'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎145r] (294/862)

FAUNA
201
warbler, Menetries’s warbler—a handsome black-headed bird with
grey upper parts, wine-coloured and black below—and the grey-
backed warbler come to Iraq to breed. The last is a confiding bird
with a pleasing song and has a delightful way of flirting its tail. Along
the river banks, wherever there is cover, the wren-warbler, a small
heavily marked species with a long tail, is found at all seasons.
In the palm-groves the Iraqi babbler is a familiar bird, but else
where it is local; it closely resembles the well-known ‘seven sisters’.
In the autumn, song-thrushes and blackbirds make their appearance,
some spending the winter as far south as Basra. At this season many
different chats are seen on the move, including the common wheatear,
stone- and whin-chats. Bluethroats may occasionally be disturbed
from thick cover while resting on migration, and Persian robins are
not uncommon in Basra gardens in the cold weather. The common
cuckoo and swifts are only seen on passage, and so too is the common
nightjar, but the Egyptian species comes to nest.
Numbers of brilliant European bee-eaters are often seen on passage,
and in the spring Persian bee-eaters, green with chestnut throats,
make their appearance and remain to breed. Both the European and
the Indian rollers nest in Iraq, though the latter is far from plentiful.
The common, the pied, and the white-breasted kingfishers are not
rare, and hoopoes pass through in spring and autumn. The only owls
which are common are the Eastern, the little, and the short-eared,
the latter only remaining throughout the winter.
There are many birds of prey, but the larger species are difficult to
identify in the field; they include several eagles and two vultures. In
early autumn black kites and ospreys return and, at the same season,
peregrine and sacer falcons take up their quarters in the vicinity of the
vast numbers of sandgrouse and duck on which they prey. Buzzards
of two kinds are frequently seen on passage, and both the common
and lesser kestrels are also in evidence, though some of the former are
resident. Large numbers of marsh harriers haunt the reed-beds,
some remaining to nest, and on the drier ground pallid harriers are
numerous.
At times thousands of pelicans frequent the marshes and are
reported to have bred. In the same marshes also are numerous pigmy
cormorants, the common species preferring the open rivers, and about
Azair (Ezra’s Tomb) that curious cormorant-like bird, the darter or
snake-bird, is not uncommon.
Geese, both white-fronted and grey-lag, winter in the marshes in
large numbers, and a few of the latter even breed there. Vast flights