The Jizan dam holds a large lake which when I visited in the spring had quite low water levels and plenty of muddy fringes. This time presumably due to water management the levels were too high for many waders. But there was plenty to see in the surrounding scrub land.
White-throated bee-eater are a summer visiter to southern Arabia and after seeing just one on the first afternoon I couldn't move without seeing them on the second. I counted a good forty in total perched or hawking for insects. Their call is a bit more melodic than the other three species of bee-eater in the region.
 |
| White-throated bee-eater |
Another colourful bird that I found in Saudi for the first time was another summer visitor, grey-headed kingfisher. Not necessarily associated with water but one of the two I saw was perched above water on a reed. This one was perched in a acacia tree and easily approached in my hire car, even though it wasn't a 4WD and at some point I broke the plastic grill off on a rock. :(
 |
| Grey-headed kingfisher |
Another southern Arabia specialty is white-browed coucal, a resident that I've seen omce before but not very well. They don't fly well and rather crash around the reed beds. This individual was carrying food to young in the nest.
 |
| White-browed coucal |
Less colourful but happy to pose for photos were a couple of eastern olivaceous warbler picking through the acacia scrub and a couple of african silverbill perched over the lake edge sizing up some old weavers nests.
 |
| Eastern olivaceous warbler |
 |
| African silverbill |
In the third part of my trip blog I'll look at some of the birds from the shore line.
No comments:
Post a Comment