Some good birds – Talea Valley

Whilst birding the Talea Valley in late June, an area of the Asir mountains, north of Abha, I photographed a pair of Arabian Woodpecker Dendrocopos doraeat. The Arabian Woodpecker is an uncommon but widespread resident of the south-west highlands, where birds are usually associated with acacia trees but can be found in a variety of wooded habitats. It is classified as near threatened and the population is considered to be relatively small and is decline owing to cutting and lopping of trees for charcoal, firewood and fodder, in parts of its range. They are often located by their loud call. Also in the valley was an African Pipit, which probably breed in this area as we see them every visit to the valley as we do Rufous-capped Lark, of which we only saw two on this visit.

Arabian Woodpecker

Arabian Woodpecker

Arabian Woodpecker

African Pipit

African Pipit

Rufous-capped Lark

African Pipit - Tanoumah

Whilst birding Tanoumah in the southwestern mountains I found an African Pipit Anthus cinnamomeus eximiuscarry food for it young. African Pipit is a little known bird in Saudi Arabia where the subspecies is endemic to the southwest part of Saudi Arabia and nearby Yemen. There are three specimens from Saudi Arabia at the Natural History Museum, Tring, collected by Philby in 1936 and a handful of field records only.Birds have been recorded regularly since 2014, in very small numbers, but all in a small area between Abha and An Namas. They could be present elsewhere, but no records have come from outside this area. Prior to 2018 there had not been any records since the 1990.

Birding An Namas

An Namas is an area north of Tanoumah in the Asir Mountain chain. It is the northerly most point where Asir (Arabian) Magpie can currently be found and is a good birding location. Whilst birding a small valley there I found a lot of good birds including Ruppells Weaver, Violet-backed Starling, Crested Lark, Gambaga Flycatcher, Red-breasted Wheatear, African Pipit, Long-billed Pipit, Cinnamon-breasted Bunting and Arabian Wheatear. The African Pipit is also the furthest north this species has been recorded in the Kingdom in the last forty years proving the area is rich for birdlife. Most birders and photographers who come to the Asir stop at Tanoumah and go no further north but there are plenty of great areas north of this location with much to be discovered.

African Pipit

Arabian Wheatear 

Cinnamon-breasted Bunting

Crested Lark

Gambaga Flycatcher

Gambaga Flycatcher

Long-billed Pipit

Red-breasted Wheatear 

Ruppell's Weaver

Violet-backed Starling

Birding the Talea’a Valley - Abha

The Talea’a Valley near Abha is in the Asir mountains in southwest Saudi Arabia and is a large upland wadi with stony ground and acacia trees growing in the bottom. It has had some good birds seen in it in recent years including Arabian Magpie, although this species has not been seen there for many years. Recently Blandfords Lark has been seen there and on our last visit we also found the scarce African Pipit. A bird was seen song flighting over a rough area of short grass and stones and is some distance from any other sighting of the species. Other good birds seen in the area included very good numbers of Cinnamon-breasted Buntings. The valley is hot and dry and any area of water attracts a steady stream of birds in the summer coming down to dry so are worth looking at if found. Small numbers of the endemic Arabian Wheatear and Arabian Woodpecker have also been seen regularly in this valley making it an excellent birding site. Ruppell's Weaver is a common resident of this valley and can always been seen in good numbers at any time of year.

African Pipit

African Pipit

African Pipit 

Cinnamon-breasted Bunting

Ruppell's Weaver

More good birds from Tanoumah – Bird records by Ahmed AlKassim

Ahmed AlKassim who is an excellent bird photographer from Riyadh sent me a few of his photos recently and has kindly allowed me to use them on my website. I was with him when we saw an African Paradise Flycatcher nest with both parents in attendance but after a short while I left the nest site. Ahmed managed to get photos of Eurasian (Arabian) Magpie in the same area a species with a very restricted range that some people regard as a full species. Ahmed also took a nice photo of the little recorded African Pipit so did well photographing unusual species on his trip to the southwest.

African Paradise Flycatcher - male

Arabian Magpie

African Pipit

Tail patterns of Saudi Arabian subspecies of African Pipit v Saudi Arabian subspecies of Long-billed Pipit

Whilst ringing in the Tanoumah area I was lucky enough to trap two Long-billed Pipits Anthus similis arabicus and two African Pipits Anthus cinnamomeus eximius. African Pipit is a little known bird in Saudi Arabia where the subspecies is endemic to the southwest part of Saudi Arabia and nearby Yemen. Little is known of the African Pipit in Saudi Arabia or the subspecies A. s. arabicus of Long-billed Pipit. The Long-billed Pipit is wide ranging in sub-Saharan Africa and from the Middle East and Arabia to Myanmar. Twenty subspecies are described, with the one occurring in Saudi Arabia A. s. arabicus occurring from the Hijaz and Asir mountains in Saudi Arabia to northwest Yemen. As can be seen from the photos below the tail pattern, especially the outer two tail feathers are very different. African Pipit has white outer tail feather and a small amount of white on the inner web of the second outermost tail feather whilst Long-billed Pipit has pale brown outer tail feather with a small amount of pale brown on the inner web of the second outermost tail feather. The tail measurements of the birds I trapped show that Long-billed Pipit has a much longer tail (78 – 80 mm) than African Pipit (65 – 67 mm) that should be noticeable in the field.

African Pipit tail

Long-billed Pipit tail

Long-billed Pipit tail