Out and About in Dubai

If you haven’t been to the Sharjah Natural History Museum, I highly recommend a trip out there. If you have kids, I doubly recommend it.

DB and I made a visit out there a couple weekends ago. I had seen an ad about the museum in a local publication and it caught my attention because it had two dinosaur skeletons amidst a dark background. It also said:

“Prehistoric and living creatures come alive in an exciting exhibit of films, collections, interactives. Witness the formation of land and enjoy the beauty and diversity of the fauna, flora and wildlife in the Gulf region. Visit Sharjah Natural History Museum and be inspired.”

So I’m a sucker for dinosaurs (who isn’t?) and decided that the museum would be worth a visit and it’s a shame Dubai doesn’t have anything of the sort. And I also miss the likes of visiting the Natural History Museum in New York.

Sharjah is a neighboring emirate of Dubai and the drive door-to-door from my apartment in the Marina was only 50 minutes.

Upon arriving at the guard’s gate, we paid the 15 Dhs entry fee per person and then drove into the parking lot to find a spot. It was a Saturday but didn’t seem to be too many people there. The museum grounds were nicely landscaped and there were even a some picnic tables which were being utilized by a few families.

There appeared to be three buildings in the museum grounds: (1) the Natural History Museum, (2) a Children’s Farm, and (3) a Wildlife Center. We entered the Natural History building first and were greeted by 6 Arab ladies who asked for our entry tickets. I gave it to them to stamp and after walking out of earshot asked DB why they need 6 people to stamp our tickets. He replied that it’s so that they can keep unemployment down. (Shrug)

I don’t have any pictures of the exhibits as photography wasn’t allowed. But here is the run-down of our visit:

(1) Natural History Museum - a small but nice exhibit about local flora and fauna, geological history of the Middle East, a small planetarium, some dinosaur skeletons, an exhibit on ocean wildlife, real life specimens of frogs, toads, snakes, lizards, scorpions, black widow spider, Omani blind cave fish and their babies. There were probably more things to see but I kept getting knocked over by little kids so avoided some areas to keep my sanity. The botanical section was still due to be open - shame as it would’ve been nice to put a name to the local fauna.

(2) Children’s Farm - we skipped this as it was nearing closing time.

(3) Wildlife Center - this was by far the best part of the trip. This truly is a wildlife center as there were live specimens in a (quasi) natural environment of Middle Eastern wildlife. The Aviary was the coolest (so I thought at that point). The birds weren’t behind a cage where you watched from the outside. You actually walked INTO the aviary. The birds were kept from flying out by large-diametered rope barriers.

We saw birds gathering twigs and building their nests, birds sitting on their little eggs. Rupell’s Weaver was my favorite - a little yellow bird that was quite territorial and would fly over to any other bird that was in it’s tree to chase it away. Also in the aviary were Lesser Flamingos, Fat Bruce’s Green Pigeon, and Caracals, among many other species. There was also an Egyptian fruit bat exhibit.

Next was the nocturnal animal section. Each animal was in it’s own (contrived but spacious) diorama of sorts. You could observe them behind a glass partition. There were Indian Gray Mongoose, White-tail Mongoose, Small-spotted genet, Desert Wild Cat, Arabian Red Fox, Ruppell’s Fox (image below), Asiatic Jackal, Indian Crusted Porcupine, and Ethiopian Hedgehog.

After that was the rodent section with Jirds (kept thinking they were misspelling “birds”), rats, mice, gerbils, an owl and even a desert eagle.

I thought the rodent exhibit was the end of the tour but as we walked into the “cafeteria” I noticed that the open space outside of the building was another natural exhibit with roaming herds of Sand Gazelles, Nubian Ibex, Arabian Oryx, and a few Ostriches all mingling together.

As I enjoyed my newly ordered and freshly squeezed mango juice, I headed towards the exit thinking it was time to go back to Dubai. Surely this must be the end of the wildlife center?

But no! More live animals - each in their own outdoor area separated by hidden moats - Baboons, Arabian Wolf, Striped Hyena, Cheetah, Leopards, oh my!

By this time, I was definitely tired and ready to head home. There’s only so much museum one can handle. As it was closing time anyway, we skipped the Children’s Farm and headed back to Dubai, pleasantly surprised that we saw more than just prehistoric skeletons.

PRACTICAL INFO:

Getting there: It took us about 50 minutes door-to-door (we live in the Marina) as there was hardly any traffic on a Saturday. We took SZR to Al Khail to Emirates Road to E-88 and exited at Interchange 9. (Probably could have cut out 10 minutes if we had continued on Al Khail to route 611 instead of exiting early onto Emirates Road as both Emirates Road and 611 intersect with E-88). Check the museum website for more info and this map.

Opening Hours: Sun to Thu 09:00 – 17:30, Fri 14:00 – 17:30, Sat 11:00 – 17:30. Closed on Tue.

Admission Fee: Adult - Dhs15; Children (12 – 16) - Dhs5; Under 12 - free

Tags: birds, sharjah, tourist, wildlife | no comments »

DB has recently told me that the FIB (Flamingo in Black) in this post is not a loner or outcast as I had thought, but actually a juvenile flamingo. I’m upset now, but in a different way. Before, I thought the other pink flamingos wouldn’t play with the black one, but now, I’m upset at the poor parenting skills of the flamingos, letting the juvies out of sight to roam on their own…okay, now I’m over it.

Page 22 of the Bird Book has this to say about the Greater Flamingo:

Status: partial migrant. Winters Turkey, Near East, Cyprus, also coasts of Arabian Gulf, Red Sea and Arabian Sea. Rare Jordan and vagrant Lebanon.

Habitat: saline coastal lagoons, salt-lakes, mudflats. Breeds colonially on mud banks or in shallow water of salt-lakes building mud-heap nest, a few centimeters above water.

Uh huh. Fascinating.

You can buy this book on Amazon.com for $26.40 or for AED175 ($47.70) at Magrudy’s (it’s like a Borders).

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Ah, another weekend. Another day at the pool in Al Qasr. Another attempt to visit Dubai’s Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary.

As you may recall, last week’s Ras Al Khor adventure entailed two hours of frustratingly circling between route 44 and 66 to locate three unsigned bird watching stations only to arrive at one and find a “Closed Fridays” sign.

This weekend, we ventured out on a Saturday and armed ourselves with better maps (including one printed from http://www.tommypedersen.com/ - a local bird watcher). I added the route #s for reference:

We drove along the 44, passing the bird sanctuary on the other side of the road, came upon a pretzel interchange where we (hopefully) made the correct choices of on-off ramps, and (hurray!) made it to the other side of the 44, slowed down the car to make sure we didn’t pass the little pink brick-paved side road that leads to Mangrove hide, found it and made it on the first try!

There were a few other cars parked there so that was a good sign. Upon entering the viewing hide, we were not greeted by a sedate park ranger (or whatever they are called here) who didn’t seem like he wanted to be there but he did get out of his chair to point at (literally) how to use the telescope as he didn’t utter a single word.

At Mangrove hide, we saw one Greater Flamingo (this one had pink legs but black wing tips), great white egrets, herons, black-winged stilts, ringed plovers, and a Greater Spotted Eagle (in flight with the Dubai skyline behind it - awesome!). Here’s a photo of some egrets we saw:

Next we managed to maneuver through another pretzel intersection onto route 66 and found Flamingo Hide without too much trouble thanks to the map above.

It’s no wonder why this viewing station is called Flamingo hide - there were tons of Greater Flamingos - and these had pink legs AND pink wingtips unlike the loner we saw at Mangrove Hide (although we did see a buddy of his walking away from his pink cousins). At this hide, we were greeted by a very friendly ranger who helped us identify some birds, even showed us an Osprey, and told us where to go to pick up some UAE bird books. We also saw Kentish Plovers, White Wagtails, and a duck that looked like a mallard. But the Flamingos stole the show:

As the third viewing station is closed due to construction around the area, I won’t bore you any further about bird talk but will leave you with a photo (blurry b/c it was taken from a distance) of the loner Flamingo. Notice it is not pink like the others:

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Today’s driving adventure involves an attempt to visit Dubai’s Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary. As it is UAE National Day on December 2nd (their Independence Day from the British), we were afraid our usual weekend beach haunt would be crowded so we opted for a little bird watching instead.

Into our little Toyota Yaris we went with birding binocs and the biggest Dubai guide book ever in the hopes that the enclosed maps would prove somewhat useful (wishful thinking). So, according to the guide book, there are supposedly 3 viewing stations at Ras Al Khor that were constructed in 2005: one is on Route 44, and two are on Route 66. Both routes intersect each other at one point so if you miss one viewing station, you could try the next one. Sounds simple enough?

Well, we arrived to where 44 meets 66. Many times. We think. But always on the same but wrong side of the road (go figure). Most of the time we weren’t even sure what road we were on, what direction we were headed (North?), let alone where the hell the viewing stations could possibly be as they were not marked with signs that say: Ras Al Khor Viewing Station - 500 meters. That would have been too easy.

At one point DB wanted to give up and go to Ikea as one of the detours we were taking led us to Festival City, aka Ikea-land. But I was not going to give up. We had been circling for nearly 2 hours - I better see some damn birds!

30 minutes later and we finally made it to the side of the road on Route 44 where the Sanctuary is. DB slows down the car a bit and we scan for any possible side roads nearly missing one but manage to pull in at the last minute into an un-marked little paved road and HURRAY we found it - a viewing station!!! And then we find our sign - “Closed Fridays” F*$#%*$#%*!!!

Here is DB happily walking towards the viewing station not knowing that his bird-watching dream would be dashed in mere seconds:

UNESCO huh? How about putting up some road signs!!

Lessons Learned:

1. Get a real map
2. Research and confirm operating hours (as Friday is the holy day in the UAE, many gov’t and private offices, and apparently some attractions, are closed)

For future bird watchers, please visit these sites below:

• Official Website of the Ras Al Knor Wildlife Sanctuary
• Birding the UAE - has more useful maps, lists bird sightings, and photos

Tags: birds, driving | 1 comment »