Way out west

It's Ramadan, the month of fasting here in Saudi Arabia and I headed west out of the heat of Riyadh to Ta'if, some 100 kms from Mekkah at the western end of the Azir mountains.

I caught the first flight and arrived shortly after dawn, picked up a hire car at the airport and headed out onto the airport road. I had no specific plans other than to chart the area for potential birding spots. The problem (or is it an advantage?) of birding a relatively unknown country such as Saudi Arabia is actually finding decent locations in the first place.

The temperature in Ta'if was a little less than Riyadh but still well into the 30's and my first impressions were of a hot, arrid high level plateau. Much the same as the area around Najran further to the south east. The vegetation was scrub interspersed with the odd acacia tree and no water to be seen. Not particularly promising at first sight.

I eventually found some water in the form of a seasonal river at A on the map below.

The river was a small sandy stream that had been there long enough to provide plenty of cover but was still running across the tarmac road.

The surrounding scrub held the usual black scrub robin and several green bee-eater hawking for insects in the breeze in their rather scruffy moult plumage. The commonest bird apart from house sparrow was probably nile valley sunbird several still with their elongated tails as they too went through their annual moult.

Green bee--eater

Nearer to the stream perched on a prominent branch was a female (or young) woodchat shrike, the first of two I saw. Fairly common on migration through the UAE these colourful shrikes are unusual there in August and two birds this far south this early in the autumn sugeests the temperate climate tempted them to them to breed. A feldegg sub-species yellow wagtail further along the stream was another possible breeder in this more temperate region.

There were several species of wader in the muddy fringes, common sandpiper, spur-winged plover and a couple of ruff. The biggest surprise however was a noisy flock of 22 collared pratincole that I flushed from the river bank. They are much more at home on river banks in Africa but I tend to see them on migration in irrigated fields in this part of the world.

As I drove back towards the airport I saw another flock of collared pratincole wheeling above a damp field by the motorway (point B on the map above). This time they numbered 92, the biggest flock I've ever seen and possibly the largest flock recorded in Saudi.

Overall Ta'if was a bit disappointing for birds but I suspect with the addition of winter visitors and raptors it's probably worth having another look at the area in a few months time.

Black scrub robin

On my second day in the area, given the lack of birds around Ta'if I drove down to Jeddah. On the way I came across several packs of Hamadryas baboon by the roadside on the western slopes of the azir Mountains.

Hamadryas baboon family

A big alpha male

Unfortunately there was a similar lack of birds on the Jeddah Corniche. Still a bit early in the year for any great movement although there was the odd sooty gull, white-eyed gull and a single spur-winged plover showing well as it picked insects from the grass.

White-eyed gull

Spur-winged plover

A full list of the 29 species of bird seen around Ta'if can be found HERE