Whilst birding Tanoumah in the southwestern mountains I found an African PipitAnthus 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.
Jem Babbington
Jem Babbington is a keen birder and amateur photographer located in Dhahran, Eastern Saudi Arabia where he goes birding every day. Jem was born in England and is a serious local patch and local area birder who has been birding for almost forty years and has birded in more than fifty countries. Jem is learning to ring birds in Bahrain as a perfect way to learn more about the birds of the area. Saudi Arabia is a very much under-watched and under-recorded country.
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