Whilst birding the Khafrah Marsh area on 9 March I saw three adult Red-wattled Lapwing. The species is scarce in Saudi Arabia with records from Riyadh, the Empty Quarter and the Eastern Province. This species is a resident breeder at wetlands in eastern Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait, and is gradually colonizing westwards. […]
Tag: Red-Wattled Lapwing
Rare and unusual birds seen in Saudi Arabia in first half of 2017
An adult and juvenile Bewick’s Swan Cygnus (columbianus) bewickii near Al Jawf 14-15 December 2016 with three more adults in the north of the Kingdom 19 December 2016 being only the third to seventh records of the species for the Kingdom. Four See-see Partridge Ammoperdix griseogularis, including a calling male, were at a remote desert […]
Dowkah in early November
Monday was the day of maximum impact of cyclone Chapala in southern Arabia. It’s main effect missed western Oman and struck central Yemen instead.Nevertheless it had some effect on Saeed Shanfari’s and my birding when we went out into the desert north of the Dhofar mountains. Having set off at 4.30 am we arrived at […]
Abdim’s stork are back
During mid week a week ago, I managed to snatch some time to visit Raysut settling pools in the late afternoon. The good news is that about 45 Abdim’s stork had arrived. It is only in very recent years that they have chosen to winter in Salalah and it looks like that will continue this […]
Buraimi
Last Thursday was the only day during Eid when I had no long distance travelling. I stayed in the Buraimi area on the border with UAE. I visited two sites there: Buraimi sewage plant and Jebel Qatar. Both are conveniently on the same road to Mahdah and barely five kilometres apart. The sewage plant is […]
Rubʿ al-Khali; The Empty Quarter
At the start of this year I visited the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and was fortunate to spend a few days at Shaybah in the northeastern edge of this, the world’s largest desert. This region is classified as ‘hyper-arid’ with typical rainfall of less than 30mm per year and is one of the driest regions […]
Birds from Laem Pak Bia, part 2 of 3
Second part that accounts some of my many photographic expeditions at Laem Pak Bia, a great area for waders and much more… December 23rd, 2008 & December 27th, 2008 – just before Christmas (08), we visited the King’s Project on a sunny day and got a few images. It was already pretty dry around Central […]