Journal of Threatened
Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 May 2025 | 17(5): 27033–27034
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9481.17.5.27033-27034
#9481 | Received 06 November 2024 | Finally accepted 20 April 2025
A rare Long-eared Owl Asio otus sighted
after a gap of 22 years in Al Wathba Wetland Reserve
in Abu Dhabi, UAE
Shakeel Ahmed 1 & Sálim
Javed 2
1,2 Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi,
P.O. Box 45553, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
1 akhan@ead.gov.ae (corresponding
author), 2 sjaved@ead.gov.ae
Editor: Anonymity requested. Date of
publication: 26 May 2025 (online & print)
Citation: Ahmed,
S. & S. Javed (2025). A rare
Long-eared Owl Asio otus
sighted after a gap of 22 years in Al Wathba Wetland
Reserve in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Journal of
Threatened Taxa 17(5):
27033–27034. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9481.17.5.27033-27034
Copyright: © Ahmed & Javed 2025. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use,
reproduction, and distribution of this article in any medium by providing
adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: None.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
A total of
nine species of owl have been recorded in the UAE, out of which three are
migrants (Majeed & Al Hamoudi 2021). An adult
Long-eared Owl was found and photographed on 1 January 2022 in Al Wathba Wetland Reserve (AWWR) where it was roosting on a
branch of Casuarina tree (Image 1) on the northern side of the Reserve.
The bird was recorded early morning at around 0630 h. The previous day (31
December 2021) areas in and around AWWR experienced very high winds early
morning and heavy rains throughout the day. The photograph was taken from 10 m
distance from the ground and the bird flew away instantly. The previous record
of the species was reported on 14 October 1999 from the Reserve (Table 1).
Long-eared
Owl is a highly migratory species with an extremely wide distribution range in
Eurasia. Outside Europe, they are found as breeding species in Turkey,
northernmost Syria, Israel, and Lebanon (Jiguet
& Audevard 2017; Birdlife International 2018).
Breeding has also been confirmed from northwestern
part of Iran (Tohidifar et al. 2011). In UAE, the
species is a vagrant and extremely rare. Between 1971 to 2013, nearly 20
individuals of Long-eared Owl have been sighted in different years from the
parks, inland wetlands, golf courses, and some offshore islands of UAE
(Pedersen et al. 2021). Global population trend of the species is decreasing;
however, it is listed as ‘Least Concern’ (LC) by the IUCN Red List of
Threatened Species. Since 2013, the species has not been documented from the
entire country of UAE (Pedersen et al. 2021). Most of the individuals were
recorded from the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah during the winter
months between October and March (Table 1).
About Al Wathba Wetland Reserve
Al Wathba Wetland Reserve is located 40 km south-east of Abu
Dhabi city and covers an area of 5 km². It is the first declared protected area
in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and this site has been under the management of the
Environment Agency—Abu Dhabi (EAD) since 1998. In 2013, it was recognised as a
Wetland of International Importance under the Ramsar
Convention. Furthermore, in 2018, the wetland was listed in the IUCN Green List
of Protected and Conserved Areas by UNEP.
AWWR is the
most important site for migratory waterfowls, waders, diurnal birds of prey and
owls, the higher number and diversity of birds are recorded from late
August–Early May, whereas the peak numbers occur in mid-winter (Campbell et al.
2019; Soorae et al. 2019). EAD has been regularly monitoring
this site for bird diversity for nearly 18 years, and to date 262 species of
birds have been recorded in the reserve, which makes up about 61% of the total
bird species documented from the entire Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Other owl species
recorded from the reserve include Little Owl Athene noctua
and Western Barn Owl Tyto alba (Soorae et al. 2019).
Table 1. Previous sighting of Long-eared Owl Asio
otus in UAE (Pedersen et al. 2021).
|
Sighting records |
Year |
Month |
No. individuals |
Location |
Emirate |
|
1 |
1971 |
Jan |
1 |
Sharjah City |
Sharjah |
|
2 |
1978 |
Mar |
1 |
Khor Fakkan |
Sharjah |
|
3 |
1979 |
Oct |
1 |
Port Rashid |
Dubai |
|
4 |
1991 |
Dec |
1 |
Das Island |
Abu Dhabi |
|
5 |
1994 |
Nov |
1 |
Das Island |
Abu Dhabi |
|
6 |
1996 |
Nov |
1 |
Jebel Ali Hotel and Golf Resort |
Dubai |
|
7 |
1998 |
Dec |
1 |
Das Island (Dead one) |
Abu Dhabi |
|
8 |
1999 |
Oct |
1 |
Al Wathba
Wetland Reserve |
Abu Dhabi |
|
9 |
2001 |
Apr |
1 |
Das Island |
Abu Dhabi |
|
10 |
2003 |
Feb–Mar |
4 |
Mushrif National Park |
Dubai |
|
11 |
2003–2004 |
Dec–Mar |
2 |
Mushrif National Park |
Dubai |
|
12 |
2004–2005 |
Dec–Jan |
2 |
Mushrif National Park |
Dubai |
|
13 |
2006 |
Nov |
1 |
Khalidia* |
|
|
14 |
2011–2012 |
Dec–Jan |
1 |
Mushrif National Park |
Dubai |
|
15 |
2013 |
Jan |
1 |
Mushrif National Park |
Umm al-Qaiwain |
|
16 |
2022 |
Jan |
1 |
Al Wathba
Wetland Reserve |
Abu Dhabi |
*—Exact emirate of sighting
cannot be determined.
For image
- - click here for full PDF
References
BirdLife International (2018). Asio
otus. IUCN Red List of Threatened
Species. 2018: e.T22689507A131922722. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T22689507A131922722.en.
Retrieved on 04 January 2022.
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S. Javed, S. Al-Dhaheri,
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