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Kingdom of Bahrain

Cream-coloured Courser Cursorius cursor ©Dubi Shapiro Website

The Kingdom of Bahrain is an island country in the Persian Gulf. Saudi Arabia lies to the west and is connected to Bahrain by the King Fahd Causeway, which officially opened on 25 November 1986. Qatar is to the south across the Gulf of Bahrain. The planned Qatar–Bahrain Friendship Bridge will link Bahrain to Qatar as the longest fixed link in the world. The capital and largest habitation is Manama with a population of c.200,000 people. Bahrain is a generally flat and arid archipelago, consisting of a low desert plain rising gently to a low central escarpment, in the Persian Gulf, east of Saudi Arabia. Bahrain had a total area of 665 km2 (257 square miles), which is slightly larger than the Isle of Man, although land reclamation has now increased its size to 780 km². It has a population of around 1.5 million people.

As an archipelago of thirty-three islands, Bahrain does not share a land boundary with another country but does have a 161 km (100 mile) coastline and claims a further 22 km of territorial sea and a 24 km contiguous zone. Bahrain’s largest islands are: Bahrain Island, Muharraq Island, Umm an Nasan, and Sitra. However, land reclamation means that there are now 84 islands! Bahrain has mild winters and very hot, humid summers.

Bahrain’s natural resources include large quantities of oil and natural gas as well as fish stocks. Arable land constitutes less than 3% of the total area. Desert constitutes 92% of Bahrain, and periodic droughts and dust storms are the main natural hazards for Bahrainis. Environmental issues facing Bahrain include desertification resulting from the degradation of limited arable land, coastal degradation (damage to coastlines, coral reefs, and sea vegetation) resulting from oil spills and other discharges from large tankers, oil refineries, distribution stations, and illegal land reclamation at places such as Tubli Bay. The agricultural and domestic sectors’ overutilisation of the Dammam Aquifer, the principal aquifer in Bahrain, has led to its salinisation by adjacent brackish and saline water bodies.

Manama – ©Wadiia, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The highest point is the 122 m (400 ft) Jabal ad Dukhan. The Zagros hills in Iraq cause low level winds to be directed to the Bahrain Island and create a pressure pattern. The dust bowls from Iraq and Saudi Arabia make fine dust particles easily transported by northwesterly winds which cause visibility reductions in the months of June and July. The summer is very hot since the Gulf waters provide low levels of moisture supply. Seas around Bahrain are very shallow, heat up quickly in the summer, and produce high humidity, especially in the summer nights. In those periods, summer temperatures may reach about 35 °C. Rainfall in Bahrain is minimal and irregular. Most rainfalls occur in the winter season, with a recorded maximum of 7.1 cm.

Birding Bahrain

Only 18 species of mammals are found in Bahrain, such as Desert Rabbits but its national mammal, Arabian Oryx was hunted to extinction. There are 25 species of amphibians and reptiles and 21 butterflies with over 300 flowering plants. Patchy coral reefs, islets and marine grass beds make the local waters good breeding grounds for fish and crustaceans and dugongs, dolphins and all marine turtles are protected in Bahrainian waters.

400 year-old ‘Tree of Life’ at Jabal ad Dukhan – ©Jpfrench, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

More than 350 species of birds have been recorded in the Bahrain archipelago, 26 species of which breed in the country. However, man millions of migratory birds pass through the Persian Gulf region in the winter and autumn months. The globally endangered Houbara Bustard Chlamydotis undulata being among them.

The many islands and shallow seas of Bahrain are globally important for breeding of Socotra Cormorant Phalacrocorax nigrogularis with up to 100,000 pairs recorded over Hawar Islands which is a protected area, providing feeding and nesting grounds for a variety of sea birds. Other protected areas include Mashtan Island, Arad Bay in Muharraq, Tubli Bay, and Al Areen Wildlife Park which is a zoo for breeding endangered animals; where there is a colony of Greater Flamingos Phoenicopterus roseus.

Contributors
Number of Species

  • Number of bird species: 359

    (As at July 2024)

    National Bird: White-cheeked (White-eared) Bulbul Pycnonotus leucotis

Checklist

  • Avibase

    PDF Checklist
    This checklist includes all bird species found in Bahrain , based on the best information available at this time. It is based on a wide variety of sources that I collated over many years. I am pleased to offer these checklists as a service to birdwatchers. If you find any error, please do not hesitate to report them.

  • Wikipedia

    Annotated List
    This is a list of the bird species recorded in Bahrain. The avifauna of Bahrain include a total of 358 species, of which 7 have been introduced by humans.

  • eBird

    PDF Checklist
    This checklist is generated with data from eBird (ebird.org), a global database of bird sightings from birders like you. If you enjoy this checklist, please consider contributing your sightings to eBird. It is 100% free to take part, and your observations will help support birders, researchers, and conservationists worldwide.
Useful Reading

  • Birds in Bahrain

    | By Erik Hirschfeld & Hans Larsson | Erik Hirschfeld | 1995 | Paperback | 124 pages, Illus, tabs, graphs | Out of Print | ISBN: 9781872839035 Buy this book from NHBS.com

  • Birds of the Middle East

    | By AbdulRahman Al-Sirhan, Jens Eriksen & Richard Porter | Helm | 2022 | Paperback | 224 pages, 400 colour photos | ISBN: 9781472986757 Buy this book from NHBS.com

  • Birds of the Middle East

    | By Richard Porter, Simon Aspinall, A Birch, John Gale, Mike Langman, Brian E Small | Helm | Edition 3 | 2024 | Paperback | 400 pages, 180 colour plates, 636 colour distribution maps | ISBN: 9781399401968 Buy this book from NHBS.com
Organisations

  • OSME

    Webpage
    Bahrain’s name, which means ‘land of two seas’, comes from the upwelling of fresh water from an aquifer on an island surrounded by a saline sea. The archipelago consists of natural and artificial islands around the main islands of Bahrain and Maharraq. Development and industrialisation continue to erode the country’s unique and diverse habitats but natural and unspoiled sites still exist, albeit in isolation and with limited access. The Hawar islands group is still largely pristine and lies some 20 km to the southeast.
Reserves

Abbreviations Key

  • WS Al-Areen

    InformationSatellite View
    Al-Areen Wildlife Sanctuary was built between 1976 and 1979 at Al Markh, 5km south-west of Jebel al Dukhan, 2km from the Zallaq shoreline, located 26 1N 50 30E. The site is 2x4 km, varying from salt flats about 3m above sea level on the western side, to the higher elevation about 45m above sea level on the eastern side. The salt flats are mainly marine type sand to barren salt. The highest point, known as rimrock, is predominantly dolomite rock. The wildlife sanctuary was built to protect rare Arabian species including the Oryx, Adax and Reem Gazelle.

  • Wetlands of International Importance

    WebsiteSatellite View
    Bahrain presently has 2 sites designated as Wetlands of International Importance, with a surface area of 6,810 hectares…
Sightings, News & Forums
Guides & Tour Operators

  • BirdQuest

    Tour Operator
    OMAN – Arabian & Migrant Specialities including Grey Hypocolius, with Bahrain Extension

  • Rockjumper

    Tour Operator
    Our UAE & Oman birding tour takes us on an Arabian birdwatching and cultural holiday par excellence!
Trip Reports

  • 2015 [11 November] - Ben Macdonald

    PDF Report
    I was able to visit this little-known ‘Pearl of the Arabian Gulf’ on two occasions whilst filming for the Netflix series Our Planet as a researcher. This was one my most surreal visits to any country. On the first occasion, I was hosted by His Highness Sheikh Abdullah, a prince of Bahrain and a keen environmentalist, and kindly taken out on a boat to recce certain sites for filming. On the second occasion, myself and cameraman Matt Aeberhard visited the country to film certain species for the series in the Persian Gulf...

  • 2015 [11 November] - Mike Watson

    PDF Report
    Cyclone Chapala! Despite the influence of the most severe depression ever recorded in the Northern Indian Ocean, our eighth Oman & Bahrain tour was another successful visit to this region, recording a respectable total of 242 taxa and 55 Birdquest ‘diamond’ species (regional specialities).

  • 2022 [11 November] - Hannu Jännes

    Report
    Birdquest’s thirteenth tour of Oman & Bahrain proved to be a great success for many reasons. We recorded a respectable total of 230 taxa and 51 Birdquest ‘diamond’ species (regional specialities) and saw several great migrants and interesting seabirds. Oman’s special owls have always been one of the highlights of the tour, and we were successful in finding the fairly recently Desert Owl, Arabian Scops Owl, Little Owl, Arabian Eagle-Owl (a recent split from Spotted Eagle-Owl) and Pharaoh Eagle-Owl, a new bird for this tour.

  • 2023 [11 November] - Hannu Jännes

    Report
    This was Birdquest’s fourteenth tour of Oman & Bahrain and once again proved to be a great success. We recorded a respectable total of 236 taxa of which 54 were Birdquest ‘diamond’ species (regional specialities) and saw several interesting migrants and seabirds.
Other Links

  • Breeding Birds of Hawar

    Website
    Extracts and contents of this book.

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