The picnic area at Al Hayer

My next trip birding away from Riyadh has now been fixed for the end of December. I'm off to Jizan. In the meantime, I am being a little more creative with local sites if I can.  

So when I visited my local patch at Al Hayer yesterday,  I didn't head straight to the pivot fields as usual. Instead I stopped off at picnic areas about 3 kilometres north and I birded early before any picnickers had turned up.

Ruppells weaver at Al Hayer

One of the first birds seen was Ruppells weaver. Its nowhere near as common as streaked weaver in central Arabia but it is here. This is contrary to the map in the helms guide "Birds of the Middle East" which has it no closer than 650 kilometres west.

part of the picnic area

I now know two places to find it. The other one at Mansouriyah is about 25 kilometres north and the two small populations are probably isolated from each other.

Who knows whether these populations are natural range expansion or escapes but I have been seeing them consistently if rarely because I don't visit the areas very regularly. 

desert lesser whitethroat

There were three warblers in the trees and bushes. These were  graceful prinia, chiffchaff and desert lesser whitethroat. The latter two are winter visitors.

two from a flock of hoopoe

We have a small number of breeding hoopoe in the area but the flock of 7 that I saw here were behaving like typical wintering birds - loosely associated and not staying or returning to one spot.

Eastern mourning wheatear

Eastern mourning wheatear isn't found in or next to the pivot fields. I usually see them in drier places and now it appears they can be found next to the wooded picnic areas too.  

Other notable birds were black bush robin, collared dove and little green bee-eater.

Spanish sparrow

Spanish sparrow were also present. It used to be written (for example in the first edition of Collins - Birds of Britain and Europe) that it is often impossible to tell female and juvenile Spanish sparrow from house sparrow.  The latest edition of the Helms guide points out two differences - firstly the supercilium in Spanish sparrow is often much longer and often curves round, second the breast is often lightly streaked. I find I can separate them quite easily these days. There again I get a lot of practice here. We have both types all year round.

Miserable weather, good birding at Mansouriyah

Friday was the first time in my life that I birded wearing a surgical mask. There was a day-long dust storm and I followed local advice about what to do when outside.

Visibility was poor and most people would probably have postponed their birding. I am glad I didn't as I will explain over the next two blogs.

female common redstart

I spent the first hour of my birding day (which started very late) in the Mansouriyah area just south of the city.  

I soon came upon an extremely tame common redstart. I found it was unwilling to fly away. Indeed it even approached me, allowing good photos on a day with miserable visibility.

same common redstart in a tree

This unwillingness to move or fly away was not reserved to the common redstart. It was a common feature of many of the birds on Friday. So the poor visibility was compensated for by the ease of approach to the birds. I suppose the birds don't like dust in the air just as much as people.

third view of common redstart

A warbler favoured the same tree as the common redstart except when the local white cheeked bulbul bullied them it and the redstart out from time to time.

However it kept returning to the same tree and so allowed me prolonged views.

female blackcap

It turned out to be a female blackcap. This was the first one I had seen in Saudi Arabia although I saw two more later in the day.

second view of female blackcap

I got another addition to my Saudi list a few minutes later when I was checking the birds on the wires. As well as the laughing dove and collared dove there was a solitary female rock thrush. This was a lifer as well as a local list addition.

female rock thrush

You may recall that Mansouriyah is the place where I had glimpsed a Ruppells weaver about three weeks ago. This is special because the main weaver in the Riyadh area is streaked weaver and there has been doubt Ruppells weaver is here at all.

male Ruppells weaver

Well, I finally photographed a male Ruppells weaver directly above the nest that Lou and I found three weeks ago. What is more I found too more nests a little further away and heard another male weaver in that area.

Other notable occurrences were the incessant noises of the local common myna which were suddenly punctuated by the beautiful sound of European bee-eater starting from far above and then louder and closer. Happily, these bee-eater came down to ground level and started hawking for insects over the adjacent fields. 

There is more about bee-eaters in the next blog.

Coastal Jizan province

I didn't actually bird the in-land coastal strip near Jizan but we did travel through it on the way to hills. However, that didn't stop me seeing some useful birds.


I took ten minutes in the fields at a petrol stop and of course there were chances to see birds as we travelled.


One of the best sights were Abyssinian roller on the wires. This was a real reminder that this part of Saudi Arabia is truly in the Afro-tropical eco-zone.

Abyssinian roller

Abyssinian roller are resident birds but I came a little early in the year to see the many African species who breed there in the summer. They migrate over the Red Sea during the next few weeks.

two Abyssinian rollers

One bird which has already turned its mind to breeding is Ruppells weaver. The male one below is gathering reed to weaver.

Ruppells weaver

Little green bee-eater is as numerous as in the Riyadh area but white-throated bee-eater hasn't yet arrived back from Africa. They can particularly be seen near the crop fields along with barn swallow and African palm swift.

little green bee-eater

It's ironic that, as reported in yesterday's blog, I saw black -crowned sparrow lark in the city but only crested lark in the countryside.

crested lark

One obvious feature of the countryside was how many doves there were: namaqua dove, laughing dove and African collared dove. I had failed to see the latter bird in both Narjan and Baha on my last two trips to the south west. Many of them apparently go to Africa for the winter. They are either back or stay the winter in the more tropical Jizan.

kestrel

Finally the only two birds of prey are came across were the ubiquitous black kite and a kestrel on a pivot cross beam.  I have made a mental note to bird this coastal strip more intensively next time.