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<\/a>Different types of other birds of prey pass through too. Last weekend saw some of these events. For example a fulvescens greater spotted eagle remained near the pivot fields at Al Hayer on both Thursday and Friday even though I had been seeing one near Dirab at various times in the winter, quite possibly the same one.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
On Friday he was standing on the ground in a pivot field, with his head barely above the crop height, where 6 other eagles were aggregated.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The eagles were four other greater spotted eagle and two Eastern imperial eagle. There were no steppe eagle even though they are the most common eagle in winter.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n It looks like they were meeting up for a reason and I can only imagine they were preparing to move off but I am not an expert on eagle behaviour.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Near-by a lesser kestrel was perched over one of the largest trees in the area (and central Arabia!). Inside the branches were many tens of Spanish sparrow and a few collared dove.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Lesser kestrel are passage birds only in central Arabia. They can be in small groups or singularly.<\/p>\n Meanwhile the regular kestrel were hawking over some of the fields and marsh harrier were present over the reed beds. Unfortunately there was no sign of other harriers on passage. I am still looking for my first Montagu’s harrier in Saudi Arabia which is much rarer than Pallid harrier.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Following a tip off from bird photographer, Tholightz Quindara, Lou ande mad a short visit to the main city waste dump at Sulay on Thursday to check out the eagles that had been reported massing there in the afternoons.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n We arrived in the early afternoon but still counted 14 eagles. Four of them were perched on electricity pylons from time to time. As far as I could tell all the ones we saw were steppe eagle.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n