Birds of Oman

Arabic: bird =

There are about 495 bird species in Oman, including its coastal waters and surrounding islands. Of those, only about 80 species are resident, all others are migrants on their way between Asia and Africa. These pages contain our steadily growing account of spottings and photography of birds in Oman.

Currently we have information available on about 110 bird species listed as endemic to Oman (15 of which were observed by us elsewhere), with about 75 thumbnail images for those species of which we have the best photos (more thumbnails are available for species seen by us in Australia).

Photos shown on this web site are available FOR SALE.

Birds observed by us are identified using the field guide "Birds of the Middle East" by Porter, Christensen and Schiermacker-Hansen. The consecutive numbering scheme in this guide from 1994 is quite outdated. We attempt here to group the species observed in Oman into family groups as used by Morcombe (external link) in his "Field Guide to Australian Birds" (see the Australian bird pages for reference). This grouping is done without scientific knowledge and may therefore be partly inconsistent or wrong.

Navigation

The navigation bar above (second tier) provides links to a number of high-level pages and, in addition, to each of the family groups of birds, following the "Field Guide to Australian Birds" by M. Morcombe.

Hovering your cursor above the numbers, you will see which bird families each group comprises. All birds presented on these pages are listed in an INDEX.

Birds spotted in specific locations

Currently lists exist of the birds spotted by us over extended time periods at the following locations:
SQU campus (50 km west of Muscat, Oman; August 2009-May 2010)

More information

Here some more information about nomenclature, photographic equipment used by us, etc. For information about bird names please go to the BIRD INDEX.

Egyptian Goose Mallard Common Swift Added 12/07/2010

Kestrel Eurasian Curlew Cream-coloured Courser Caspian Gull Heuglin's Gull Bridled Tern Namaqua Dove Blue-cheeked Bee-eater Marsh Warbler Added 16/05/2010

Black-headed Heron Dark Chanting Goshawk Terek Sandpiper Dunlin Pied Oystercatcher Common Tern Crested Tern Lesser Crested Tern Sandwich Tern White-cheeked Tern Sooty Gull Steppe Grey Shrike Black-crowned Sparrow Lark Added 09/05/2010

Upcher's Warbler Added 29/04/2010

European Nightjar Osprey European Roller Added 23/04/2010

Olivaceous Warbler Added 07/04/2010

Alternative bird names Added 03/04/2010