Whilst birdwatching the Al Mehfar Park area of Tanoumah I came across a Yemen Rock Agama Acanthocercus yemensis. The Yemen Rock Agama occurs in northern Yemen and adjacent Saudi Arabia, but the limits of its distribution in Saudi Arabia are currently not well known. It occurs from around 2,000 to 3,000 metres above sea level […]
Author: Jem Babbington
Some scarce and unusual birds – Abqaiq Wetlands
Whilst birding Abqaiq Wetlands on 1 May with Phil Roberts we came a cross a number of good birds with the best probably being a Eurasian Crag Martin. This species is a scarce passage migrant in the Eastern Province mainly in the spring and I have only seen one before in the Eastern Province over […]
Yellow Wagtail – Jubail
Whilst birding the Jubail area I found two Yellow Wagtails. I am not certain of their subspecies but they may have been poorly marked beema or flava? The Yellow Wagtail is a common passage migrant with various subspecies occurring with the most common being Black-headed Wagtails of the race Motacilla flava feldegg which are the […]
Water birds around Jubail
Whilst birding Jubail recently I came across a nice selection of water birds some of which I have not seen so often this year. Terns are always common in Jubail and Caspian Tern has been seen in numbers up to 100 birds in some visits. It is a local breeding species and can often be […]
Arabian Green Bee-eater
The Arabian Green Bee-eater is usually treated as conspecific with M. viridissimus and M. orientalis, but differs from both in its very short stub-ended central tail feathers; bright blue forehead, supercilium and throat, and bluer lower belly; broader, smudgier black breast-bar; marginally larger size and clearly longer tail (minus the tail extensions) than the other […]
Desert Larks – Shedgum Escarpment
Desert Lark Ammomanes deserti is a common resident in rocky deserts and outcrops of all areas except the juniper summits of the Hejaz and Asir and probably the sand seas of the Empty Quarter and Nafud Desert. The best place to see the species close to Dhahran where I live is the Shedgum Escarpment so […]
Good numbers of Caspian Terns – Jubail
Caspian Tern is a common sighting in Jubail where they can be seen in almost any wetland area from the coast inland to flooded sabkhat areas like Sabkhat Al Fasl and Khafra Marsh. Although common numbers seen rarely exceed ten although late in the summer, around September, numbers can exceed 150 birds mainly out on […]
Five Citrine Wagtails – Jubail
An early morning trip to Jubail was rewarded with the sighting of five different Citrine Wagtails in various different places. They varied in plumage from washed out to full adult males in breeding plumage but the bird I managed to photograph was somewhere in between. Citrine Wagtail is a regular though local winter visitor to […]