I visiting my friend and long time birding colleague Brian James last weekend. He lives at Thuwal north of Jeddah. On Thursday morning we set out north with fellow birders Dan and Alice towards Yanbu. We birded the Yanbu area and over the weekend we saw over 115 species. This is even more than my […]
Author: Robert Tovey
Dr Rob Tovey is a scientist by training and more recently an English teacher. His profession allows him to travel to some of the more difficult-to-get-to places and stay there for years if his inclination takes him. He is a keen bird watcher, blogger and amateur photographer. He has worked in Azerbaijan and Libya and is currently in Saudi Arabia. Rob also has a base in Bulgaria so overall is becoming a bit of birding specialist in very general terms where East meets West.
Birds on the east coast
This is the second blog to look at Mansur Al Fahad’s trip two weeks ago to the east coast. He saw a very large number and variety of waders, some of which gave almost as many identification headaches as the gulls. However this blog looks at some of the non-waders he saw. All the pictures […]
Birds of prey near Riyadh
Early spring is a good time to look hard at the birds of prey in the Riyadh area. The wintering eagles gather and seem to be reinforced by others on passage before moving on. Different types of other birds of prey pass through too. Last weekend saw some of these events. For example a fulvescens […]
Round up of Al Hayer in February
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. […]
Two important birds in one magical morning
Those who follow my blog will know that hooded wheatearhas been mynemesis bird. Along with two owls,Dunn’s larkand a very small number of others it has been one of a dwindling group of confirmed residents in Riyadh province which I hadn’t seen. male hooded wheatear I have spent many hours looking for it either as […]
Pallid harrier along the highway
In the northernmost field of NADEC farm on Thursday, Lou Regensmorter and I came across a female pallid harrier. The field is adjacent to route 90 which goes from Kharj to Haradh female pallid harrier What was interesting is that six hours before, we had stopped the car journey at the outskirts of Kharj on […]
More from Zulfi
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 […]
Vultures so close to Riyadh
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 […]