Hypocolius

From a Middle east perspective, Hypocolius is a very special bird and generally one that is right at the top of the wish-list of birdwatchers visiting the UAE. There are a couple of reasons for this, for instance the species has a rather unusual (and fabulously subtle, smooth) plumage pattern and a restricted world range, breeding mainly in Iran and Iraq and wintering in southern and eastern Arabia, with small numbers reaching east to northwest India.

But perhaps even more notably, Hypocolius is evolutionarily unique in the sense that it is the sole member of the bird family Hypocoliidae i.e. has no close living relatives – no other bird is really quite like it! To quantify this a little further, the most recent and authoritative world checklist of birds (see here) presently recognises 11,131 species of birds but only 252 families – and one of those families contains Hypocolius and no other species!

Although Hypocolius is a top target for visitors, it is actually a very localised winter visitor that occurs regularly at only two locations in the UAE, and only between the months of November and March. Here at Nautica, we were very lucky to be completing survey work at one of these locations this winter and were able to watch these amazing birds on a near-daily basis for almost a week.

Hypocolius feed on a mixture of insects and fruit (in the UAE they are often found where there is a ready supply of berries on the toothbrush tree or over-ripe dates) and during our work we regularly found them in the same small clusters of trees each day. The birds often perch quite prominently and exposed in the early morning but, equally, spend long periods in the middle of dense foliage where they can be very hard to find. This is particularly the case if the weather is warm or breezy. The photographs we took over various dates show a mixture of males (blue-grey, with a black mask) and females (smooth creamy-grey all over; no mask) and ages – adults have large white spots on the wingtip, every easy to see both in flight and when perched, particularly adult males whilst juveniles have very limited white on the wingtip. Knowing that, you can now have  a go and working out the sex and age of the birds photographed. Enjoy!