Haradh is a well known wintering location for Northern Lapwing, with flocks of several hundreds seen in recent winters. This trip we located many birds scattered around the fields, but no large flocks and probably saw more than 100 Northern Lapwings in total. The species is an uncommon winter visitor to the northern areas of the Kingdom where they favour the large pivot irrigation fields. Interspersed amongst them were a few Spur-winged Lapwings.
This species was a vagrant to the Eastern Province of the Kingdom until a few years ago but is now established as a resident at Haradh where birds probably breed. In the west of the Kingdom Spur-winged Lapwing is a common resident breeder. The last Lapwing we saw were 14 Sociable Lapwings, a critically endangered species worldwide and a rare winter visitor to Tabuk (in the north-west of the Kingdom) and now Haradh.
This is the fourth winter in succession we have found wintering birds at this location making it an extremely important location for its continued survival.
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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