Safa Park is a unique theme park in the heart of Dubai. I mostly visit to watch birds.

The lake has been filled up, the water looks quite clean and there is no smell. However, such a large body of water cannot remain unoccupied. It has now become home for aquatic insects, midges and many flies that live on or near water.

Worms breed in profusion. All the small creatures are generally food for many kinds of birds.

A female bar-tailed godwit made a 29,000km journey from an island in New Zealand in early February this year, returning to New Zealand again on September 7 within 8km of where she left.

As this bird makes a yearly round trip between New Zealand and Alaska, where it breeds, scientists estimate that in a lifespan of 20 years it may fly a total of 493,000km.

We get bar-tailed godwits in our coastal areas, but as no study has been conducted on them, we don’t know how much they have flown to reach here. It is believed they come here from Siberia.

Jebel Hafeet (Jebel means mountain and Hafeet is the name) is the highest mountain within the easily reachable hills around the eastern front of the UAE.

Located 160 kilometres from both Abu Dhabi and Dubai, it borders a part of Al Ain city with the neighbouring territory of Oman.

If you can beat the sunrise to reach the top of Jebel Hafeet you can see many wonders unfold right in front of you.

Recently someone suggested the local authority control the population of house crows in Dubai.

Believe it or not when I landed here in 1989 there were virtually no crows.

In 1991, the first pair built a nest in Dubai. At that time Maktoum Bridge had only two lanes on each side and it was a single bridge.