'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎144v] (293/862)

200 CLIMATE, VEGETATION, AND FAUNA
to Iraq for the winter: rooks, song-thrushes, chaffinches, various birds
of prey, and a large number of waders. A few choose Iraq as their
breeding-ground, such as the Persian bee-eater and the grey-backed
warbler. Finally there are the resident birds, but their total is smaller
than the visitors; they include babblers, bulbuls, scrub-warblers, and
sandgrouse.
Two forms of hooded crow are found in Iraq: one, Sharpe’s crow,
which has a dark grey mantle, is a winter visitor from the Persian
plateau; the other, the Iraqi crow, in which the back is almost white, is
a resident; both are familiar near Basra. Flocks of rooks accompanied
by a few jackdaws are not uncommon in winter and, at the same
season, vast flocks of starlings may be seen in the evenings near Basra
making for their roosting quarters. Linnets, goldfinches, and
chaffinches are winter visitors as far south as Amara, and everywhere
the house-sparrow inhabits the towns and villages, while the brighter
coloured and more heavily marked Spanish sparrow only comes for the
winter. Much less common—but a characteristic bird—is the little
scrub sparrow, a miniature house-sparrow with a yellow patch on the
sides of the neck. It breeds in tamarisk trees and makes a nest like a
magpie’s with an entrance at the top.
Among the buntings, the ortolan is a passage migrant, the common
a local resident, and a number of others are winter visitors in small
numbers. About mid-October hordes of short-toed larks arrive to
winter on the open plains and, at the same time, eastern skylarks take
up their quarters in the more cultivated areas. The crested lark,
similar to the French bird, is a common resident, and in the desert
west of the Euphrates the bifasciated or hoopoe lark occurs at all
seasons. Water-pipits frequent flooded areas in winter, and tawny
pipits the drier parts. Large numbers of wagtails, both black-headed
and blue-headed, pass through on migration, but only the white wag
tail stays the winter. Great grey and isabelline shrikes are met with in
the cold season, while the woodchat and masked and red-backed
shrikes are passage migrants. One of the most interesting birds is
the grey hypocolius which nests near Baghdad and elsewhere when the
dates are ripening; it is about the size of a bulbul with a longer tail
and is greyish-brown in colour. Its relationship is obscure and it is
a great wanderer, having occurred in Sind and near Bombay.
The white-eared bulbul is common at Basra and extends up the
river to Baghdad. During the spring and autumn migrating spotted
flycatchers, willow warblers, chiffchaffs, reed warblers, garden and
many other European warblers may be met with. The olivaceous