I was flying to India with my son and his partner, the main purpose of which was to meet her family. We were flying with Kuwait airlines, and about a week before we flew we were told that our two hour wait in Kuwait had now been extended to 19 hours! Not to worry though, under Kuwait law, the airline must provide us with a hotel for free, with complementary meals. I immediately spotted an opportunity to do some birding in Kuwait and see a few really special species.
Sounds good except that once in the free hotel you're not allowed to leave it until two hours before your outbound flight because the hotel is still within the airport security zone. So no chance of a few hours touring Kuwait if you take that option. I decided to decline the free hotel and booked the Holiday Inn just outside the airport at my own expense. No problem leaving the airport, I simply went to immigration when I got off the plane and they took my details and gave me a visa. It took about 10 minutes including queueing, and the hotel sent a driver to pick me up.
The next day my flight was at 17:00 and with my hold luggage still somewhere within the depths of the airport waiting to be tranferred to my next flight, I only had hand luggage with me, so no need to check in and no need to be back at the airport until 15:00. So at 06:30 I was picked up at the hotel by a local birding guide, AbdulRahman, and he took me birding for the eight hours or so that I had available. In total we saw 67 species of which 14 were new to me. A trip report from India is under the India thread on this forum.
The main species that I wanted to see was crab plover and we managed to find a flock of 31 birds on the beach at Sulaibikhat Sports Club. It was an amazing eight hours, with four species of wheatear, three species of eagle, hypocolious, namanqua doves, pied kingfishers and many other great birds.
I was flying to India with my son and his partner, the main purpose of which was to meet her family. We were flying with Kuwait airlines, and about a week before we flew we were told that our two hour wait in Kuwait had now been extended to 19 hours! Not to worry though, under Kuwait law, the airline must provide us with a hotel for free, with complementary meals. I immediately spotted an opportunity to do some birding in Kuwait and see a few really special species.
Sounds good except that once in the free hotel you're not allowed to leave it until two hours before your outbound flight because the hotel is still within the airport security zone. So no chance of a few hours touring Kuwait if you take that option. I decided to decline the free hotel and booked the Holiday Inn just outside the airport at my own expense. No problem leaving the airport, I simply went to immigration when I got off the plane and they took my details and gave me a visa. It took about 10 minutes including queueing, and the hotel sent a driver to pick me up.
The next day my flight was at 17:00 and with my hold luggage still somewhere within the depths of the airport waiting to be tranferred to my next flight, I only had hand luggage with me, so no need to check in and no need to be back at the airport until 15:00. So at 06:30 I was picked up at the hotel by a local birding guide, AbdulRahman, and he took me birding for the eight hours or so that I had available. In total we saw 67 species of which 14 were new to me. A trip report from India is under the India thread on this forum.
The main species that I wanted to see was crab plover and we managed to find a flock of 31 birds on the beach at Sulaibikhat Sports Club. It was an amazing eight hours, with four species of wheatear, three species of eagle, hypocolious, namanqua doves, pied kingfishers and many other great birds.
1 Bar-tailed godwit
2 Black Kite
3 Black-crowned Night Heron
4 Black-headed Gull
5 Black-winged Kite
6 Caspian gull
7 Caspian Stonechat
8 Caspian Tern
9 Chiffchaff
10 Collared Dove
11 Common Myna
12 Coot
13 Crab Plover
14 Crested Lark
15 Curlew
16 Daurian Shrike
17 Desert Wheatear
18 Dunlin
19 Ferruginous Duck
20 Finsch's Wheatear
21 Gadwall
22 Greater Flamingo
23 Greater Sand Plover
24 Greater Spotted Eagle
25 Green Sandpiper
26 Grey Heron
27 Grey Plover
28 Grey-headed Swamphen
29 Gull-billed Tern
30 Heuglin's Gull
31 House Crow
32 House Sparrow
33 Hypocolius
34 Imperial Eagle
35 Isabelline Wheatear
36 Kentish Plover
37 Laughing Dove
38 Little Egret
39 Little grebe
40 Little Stint
41 Long-tailed Duck
42 Marsh Harrier
43 Moorhen
44 Namaqua Dove
45 Pallid Harrier
46 Pallid Swift
47 Persian Wheatear
48 Pied Kingfisher
49 Pochard
50 Redshank
51 Red-wattled Lapwing
52 Ringed Plover
53 Shoveler
54 Slender-billed Gull
55 Snipe
56 Steppe Eagle
57 Steppe Grey Shrike
58 Steppe Gull
59 Swallow
60 Teal
61 Terek Sandpiper
62 Water Pipit
63 Western Reef Egret
64 White Wagtail
65 White-cheeked bulbul
66 White-tailed Plover
67 White-throated Kingfisher