Birds of Saudi Arabia: Sooty & White-eyed Gulls

19 May 2014

Sooty & White-eyed Gulls - Jizan Fish Market

As I am very interested in gulls we stopped at the fish market in Jizan as well as the nearby fishing harbour. The harbour has been partially filled in but plenty of gulls were still using it as a resting area. The fish market is an excellent place to see both Sooty and White-eyed Gulls with plenty of birds normally resting on the roofs and feeding on scraps on the ground. You need to get to the market in the early morning when the fish are being landed and processed to see the largest number of birds. Early April proved to be good at the fish market with hundreds of gulls present with almost all Sooty and White-eyed but a few Steppe Gulls were also present. Below are a few photos of these two species whose range in Saudi Arabia spreads mainly up the Red Sea coast to north of Jeddah.