In November 2025 we made a major birding trip to the Sultinate of Oman, which is located adjacent to the Arabian Sea in the southern part of the Middle East and bordered by Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The map on the right above indicates where we stayed during the trip. 1=Muscat, 2=Sohar, 3-4=Nizwa, 5=Ghaftain, 6=Thumrait, 7-11= Salalah.
We flew out from London Heathrow on Tuesday 28 October via the Oman Air direct flight to the Omani capital of Muscat. Oman is four hours ahead of UK times and we decided to spend three nights in Muscat to relax and adjust to the time difference before starting the birding tour proper. The tour was run by Tropical Birding, who we had used previously for tours of Argentina, Costa Rica and Ecuador. It was the first time that the company had offered this particular tour, although our lead guide, Ken Behrens, had spent time birding in Oman so was acquainted with the country, its birds and the best bird watching sites.
This report is split into six sections and accessed via the links below to give faster loading of the pages and to allow inclusion of lots of photos of the locations we visited and the birds we saw over the 2 weeks in the country.
This was a very enjoyable birding trip around a fascinating country. The tour was well organised by Tropical Birding and we really enjoyed the time we spent with our two excellent guides and the other three birders on the tour. We would thoroughly recommend it to any birders looking for a destination that is a bit different to the standard birding countries.