Ha'ir, Saudi Arabia

I was back in Riyadh for the weekend and drove down the Dirab to Ha'ir wadi again. The rubbish dumps both still held two white-crowned wheatear and there were 45 black kite at the fish farm roost, most appear to be the black eared race lineatus. They were already starting to drift up the valley shortly after dawn.

Juvenile white-crowned black wheatear

Adult white-crowned black wheatear

The pivot fields seemed a bit quiet at first but a mixed hirundine flock overhead which was mainly barn swallow did include two red-rumped swallow and my first two sand martin in Saudi Arabia. I also kicked up a steppe eagle resting in a ploughed field. A single black stork was wheeling overhead, perhaps one of the four seen earlier in the winter.

Squacco heron

The 'Riyadh River' runs along the south side of the pivot field area so I had a walk along that for about half a mile although it was starting to get a bit hot. The first birds I found were a flock of pallid swift and more barn swallow but amongst them was an alpine swift, the first I've seen in Arabia in 12 years. It didn't hang around long though and although they are a rarity in the UAE I suspect they are a bit more regular in Saudi Arabia.

The edges of the river are thick with phragmites and I could hear reed warbler and clamorous reed warbler singing but I couldn't see any.

All in all a decent mornings birding and migration has only just started.

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HA'IR RUBBISH DUMP

2 Hoopoe

3 Desert lark

2 Rock martin

2 White-crowned black wheatear

30 House sparrow

DIRAB RUBBISH DUMP

2 Rock martin

2 White-crowned black wheatear

3 desert wheatear

KACST FISH PROJECT

45 Black kite

HA'IR PIVOT FIELDS AND RIYADH RIVER

4 Mallard

1 Black stork

8 Grey heron

6 Purple heron

1 Great egret

3 Squacco heron

1 Black-crowned night heron

6 Marsh harrier

1 Greater spotted eagle

2 Steppe eagle

4 Common kestrel

2 Common moorhen

1 Green sandpiper

1 Common snipe

25 Rock dove

200 Eurasian collared dove

100 Laughing dove

9 Namaqua dove

1 Alpine swift

3 Pallid swift

1 White-throated kingfisher

8 Green bee-eater

1 Hoopoe

1 Isabelline shrike

1 Southern grey shrike

1 Steppe grey shrike

30 Crested lark

2 Sand martin

2 Red-rumped swallow

20 White-spectacled bulbul

60 White-eared bulbul

12 Graceful prinia

2 Black scrub robin

2 Bluethroat

1 Black redstart

2 European stonechat

5 Desert wheatear

2 Isabelline wheatear

2 Common myna

50 House sparrow