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 […]
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.
Thumamah escarpment
For the second half of last Thursday’s birding trip, Lou Regensmorter and I ventured up to the top of the Tuwaiq escarpment north of Riyadh. In part we were looking for the elusive hooded wheatear which is one of my nemesis birds. In part this was a speculative look at a potentially new birding place. […]
Rhawdat Khuraim in winter
Rhawdat Khuraim is an oasis 80 kilometres north west of Riyadh. It proved to be an excellent place for passage birds when visited last spring. So we visited it again, this time obviously in winter to see what it might hold. In many ways it was a bit disappointing. Only two warblers were seen. These […]
Deffi Park, Jubail
I visited Deffi Park, Jubail for the first time on Thursday. It is a large city- based public park two kilometres inland from the Persian gulf. It is one of the best places apparently for migrant Eurasian thrushes and finches to be pushed down in mid winter. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t see one blackbird […]
A wild day at Sebkhat al Fasl, Jubail
My visit to Sebkhet al Fasl, Jubail on Thursday afternoon was a cool and windy one. It was also wet in the sense that the water level was at least 50 cm higher than during my first visit a few months ago. The picture below is not the open sea. It is part of the […]
Five wheatears but not the right one
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 heron family near Jizan
During the trip to the Jizan area, much of the heron family activity was at Lake Maliki. This is the largest fresh water mass in the kingdom by a big margin. The two commonest heron family members were glossy ibis and squacco heron. I looked carefully through the glossy bis for juvenile northern bald ibis. […]
The doves of Jizan
Its difficult to know where to start with the trip to Jizan last weekend but I am going with a nice self-contained group – the doves. You don’t go to the south west corner of Saudi Arabia without the hope of seeing African collared dove. Actually they aren’t that common but we picked a couple […]