the wheatear hopping on the lawn has a much more interesting story to tell.
LOCAL EXAMPLES
Marsh Warbler
Most of the world’s population, breeding from central Asia to Europe, pass through eastern Arabia every May, when they are abundant in city parks in Abu Dhabi. Almost none occur here in autumn; instead they vanish from their breeding grounds, to suddenly arrive in Sudan and Ethiopia in August.
From there they vanish again, following the rains to arrive in southern Africa where they stay from December to April. After that, the next stop is eastern Arabia again.
Northern Wheatear
These perky little birds breed from Greenland and Europe across Asia to Alaska, but spend the winter in East Africa. They are not hard to find on lawns and grassland in the UAE in April, and that very bird could be Alaskan-bound. That’s a one-way journey of 15,000km, travelled at about 290 km per day
Black-headed Bunting
Not all birds migrate from south to north and back. A handful of species migrating through the UAE, such as the Black-headed Bunting, cross the country on an east-west axis, breeding in Turkey and wintering in India
Amazing Facts
It is thought that four to five billion birds migrate from Europe and Asia to Africa every autumn. The number in spring is about 40 per cent lower, due to mortality on the wintering grounds.
Perhaps the most amazing migration in the world is completed by Bar-tailed Godwits, a 400g shorebird that leaves Alaska every September aiming for New Zealand, taking up to 13 days of non-stop flight over open ocean to cover 12,000km.
Given that New Zealand is a mere pin-prick in the Pacific Ocean, that’s an amazing feat of precision navigation, never mind endurance. In spring, going north, the same birds take it easy – they hop from New Zealand to Australia, then China before reaching Alaska – a distance of 18,000 km.
The greatest long-distance traveller of all is the Artic Tern, which migrates from western Europe to Antarctica, via New Zealand. The one-way distance is 35,000km, adding up to 70,000km per year. For a bird that lives 30 years this equates to three trips to the moon and back
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