Whilst birding the Tabuk area in late January, we saw an immature Steppe Eagle showing the bird was wintering in the area. Steppe Eagle is a common passage migrant and uncommon wintering species in Saudi Arabia. There are two recognised subspecies of steppe eagle, Aquilanipalensis nipalensisand Aquilanipalensis orientalis,the latter being slightly smaller, with paler plumage. […]
Tag: saudi arabia
Long-legged Buzzards – Haradh
Whilst birding in Haradh in mid-January I saw at least five Long-legged Buzzards Buteo rufinus. These birds must be wintering in the area as there were too many in too small an area for them to be breeders. Long-legged Buzzard is an uncommon breeding resident in all areas of the Kingdom. In the Riyadh area […]
Four Black-throated Thrushes in Deffi Park – Jubail
Phil Roberts and I went to Deffi Park on 20 January to see if we could find any displaced birds. Weather to the north of us has been very severe with lots of snow and we were hoping the cold weather may have moved birds south. Deffi Park is a large urban park in Jubail […]
White-crowned Wheatear – Haradh
Phil Roberts and I found a juvenile White-crowned Wheatears Oenanthe leucopyga at Haradh on 13 January 2017. The bird was seen along a roadside with scattered rocks as well as fences to keep people away from the pivot irrigation fields. This species had not been recorded in this area previously according to Mike Jennings, but […]
Sociable Lapwing wintering in Eastern Saudi Arabia – Haradh
On 13 January Phil Roberts and I travelled to Haradh an area of extensive pivot irrigation fields three hours drive from Dhahran. We were primarily looking to see if we could prove Sociable Lapwing wintered in the area as we had seen birds here in February 2016 but were uncertain if these were wintering birds […]
Eurasian Scops Owl – Dhahran Main Camp
Chris Boland a birdwatcher who lives in Dhahran saw a Scops Owl at very close range in his garden on the evening of 6 November and sent me a message the next day saying he would look for it again that evening and let me know if it was still present. I got a text […]
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 […]
Arabian Magpie
The taxonomic position of Arabian Magpie Pica asirensis is certainly uncertain, although it is generally regarded as a subspecies of Eurasian Magpie. Gill & Donsker (2016) regard it as such, though there is a caveat “MtDNA phylogeny suggests that Eurasian Magpie comprises several potential species including Korean Magpie P. sericea, Mahgreb Magpie P. mauritanica and […]