Weekend in Jizan Part 1

Last weekend I took another trip to Jizan in southern Saudi Arabia. It's probably my favourite birding area in the country so far. The corniche offers excellent wader watching and in the hills 50 kms inland there are wadis and a large lake behind Jizan dam. Migration has just started plus many summer visitors are still in the area. I managed 98 species in two days including 5 new KSA species.

I spent the first morning driving up and down the corniche. From the car it offers good photo opportunities when the tide is out as the eastern sun provides perfect lighting. This time the tide was very low and a bit too far out so the waders were scattered over a huge area of mud but some were feeding in the areas by the sea wall.

Some waders were sat on the sea wall itself posing for photos in the morning sunlight.

Kentish plover

Common ringed plover

Ruddy turnstone

Not all the bird life was on the mud flats. I found several black-headed sparrow lark picking around the litter bins and an isabelline wheatear on migration was hopping along the sea wall.

Black-crowned sparrow lark

Isabelline wheatear

And some birds were on the mud but shouldn't have been. This wryneck was clearly migrating along the coastline.

Wryneck

Of the birds close in by the sea wall there were dunlin, ringed plover, curlew sandpiper, redshank and the striking black and white crab plover. Also further out on the mud flats were several western reef heron and a party of 6 greater flamingo.

Curlew sandpipers

Juvenile curlew sandpiper

Adult crab plover

Common redshank

As the tide came in the birds retreated to the roost on a lagoon the other side of the corniche road. There were several spoonbill and on the muddy fringes bar-tailed godwit, oystercatcher, sandplover, lesser crested tern and caspian tern and plenty of crab plover.

Terns and waders at the high tide roost

Spoonbills