Last year I visited Al Hayer south of Riyadh almost weekly and it became what we birders call my local patch. This year I vowed to make trips more widely within Saudi Arabia and I have been doing so. However last weekend I returned to Al Hayer for the first time in over 6 weeks. [...]
Ajban farms is a favorite site of mine , located between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It is a desert scrub area with large water lakes. Unfortunately the water is constantly being pumped into tankers for nearby constructions sites. Not sure how much longer there will be water there, once gone I am sure there will [...]
Today’s blog looks further at Mansur al Fahad’s visit to Zulfi last week. He tells me the birding is always good there and I can’t dispute that. As well as the pharaoh eagle owl and several steppe eagle featured in the last blog, there is much more to report on. For starters, Mansur managed to [...]
On Thursday, after visiting the Kararah lake area, our birding party doubled back away towards Riyadh on the Mecca road before turning off north west. This was on route 505 according to the map but route 902 according to the road sign. This is an occupational hazard in Saudi Arabia, road sign numbers and map [...]
If you travel out of Riyadh on the Mecca road, its not too long, 30 kilometres or so, before you see brown recreational road signs to Kararah lake. Lou Regensmorter, first time birder George Darley-Doran, and I headed out that way on Thursday morning. Of course we knew the “lake” and the near-by “waterfall” would [...]
Whilst looking for Large White-headed Gulls on Abqaiq Landfill we found quite a good number of Rock Doves. Many of the birds appeared to be true Rock Doves although a number of less pure bred birds were about as well. Due to the less than pure individuals it is difficult to tell whether any birds [...]
Last Friday, I went to “the edge of the world”. This is the name given to the Tuwaiq Escarpment and the land directly below it, west of Riyadh. Its quite popular for day tripping locals and expats who drive out on the Mecca road westward. They indulge in walks and many other outdoor activities such [...]
The family travelled on a Saudi Aramco run trip to Shaybah on 4th October. This is a very special trip as this area is basically out of bounds to most people residing in Saudi Arabia, and when you take into account how few foreigners live in Saudi Arabia the number of foreigners who have visited [...]
