A few more migrants from Buraydah area – Bird records by Ragu Shanbhougue

Ragu who is a doctor who lives and works in Buraydah has sent me many photos over the past few months and I have included here a number he sent last month of a few migrants he saw whilst out in his local area. There is nothing too unusual species wise but good birds to see nevertheless. Ragu saw species that I have also been seeing in Dhahran including Spotted Flycatchers and European Bee-eaters tow species that have been particularly common this year. Other good migrants Ragu saw and photographed were Red-backed Shrike and Red-throated Pipit, two species that are quite common but tend to pass quite late in the migration period and Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin a migrant that stays to breed in small numbers. I would like to thank Ragu for allowing me to use his photos on my website.

Shabanah Wild Park – Bird records by Khalifah Al Dhaheri

This site is a location I have not been to myself and lies off route 15 between Tanoumah and Al Baha in the Asir mountains. Khalifah saw a number of good birds in this area including the following: Eurasian Moorhen, four Rock Pigeons, two Dusky Turtle-Doves, five Laughing Doves, Alpine Swift, 25 Little Swifts, three Eurasian Hoopoes, Fan-tailed Raven, two Pale Crag-Martins, five White-spectacled Bulbuls, two Scrub Warblers, Brown Woodland-Warbler, two Graceful Prinias, Gambaga Flycatcher, two Blackstarts, four Arabian Wheatears, three Violet-backed Starlings, two Tristram's Starlings, three Palestine Sunbirds, seven Cinnamon-breasted Buntings and nine Rueppell's Weavers. He has kindly allowed me to use two of his photographs below for which I am very grateful.

Dusky Turtle Dove

Tristram's Starling

White-cheeked Terns – Sabkhat Al Fasl

White-cheeked Tern Sterna repressa is a common breeding summer visitor to the Gulf and Red Sea coast north to Jeddah. There are no inland records of this species that I know off. Birds start occurring in April and by June there are very large numbers as this is the start of their breeding season. White-cheeked Tern juveniles occur from late July and August and some remaining until October. Winter records are rare in the Eastern Province, although they have been seen occasionally. Birds breed offshore Jubail on small islands and use Sabkhat Al Fasl as a feeding area and it is an excellent place to observe the species as well as a good place to try to photograph them. It is not easy to get photos with light showing in the eyes as their plumage is grey, black and white, but birds do come close along the open water areas so close up shots are possible.

Little Bitterns - Sabkhat Al Fasl

Whilst birding at Sabkhat Al Fasl last weekend I saw many Little Bitterns. The total number for the day was 17 birds with pairs and individuals seen at many places around the location. Normally birds are difficult to photograph and getting flight shits is particularly unusual as the cover and reed beds make getting sharp in flight shots a challenge. I managed to photograph a number of birds in flight this trip though including a male and female flying across an open area of water following each other. The Little Bittern is a locally common breeder and an uncommon migrant and winter visitor seen throughout the Kingdom. The Birds of the Riyadh Region by Stagg (1994) mentions a small but growing breeding population that has become established but birds remain mainly as spring and autumn passage migrant passing mid March to June and again from late July to mid November. In spring it is scarce and sightings are usually of ones and twos. More numerous on autumn passage, especially during September and early October when small groups may be encountered. In the Eastern Province it is a locally common breeding species in a few suitable areas, including Sabkhat Al Fasl. They are present all year in breeding areas, whereas elsewhere it occurs fairly regularly from March to early June and from August to October on passage. I have trapped and ringed a number of birds in the last two years at Sabkhat Al Fasl with some having brood patches showing breeding is occurring.

Third Striated Heron for the Eastern Province – Sabkhat Al Fasl

Whilst birding at Sabkhat Al Fasl on 7 June 2015 I found a Striated Heron Butorides striata along the edge of the central track feeding out in the open on the edge of the wetland area. Unfortunately before I could take a photograph of it the bird flew off but luckily came closer to me over the track and into the wetland area on the other side of the road where I could not relocate it. Striated Heron is a common breeding resident on the coasts of the Red Sea but is a vagrant to the northern part of the Arabian Gulf including the Eastern Province. Eastern Province records include one remarkable inland record was a bird at Sabkha 40 on 30 May 2010 in the huge desert of the Empty Quarter. This is a species usually associated with the coast of Arabia and had never been recorded this far inland before in our region and was the first record for eastern Saudi Arabia. It would have had to be a migrant, but its position at Shaybah raises the interesting possibility that it had travelled across eastern Arabia from the Arabian Sea en-route to the Arabian Gulf. The only other Eastern Province record, I know of, was one was in Al Fanateer marina, Jubail on 15 February 2014 seen by Lou Regenmorter and Brian James. Hopefully the increase in records in recent years means that birds may be spreading northwards and will become more frequent in the Eastern Province in the near future.

Kentish Plover feigning injury – Sabkhat Al Fasl

Whilst birding at Sabkhat Al Fasl last weekend I saw a number of Kentish Plovers with young chicks along the road built under the power-lines. At one stage an adult bird tried to lead me away from its young chicks by feigning a broken wing. This is a well know distraction technique used by the species to lead an intruder away from the young birds. I took a few photos of the bird feigning injury, shown below, before I left the area so as not to cause the birds any undue stress. Kentish Plovers breed in large numbers along the Gulf coast of the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia and are one of the commonest waders throughout the year and the commonest in the summer months. Kentish Plover Charadrius alexandrinus is a common migrant and resident on all coasts and also inland in small numbers. They breed on all coasts and many inland freshwater sites and are also common migrants after the breeding the season and become common in November to February.

Red Fox probably originated in the Middle East

Currently recognized as a single species, the Red Fox Vulpes vulpes has the widest natural distribution of any terrestrial carnivore, possibly any terrestrial mammal. Its range spans approximately 70 million square kilometres encompassing much of Europe, Asia and North America and extending into North Africa, with an introduced population in Australia. The Red Fox occupies a wide variety of ecosystems, including forests, grasslands, deserts and agricultural and human-dominated environments. Interestingly a recent study (see paper detail below) was conducted providing the most geographically and genomically comprehensive study to date of the Red Fox. Analysis from this study, including mitochondrial sequence of 1000 individuals suggested an ancient Middle Eastern origin for all extant Red Foxes with demographic analyses indicated a major expansion in Eurasia during the last glaciation 50,000 years ago. This was concluded as the most basal mtDNA lineages primarily occurred in the Middle East, suggesting that the red fox could have arisen in that region.

M. J. Statham et al. 2014. Range-wide multilocus phylogeography of the red fox reveals ancient continental divergence, minimal genomic exchange and distinct demographic histories. Molecular Ecology 23; 4813–4830.

Sallal Al Dahna – Bird records by Khalifah Al Dhaheri

This is a sheltered valley at 1955 metres elevation above sea level, with a small waterfall at one end and a permanent small pool. The valley has large mature trees growing in it and is an excellent place to look for the endemic subspecies of Eurasian Magpie the Asir Magpie. Khalifah visited this area and saw the magie with two adults and a flightless juvenile showing breeding had occurred nearby. Both the adults started alarming near the nest, when Fan-tailed Ravens were above, and the young juvenile then move into the thickest tree. Other birds seen included one Philby's Partridge, three Hamerkop, Shikra, two Gray-headed Kingfishers, four Arabian Woodpeckers, Eurasian Kestrel, two African Paradise-Flycatcher, seven Fan-tailed Ravens, three Pale Crag-Martins, two Red-rumped Swallows, seven White-spectacled Bulbuls, eight Brown Woodland-Warblers, Blackcap, four Abyssinian White-eyes, six Arabian Babblers, four Gambaga Flycatchers, five Little Rock-Thrushes, Arabian Wheatear, four Yemen Thrushes, eight Violet-backed Starlings, four Tristram's Starlings, and two Rueppell's Weavers.

Arabian Magpie

Grey-headed Kingfisher

Robber Fly in Tabuk – Record by Viv Wilson

Viv Wilson sent me a photograph of an Asilidae that are part of the robber fly family, also called assassin flies, that h took in his garden in Tabuk recently. He has kindly allowed me to use the photo on my website and it is reproduced below. They are powerfully built, bristly flies with a short, stout proboscis enclosing the sharp, sucking hypopharynx. The name "robber flies" reflects their notoriously aggressive predatory habits; they feed mainly or exclusively on other insects and as a rule they wait in ambush and catch their prey in flight. There are over 7000 described species. And in general attack a very wide range of prey, including other flies, beetles, butterflies and moths, various bees, ants, dragon and damselflies, ichneumon wasps, grasshoppers, and some spiders. The fly attacks its prey by stabbing it with its short, strong proboscis injecting the victim with saliva containing neurotoxic and proteolytic enzymes which very rapidly paralyze the victim. Asilidae generally occur in habitats that are open, sunny, and dry, even arid. Asilidae occur in all zoogeographical regions except Antarctica, however, the highest levels of biodiversity are in warm climates with arid or semi-arid regions tending to have the greatest variety of species.

Plenty of good birds in a Wadi at bottom of Raydah Escarpment – Bird records by Khalifah Al Dhaheri

Khalifah went down the Raydah Escarpment as mentioned in a previous post and when at the bottom kept right for a few kilometres until he came to a good looking wadi area. In this area he saw the following species:  Three Rock Pigeons (Feral Pigeon), two Dusky Turtle-Doves, four Laughing Doves, one Bruce's Green-Pigeon, two Dideric Cuckoos a species that is not easy to see in Saudi Arabia and one I have not seen myself. They have a status as a vagrant but this is clearly not the case as they have been seen every summer in the Abha area in recent years but is still an excellent find. There were also four White-browed Coucals, 50 Little Swifts, nine Gray-headed Kingfishers, 20 White-throated Bee-eaters, five Green Bee-eaters, four Eurasian Hoopoes, African Gray Hornbill, four Arabian Woodpeckers, three Black-crowned Tchagras another species that is regularly seen but one I have failed to locate myself up until now. Khalifah also saw Pale Crag-Martin, three Barn Swallows, four White-spectacled Bulbuls, three Abyssinian White-eyes, four Arabian Babblers, Gambaga Flycatcher, five Black Scrub-Robins, Blackstart, six Violet-backed Starlings, six Nile Valley Sunbirds, five Shining Sunbirds and two African Silverbills. Khalifa has very kindly allowed me to use some of his excellent photographs below for which I thank him.

White-throated Bee-eater

Violet-backed Starling