Arabian Golden Sparrow – Al Hair

Whilst birding Al Hair, near Riyadh recently I came across a flock of approximately twenty Arabian Golden Sparrows, including juveniles. They were in a large mixed flock of Streaked Weavers and Indian Silverbills but soon moved apart and started associating with Spanish Sparrows. This species is a breeding resident in the southwest of the Kingdom but have not been seen north of Al Shuqaiq. The birds in Riyadh have almost certainly come from escaped cage birds but individuals have been seen in this area since 2013 at least and a group of twenty birds including juveniles suggests they are breeding in the area and probably now have a self-sustaining breeding population. These birds should be monitored over the next few seasons to see in numbers increase. This area has at least two other species of exotic birds resident with self-sustaining breeding population Streaked Weaver and Red Avadavat.

Large flock of Arabian Golden Sparrows – Phil’s fields

Whilst birding Phil’s fields near Sabya 7-8 July 2017 I saw a large flock of 300+ Arabian Golden Sparrows. The species only occurs in the southwest tip of the Arabian Peninsula (southwest Saudi Arabia and western Yemen), Djibouti and extreme coastal northwest Somalia. The favour arid thorn-bush savanna and nearby cultivated land. The birds I saw were in trees surrounding large pivot irrigation fields and were a mix of both males and females. The male birds are golden-yellow, except for paler yellow upper­wing-coverts with greyish inner webs, black flight-feathers with whitish edges with small white patch at base of primaries. They have black tail feathers broadly edged white and a dark brown eye. The bill is flesh-coloured to creamy grey, becoming black in breeding season. legs pale pinkish-brown. The female is mainly pale buff or sandy grey, pale lemon-buff below, with wing and tail similar to males. Juvenile is similar to female, but with faint spotting on upper parts.

Some good birds – Sabya Waste Water Lagoons

I visited Sabya Waste Water Lagoons three times in July 2017 and saw a lot of good birds in the area. I explored further away from the lagoons and found good areas of Acacia scrub and a well vegetated wadi and a large rubbish dump that had started to be used in place of the original dump. The rubbish dump had Abdim’s Storks and hundreds of Arabian Golden Sparrows as well as some Ruppell’s Weavers. The wadi area had White-throated Bee-eaters and White-browed Coucal. The pools held Purple Heron, Grey Heron, Little Grebe, Glossy Ibis, Common Moorhens, Western Cattle Egrets, Greater Painted Snipe, Spur-winged Lapwings, Common Sandpiper, Black-tailed Godwit and Black-winged Stilts. The area around the pond had White-spectacled Bulbul, Black Scrub Robin, Black-crowned Sparrow-Lark, White-browed Coucal, Crested Lark and Green Bee-eaters. This site is an excellent birding location and one I visit every time I am in the area and it always turns up good birds.

African Collared Dove 

Arabian Babbler

Arabian Golden Sparrow

Arabian Golden Sparrow

Black-tailed Godwit

Common Sandpiper

Crested Lark

Glossy Ibis

Green Bee-eater

Namaqua Dove

Nile Valley Sunbird

Spur-winged Lapwing

Western Cattle Egret

White-browed Coucal 

White-throated Bee-eater - juvenile

Phil’s Fields Sabya

We spent the early afternoon of 2 July birding two very large grassy fields inland from Sabya that Phil located as I was driving along the main Ad Dabi to Sabya road (17 07.58N, 42 41.62E). The fields were on the right hand side of the road going towards Sabya and had large pivot irrigation equipment stored by them. The fields were very green with tall plants growing in them and some quite wide tracks where the pivot irrigation wheels had driven. The area looked excellent for locating Zitting Cisticola, Singing Bushlarks and Arabian Sparrows and as soon as we were out of the car we heard Zitting Cisticola. They took a little time to get views of as they spent most of the time flying high in the sky and diving for cover but eventually a couple were seen perched on grass stems and others close by in flight with more than twenty birds seen in total.

Zitting Cisticola

Arabian Golden Sparrows

A walk across the fields soon produced 10+ Singing Bushlarks flushed from the grass and the small size and bright underwing coverts could clearly be seen. Several birds gave brief songs in flight but most were silent. Two Crested larks were also seen for comparison. As I was walking down one of the tracks in the field I flushed a Small Buttonquail which gave good, but short, flight views and was not seen again (see previous comments on Small Buttonquail under Malaki Dam Lake account). The very small size, flight action and wing pattern gave the species identity away. Later we flushed a dark Quail and got reasonable views of a bird in flight and on the ground that looked like it may well have been Harlequin Quail. Common Quail could not be 100% eliminated but the time of year does not appear right for the migrant Common Quail, although we saw a number of what appeared to be unusually early migrants on this trip, hence no conclusive identity was given to the bird. 

Pied Cuckoo

White-throated Bee-eater

Black Bush Robin

Phil then located a large flock of over 300 Arabian Golden Sparrows that were continually on the move and proved very difficult to photograph until a few flew into a nearby hedge, where they were less mobile. Next to the hedge we found a European Roller on a pivot irrigation water system, presumably a very early migrant and further along the same equipment there was a Pied Cuckoo with another two seen together further along the hedge. These birds are thought to be passage migrants through the area, mainly in May, but the sighting had us wondering if they were breeding in the area. Breeding was later confirmed by Lou Regenmorter when he saw a young Pied Cuckoo in a different location near Abha being fed by a party of Arabian Babblers. Other good birds seen included 15+ White-throated Bee-eaters, two Little Green Bee-eaters and two Black Bush Robins. 50+ Western Cattle Egrets, one Squacco Heron and several Crested Larks also present and four African Palm Swifts were flying about. Five Common Myna, 20+ Ruppell’s Weavers and several House Sparrows were also seen.