Mahazat in the afternoon

On Friday afternoon, Brian James and I continued our roaming around the Mahazat as -Sayd Nature Reserve. We were looking in particular for ostrich.

The re-introduced sub species here is Struthio camelus camelus sometimes called red-necked ostrich.

Dr M. Zafar ul Islam who was our host told us it is extremely close genetically to the ostrich which used to frequent Mahazat as -Sayd as proven from the DNA inside ancient eggs.

I had expected to see the birds readily. I suppose this is because of my experience in East Africa where there are often habituated birds close to settlements. 

To the credit of the management, the birds in Mahazat as -Sayd are not habituated at all.

Lappet-face vulture

During our roaming in the early afternoon, we came across two more lappet faced vulture nests. In one of them an occupant stood up giving reasonable pictures.

desert whitethroat

A single desert whitethroat became the third warbler seen in the reserve. I suspect there are a lot more in winter. 

red backed shrike

A third shrike was also seen. This one was a red backed shrike. 

After 3 hours of looking in the afternoon, we still hadn't found any ostrich and had returned to camp. 

We recounted this to Zafar who kindly agree to show us himself where they are often found. However this area was 27 kilometres away "as the crow flies".  

Incidentally one member of the crow family was present in the reserve. We observed brown necked raven on a few occasions but mostly in the more barren areas.

ostrich

Finally we arrived at the spot where Zafar sees them most frequently at this time of year. We were lucky and Zafar was able to point a few birds out to us in the distance. They never came close.

pregnant gazelle

On the way back we detoured to go to one of the few high points on the plain. We were interested to see if there were any owls there which was always going to be long shot. There weren't.

booted eagle

The highlight on the way back was a grounded booted eagle.

European bee-eater

Brian and I returned the next morning for a couple of hours but didn't really add much to our observations. The only addition to Friday's list was a smart male marsh harrier. 

We did get to photograph one of the European bee-eater which we had been seeing passing through.  

female type pied wheatear

Other good photo opportunities was a female pied wheatear which allowed quite close contact and a second European roller of the trip.

European roller

Birding on Saturday morning was very difficult because there had been a sandstorm over-night continuing only a little less intensely during the morning.

white spectacled bulbul

We had to leave early because of Brian's travel arrangements. The white spectacled bulbul was seen at Taif airport while I killed time before my flight back to Riyadh.  

I returned to Riyadh very satisfied. Thanks and gratitude are due to Dr M. Zafar ul Islam and his team who were excellent hosts and to Brian who did all the driving.


34 species seen on the Mahazat reserve

Lappet faced vulture	Asian grey shrike (aucheri)
Marsh harrier	Brown necked raven
Pallid harrier	White spectacled bulbul
Montagu’s harrier	Black crowned sparrow lark
Booted eagle	Hoopoe lark
Macqueen’s bustard (Asian houbara)	Bar tailed lark
Chestnut bellied sandgrouse	Barn swallow
Ostrich	Scrub warbler
Feral pigeon	Willow warbler
Eurasian collared dove	Lesser whitethroat
Laughing dove	Desert whitethroat
Namaqua dove	White throated robin
Common swift	Northern wheatear
European roller	Pied wheatear
European bee-eater	Spotted flycatcher
Woodchat shrike	House sparrow
Red backed shrike	Yellow wagtail

In the near-by town of Khurmah where stayed on Friday night, we saw 6 species when passing through:

Black bush robin, Siberian stonechat, Kestrel, barn swallow, house sparrow and yellow wagtail.  The first three species were additional to the Mahazat list.

Following this trip, there are now 325 species on my Saudi list.