Crab plover

Image Credit: Supplied Crab plover A white wader with minimal jet-black markings, this long-legged lovely is the epitome of understated elegance.

Recent field surveys carried out by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs, in cooperation with international experts, revealed an increase in the number of migratory birds visiting the reserve annually, with more than half a million birds during the winter period, and 18 varieties of birds were classified in the species that go beyond (1%) of migratory birds using the migratory route of Asia and Eastern Africa, including Crab Plover, Haematopoidea, Pluvialis apricaria and others.

For the second consecutive year, 17 greater flamingo chicks were born last summer in Al Wathba Wetland Reserve, while the crab plover, which doesn't breed anywhere else in the UAE, resumed breeding in the previously abandoned colony at Abu Al Abyad island.

Value Khor Muzahmi Khor Ra's al-Khaimah (300 ha) (410 ha) Stopover feeding [check] [check] & resting site for migrating birds Notable [check] [check] biodiversity * Greater Flamingo; * Greater Flamingo; * Crab Plover; Confirmed presence of ** Turtle nesting site Mangrove crab Scylla on outer sand bar; serrata; Tens of thousands of Sea snail (darkly Socotra Cormorant speckled through roosting on outer transparent shell) and sand bar between tiny orange version, April- August.

Bustards; Jacanas; Painted Snipes; Sandpipers; Crab Plover; Sheathbills; Magellanic Plover; Plains Wanderer; Seedsnipes; Thick Knees.

Eighteen varieties of birds were classified, including the crab plover, haematopoidea, pluvialis apricaria and others.

Dr Andy Kwarteng, Director of the Remote Sensing and GIS Centre at SQU and principal investigator of this project, said that the undisturbed intertidal ecosystem of Bar Al Hikman, about 500km south of Muscat, harbours a possible keystone predator, the crab plover (Dromas ardeola) that potentially affects two contrasting ecosystem engineers, seagrasses and crabs.

Far-footed geeko, Oman saw-scald viper, blandford's foxes, little green bee-eaters, spiny-foot lizard, hoopoe, emperor dragonfly, amphibians, ospreys, crab plover, toads, blue-headed agama, lesser sand plovers, desert monitor lizard, and many others have survived as the Environment and Protected Areas Authority set up the Sharjah Desert Park in 1995.

Resident and visiting species include some hard to come by species (given their range restrictions) and include crab plover, collared kingfisher and Sykes's warbler, through to Hume's, red tailed and variable wheatear.