Wadi Jewa and Lake Maliki

Last weekend, Lou Regenmorter, Mansur Al Fahad and I spent less time on the banks of Lake Maliki than our previous visits. We wanted to explore more widely in the Jizan area this time.

However we did visit the banks three times for short periods and made a visit to the near-by Wadi Jewa.

Gabar goshawk

Having not seen gabar goshawk on our previous trips to the south west, we met it three times. The first encounter was reported in an earlier blog but the second and third encounters were closer and more prolonged. 

We had just entered Wadi Jewa when a single young gabar goshawk was spotted raiding a Ruepell's weaver colony. It was hopping from nest to nest looking for food inside.

As far as we know it failed to find anything, at least while we were there.

second view of Gabar goshawk

After a couple of minutes it flew on to a near-by lamp post and gave us good views.

Like shikra and dark chanting goshawk but unlike other goshawks and sparrowhawks it has a dark throat stripe. The juvenile's neck is brown also like a shikra.

However it is easily separated from shikra by the white ring tail in flight and the much stronger barring on the breast.

Gabar goshawk at Lake Maliki

Only an hour before we had seen a pair of gabar goshawk playing near Lake Maliki.

glossy ibis

As usual, Lake Maliki held a wide array of heron: glossy ibis, cattle egret, grey heron and squacco heron were seen in great numbers this time.


Other noticeable larger birds included spur winged lapwing and white browed coucal.

I accidentally flushed a greater painted snipe which Brian James had also seen on a previous visit. This means Lake Maliki is the second place in Saudi Arabia where this species can be seen.

black crowned sparrow lark

On one of our visits to the lake, we spent some time patrolling the rocky northern hinterland looking for spotted thick-knee but failed to see any.

desert lark

The smaller birds included sedge warbler, zitting cisticola and Arabian waxbill.The three larks seen were crested lark, black crowned sparrowlark and desert lark. The desert lark was the local dark sub species.

zitting cisticola

Surprisingly only two bird of prey species were observed over all of our visits to the lake. These were gabar goshawk and yellow billed kite. This is quite a contrast to visits made in winter.

yellow vented bulbul at Lake Maliki

At Wadi Jewa, Lou and Mansur found helmeted guineafowl again. This Wadi is the best place in KSA to find it. Meanwhile I spent a fruitless time looking for Black-crowned tchagra.

Abyssinian roller

However Wadi Jewa put on a spectacular display of colourful Afro-tropical birds. I have found it the best place to guarantee seeing Abyssinian roller (even without getting out of the car on the main road).

male violet backed starling

Violet backed starling was also plentiful.

female violet backed starling

This bird has a wide sexual dimorphism in terms of colour.

male violet backed starling from rear

White throated bee-eater was more common here than at Lake Maliki too.

white throated bee-eater

As well as being disappointed in not seeing black crowned tchagra, no dark chanting goshawk was observed either. Both have been reported in this valley. Nevertheless the rest of the birding including the close view of gabar goshawk were fair compensation.

In the next blog, I'll report on our excursion up the foothills to the Bani Malik area and I'll list all the birds seen on the trip as a whole.

Nightjar and sandgrouse at Abu Arish waste waters

Lou Regenmorter is our birding team's best planner in advance of our trips away from Riyadh. 

Mansur Al Fahad and I are very grateful to him for identifying many of the sites we visited in the Jizan area last weekend.

One new one that Lou identified was Abu Arish city's waste water treatment lakes. 

I can't find any records of any birders going there before.

Nubian nightjar

These lakes are east of Abu Arish and close to Lake Maliki. We went there late on Thursday afternoon. I had expected them to be a poorer version of the much better known and larger Lake Maliki. However I was wrong.

Most of the surprises did not come from the lakes themselves but the bushy hinterland near the last and cleanest lake.

Not only was a Nubian nightjar with a juvenile flushed and re-found there but a flock of lichtenstein's sandgrouse were also in and around the same bushes.

Lichtenstein's sandgrouse

Both birds were new additions to my Saudi list and lifers. They were on my target list for the trip but my expectations for either weren't high.

Having spoken to Brian James who birds out of Thuwal north of Jeddah, he told me that Nubian nightjar has been spotted near Thuwal recently. I found this information very interesting because it means the Israeli population may not be as isolated as the maps show. Thuwal is well north of its mapped range in Saudi Arabia.

another pied cuckoo

Two more pied cuckoo were seen in the bushes. I saw a total of four during the trip while Lou managed seven!

glossy ibis

The lakes themselves were also interesting but not surprising. Like at Sabya waste water lakes there were large numbers of members of the heron family but proportions of glossy ibis and squacco heron compared with cattle egret were much higher.

blackstart at Jizan waste water lakes

The visit to these lakes was a great ending to an excellent and exhausting day where I saw 7 lifers and built my Saudi list up to 295.  

Friday was not a bad day either as I will report in future blogs.

Coast south of Jizan

Near Jizan, it just got too hot and humid to continue birding on foot all through the day on Thursday. So in the early afternoon we decided to bird mostly from the car along the coast until the temperatures started to drop.

Osprey on the Jizan coast

We were on the look out for any African summer visitors such as lesser flamingo and African spoonbill which occasionally frequent the coast around Jizan.


We inspected all the greater flamingo but couldn't find any lesser flamingo among them.

Greater flamingo

We did the same with the Eurasian spoonbill, looking for African spoonbill.

Eurasian spoonbill

Unlike during the rest of the weekend, we didn't get lucky.

Pink backed pelican

Pink backed pelican were more numerous than any other time I had been to Jizan.

Lesser black backed and sooty gull

One interesting observation was how many winter visitors appear to still be around and may over-summer. These included lesser black backed gull (Baltic sub species), common redshank, little stint and at least one dunlin.

crab plover

The local resident waders included kentish plover, lesser sand plover and of course crab plover. Resident sooty gull were numerous although we failed to see any white eyed gull this time.

House crow and common myna are obviously particularly fond of the coast too.

After this interlude in the intensive birding and as the day started to cool slightly, we went back inland and visited a new area. 

Before the day was out, our luck had returned and I had two more lifers. I'll report about these in the next blog.

Ad Dabi and three more lifers

After visiting Sabya waste water lakes early on Thursday morning, Lou Regenmorter, Mansur Al Fahad and I moved on east (route 156) to the near-by town of Ad Dabi.

This is one of two towns where Abdim's stork in Saudi Arabia in which it is known to breed. It is particularly fond of mobile phone masts.

Abdim's stork

It didn't take us long to find some. Indeed at one stage four Abdim's stork were sharing the same mast.

two of four Abdim's stork

After some bickering, one of the storks at least left for another phone mast which didn't have an existing nest.

This stork (at least in Saudi Arabia) is often missed by visiting birders  because they assume it will be close to water such as lake Maliki.

white throated bee-eater

Finding the storks was much easier than I had expected. After some observation and photography we moved on. We headed out south towards Abu Arish on a hill side road.

The altitude of this road was over 300 metres which is important because many of the Afro-tropical summer visitors don't seem to like the low land coastal areas. 

White throated bee-eater was soon picked up. This made two lifers and additions to my Saudi list in a few minutes.

gabar goshawk

Then only a couple of minutes later, we came across a pair of playful Gabar goshawk on the same road. This had been a target bird for all three of us but was not expected here. It had previously been reported much closer to Lake Maliki.

As it happens we saw this species twice more and each time we got better views than the previous time. Here we made do with aerial views. It's easily separated in flight from other goshawks and sparrowhawks by its white ring tail.

grey headed kingfisher

Grey headed kingfisher is not found on the low land plains but we saw it on the hill side road without much difficulty. It is a common sight in summer in south west Saudi Arabia from 325 to 2700 metres (not a lower zone: 250 to 1500 as cited in the regional guide).

Nile valley sunbird

On the other hand, this hill side road only had nile valley sunbird which is lowest altitude sunbird of the three found in western Saudi Arabia.

young Arabian babbler

I noted a few other observations about other local resident birds too: for example - the density of Arabian babbler in this south west corner of the kingdom is the highest I have yet found.

African silverbill

The resident silverbill in this area is of course African silverbill not Indian silverbill as in central Arabia.

Black bush robin

However sub-species of black bush robin is the same as in central Arabia rather than the dull brown sub species found up in Abha.

Overall, Thursday morning was really about new finds rather than observations about residents. I had gained 5 lifers and additions to my list. This was quite a start to the weekend!