Birds of Saudi Arabia

25 April 2024

Lesser Whitethroat – Eastern Province

The Lesser Whitethroat has been common this spring on migration with birds being seen every trip in the region. Numbers appear to be higher than normal on migration although wintering numbers were no different to previous years. They breed from Western Europe to northern China and winter south of these areas in the Sahel region and north-eastern Africa through Arabia to India and Sri Lanka. In Saudi Arabia they are a common passage migrant and winter visitor occurring in overgrown scrub, trees and small thickets with dense undergrowth. Over winter it is normally seen in acacia. Ringing studies near Riyadh have shown that these birds often spend the winter in the same group of trees in consecutive years.

24 April 2024

Whimbrel – Dhahran Cricket Field

A few single Whimbrel have been seen on the Cricket Field during April but they have kept their distance and have not shown thier underwing patterns to try to work out if there is anything interesting about them. I wanted to get a photo of the underwing pattern of the bird in flight to check for signs of Steppe Whimbrel. Trying to take photos of the bird flying was quite difficult, as it just run away and keep its distance, but luckily for me a walker frightened the bird and I managed to get a few flight shots. Although the bird has quite a pale underwing the underwing pattern does not show anything too unusual meaning it is a normal Whimbrel subspecies we get in the Eastern Province.

23 April 2024

Some good migrants – Al Uqair

I forgot to post these photos taken recently at Al Uqair where wesaw a lot of good migrants. The best birds for us were a male Semi-collared Flycatcher and three White-throated Robins with good numbers of Masked Shrikes at the small date plantation. The magic barbed wire fence held lots of birds as always with European Roller, Turkestan and Great Grey Shrikes and Rufous-tailed Rock Thrush amongst the best. Migration seems to finally have arrived and im looking forward to seeing if anything unusual turns up this spring.

Masked Shrike

Rufous-tailed Rock Thrush

Semi-collared Flycatcher

Turkestan Shrike

White-throated Robin

European Roller

Great Grey Shrike

21 April 2024

More Yellow Wagtails – Dhahran Hills

Whilst birding the Dhahran Hills football fields in the spring the number and type of Yellow Wagtails has been very high. The main numbers were Sykes Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava beema amongst them, which is an early migrant with March and April being the best months for seeing them. They are more often seen in spring than autumn. The other common Yellow Wagtail seen was Black-headed Wagtail feldegg which is part of the Yellow Wagtail complex a group of birds that are common spring and autumn passage migrants, sometimes in hundreds. Yellow Wagtails pass from mid-February to May and again from early August to mid-November with many races identifiable in the field including feldegg, melanogrisia, lutea, flava, thunbergi and bema. Sykes's Wagtail and Blue-headed Wagtail are sometimes difficult if not impossible to separate in the field.

Sykes Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava beema

Yellow-headed Wagtail Motacilla flava lutea

Black-headed Wagtail Motacilla flava feldegg

Blue-headed Wagtail Motacilla flava flava

19 April 2024

Heron numbers building – Dhahran Waste Water Lake

The number and type of herons at the Dhahran Waste Water Lake have been building up the last few weeks. New species seen include a juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron and three Purple Herons, the first ones for a few months. Great Egrets have increased to almost double figures and twelve Grey Heron was the high count. A dark phase Western Reef Heron was an unusual sighting with Little Egrets less unusual. Squacco Heron numbers are also steadily on the increase again almost reaching double figures.