SAUDI ARABIA DAY 6 AL BIRK to SABYA

 We decided to leave early as we just didn't like Al Birk - getting dinner last night was a chore and the mangroves weren't holding our interest. So we headed south to Jazan and aimed for the Either Mangroves. This was much better as we nailed a close Mangrove Reed Warbler very easily. We also had Lesser Flamingo and Pink-backed Pelicans, as well as some confiding Black-crowned Sparrow-Larks here giving decent scope views to add a bit of variety to our lists. 

From here we headed inland towards Sabya and on to the villages around Abu Arish for our negative search for Arabian Golden Sparrow. They just aren't around at this time of year and apart from one or two Ebird sightings this is really a summer bird. But we gave it a damn good go and in hindsight I think we should have concentrated on the Sabya Farms, which we'd be doing tomorrow. Nevertheless we drove, we walked and we drove some more, checking out various sites finding large flocks of House Sparrows, with more Black Bush Robins, and more of everything that you can label "common" at but no Arabian Golden Sparrows. We spent a fair chunk of the day searching in vain before deciding go and see some different birds over at Jazan Dam Lake. 

This is a hell of a birding site and the chances of finding something good are actually quite high. We liked this place, despite several new road systems causing Google Maps to struggle a bit. And we met some very friendly locals who insisted on plying us with some delicious tea! Well, the upshot was that we found an African Openbill, a rare bird here and probably left over from last year's influx. There were plenty of birds and we saw Intermediate Egret, Gabar Goshawk, loads of Glossy Ibis, a ridiculous number of Eurasian Spoonbills, Arabian Green Bee-eaters, Arabian Babblers, some close Hamerkops and lots of other 'waterbirds'. 

Hamerkop

With time pressing and that damn sun sinking way to fast, we raced around to the southern end and of-roaded a bit to get close to a nice reedbed. We still wanted better waxbill views and sure enough this is the place. With at least a dozen coming in to roost we thoroughly enjoyed the closer views, along with a very close sumplum White-winged Tern parading in front of us. And so we waited for dusk, but no Lichtenstein's Sandgrouse appeared to drink but the best was yet to come. 

Nubian Nightjar

As soon as it was dark Nubian Nightjars began calling and in no time at all we had a pair in the spotlight. it's been many years since i've seen this bird and to get within a few metres of one was incredible. So with that in the bag we drove an hour back to the hotel, which was ok tbh and we even had minimal trouble finding a pokey little restaurant nearby for dinner and enjoyed pizza of all things to round off a decent day.

SAUDI ARABIA DAY 5 TANOMAH to AL BIRK

Well, this isn't a day i'd do on a proper tour..... We began at Wadi Dahna and didn't see anything new here but it's a really, really good place for Philby's Partridge. I could have got an awesome photo of a close calling bird but messed the opportunity up again! However, we saw at least 2 groups of approx 8 or 9 birds in each, with further calling birds higher up in the hillsides that remained unseen. There was also a flyby Arabian Woodpecker that we didn't bother trying to get  views of after yesterday's point-blank views, and there were many Arabian Babblers, Arabian Wheatear, Arabian Green Bee-eater, Yemen Warbler, with the only new bird of note an Arabian Warbler. 

The reservoir......

We were fixated on finding Arabian Waxbill and I located the small reservoir at the far end that had some water and vegetation around it but no waxbills. We waited a while before deciding to call it quits and return to the car up in the village for some coffee and breakfast. 

Great scenery coming down the escarpment...

So what to do next. There's a bunch of other sites up here but we felt we were just repeating sightings now and the chances of waxbills seemed remote. So we decided to set out on the 3 hour drive to the coast, driving down the very steep escarpment into the lowlands. It's a very scenic drive down and we saw more Arabian Wheatears and a fine Bonelli's Eagle.

Once in the hot lowlands we saw our first of many Namaqua Doves on roadside telegraph wires before reaching Wadi Hali, a great birding site where Black Scrub Robin was numerous with 11+ birds seen and more heard. 

Black Scrub Robin

And amazingly a pair of Arabian Waxbills flew in and landed at the top of an acacia right in front of us. I think my hysterical directions made it difficult for the others to get on the birds quick enough and they only stayed put for maybe 40 seconds before flying away. But they were at the top of the tree right in front of us guys...! 

Masked Shrike

Anyway, we also saw our only Masked Shrike here, many Nile Valley Sunbirds & some other common species. It was nice to see some different birds! 

So leaving here we drove to Wadi Hali and checked out a site for Arabian Grosbeak. It was early afternoon by the time we reached here but the site looked good despite no grosbeaks. There was a small water hole attracting more Black Scrub Robins, Blackstart and all the usual suspects and we had our picnic lunch here and more coffee. Then we set off towards the coast. Google Maps threw a wobbly and couldn't cope with the very, very new 3 lane highway that we were on and we weren't sure if it was the right road for a long time but we were heading west.... So it had to be alright. Right? All of a sudden the road ended with a barrier across it. Bugger! So i parked by the roadside and stared blankly at zero options apart from retracing our steps about 60 minutes... That was until a small van appeared (the road was devoid of traffic up until this point) and went down the side of the embankment and continued on west, so I decided to follow. Well, we were closer to the coast than I realised and pretty soon all was ok and we had the red Sea to our right as we drove south. We stopped to view a mixed group of Common, Caspian, Whiskered, Gull-billed and White-winged Terns and our first Sooty Gulls in Saudi. We continued south to Al Birk, found the digs (what a weird place) and then drove further south to the mangroves. We did get Mangrove Reed Warbler briefly before 4 policemen insisted I accompany them to their van and questioned me. But it was all good natured and we stayed scrutinising the mangroves until dusk, seeing Clamorous reed Warbler and some distant flamingo's and pelicans. Getting dinner in the small town was a nightmare tonight and it was rubbish - when we eventually found somewhere. What a day!

SAUDI ARABIA DAY 4 RAIDAH PRESERVE to TANOMAH

This was the BIG day as we ventured into the famous Raidah Preserve, where according to previous reports all dreams are possible. It's literally meant to be the promised land but I must admit i'm not a fan! Well we got to the entrance well before sunrise and listened for Abyssinian Nightjar.... nothing. Tried the call..... again nothing. So I drove up to the barrier and filled out some paperwork before the guards would let us in and then we were off. And boy this is undoubtedly the steepest road i've ever driven on. I mean it's crazy and shouldn't be attempted in anything other than a four-wheel drive. I didn't have one and struggled coming back up with the engine overheating constantly, but more of that later. So in the dark we tried a few times for nightjars and the only bird we heard was an Arabian Scops Owl bit none of the trees seemed to be close enough to the road to try spotlighting, so we just kept driving lower. As soon as it became light enough to bird we parked up and had a look around. As ever, things are very slow until the sun is a bit higher and it gets warmer, so we waited and could hear a great dawn chorus of weird and wonderful songs! An African Grey Hornbill put in an appearance, we had several views of Arabian Partridges throughout the morning, there were more nice views of Yemen Warbler and Yemen Thrush etc etc. The song of Brown Woodland Warbler rang out from the hillsides, a pair of Little Rock Thrush were exceedingly confiding, and the first of many Arabian Sunbirds put in an appearance. 

Little Rock Thrush

Once at the bottom of the valley we wandered around hoping for Arabian Waxbill, but all we could find were many more sunbirds, Long-billed Pipit, Cinnamon-breasted Bunting and some other common species. But no waxbills. So the journey back up the ridiculously steep road gave us all the same species and we nearly had Arabian Woodpecker. We heard one in a couple different locations but they just weren't responsive. So feeling a little naffed off we decided to drive back into town, check out of the hotel at 11.30am and had some lunch. 

Regrouping over a nice burger we decided to head north towards Tanomah  and look for Saudi's one and only true endemic, Asir Magpie. It was just around a 90 minute drive on good roads before the turn-off towards Billasmer and within 100m of the junction I spotted a magpie on some telegraph wires ahead. A nice big pull-in was just past the bend and we jumped out, eventually finding up to 4 birds in the area. it's a distinctive looking bird and very different to the magpies in Europe. 

Asir Magpie

We spent quite some time watching them and trying for a good photo, but that never did happen! We were all ecstatic to get this "quick win" as I put it and we were enjoying the sunshine, surrounded by lots of birds. there was a large group of over 15 Arabian babblers, more linnets, several close brown Woodland Warblers and a group of Abyssinian White-eyes came in to my owlet impersonation. And then... a woodpecker called. A quick burst of tape and it flew right at me and landed in a close tree. The views were out of this world and we lapped up every detail of this cracker. 

Arabian Woodpecker

We left here and headed to our next digs in Tanomah, a delightful private 3 bed villa. Except 2 of the bedrooms were children's, kitted out in Hello Kitty bright pink walls etc. 

A short distance away is Mahfar Tourist Park and we dived up there for dusk and waited for the resident Arabian Eagle Owl to fly onto the roof of the large building next to the car park..... Which it duly did. What a stunner and we had several views of it flying around and perching in surrounding trees. 

Arabian Scops Owl

There was also several Arabian Scops Owls calling and we managed to entice one into a nearby Juniper for some stunning views. 

SAUDI ARABIA DAY 3 - Abha

 We were really looking forward to today, as there's a bunch of endemics to find and we want better views of yesterday's serins and linnets. So we were off before sunrise heading to the closest wadi on our list and it only took 20 minutes to get there as we followed streets devoid of maniacal drivers and followed twisting, winding lanes into a rural area. Parking up, we could hear Yemen Linnets singing away from the fields behind us but after a few minutes standing around in the crisply cold air we realised there wasn't going to be much activity until the air temperature increased! In short, it was bloody freezing! So to get moving we located some small pools further down into the wadi that sometimes hold roosting Arabian Waxbills - but not today. We had a decent view down through the narrow wadi and up onto the hillside above us so we decided to watch and wait here. Some time later a Philby's Partridge began calling above us and luckily it was perched prominently on a rock, probably in response to my iPhone! I wasn't expecting this bird here, and that's why i'd left the scope in the car! Bugger! Luckily David volunteered to go back and get it! It's a superb bird and looked great through the scope, remaining on its rock for a good half an hour. 

Philby's Partridge

By the time the sun had reached our spot we were starving, so we walked back to the car and ate our breakfast that we'd purchased from a supermarket next to the hotel last night. As birders do, we began wandering around. I headed up into some fields when I heard another partridge calling but just at the precisely wrong moment when I thought I was going to get a crippling photo, our first Buff-breasted Wheatear appeared in front of me and distracted me, at which point the partridge flew off! But the wheatear was a stunner and we had great views.

African Stonechat

 In the warm sunshine bird activity increased and there were loads of Yemen Linnets around, more Arabian Serins, Yemen Thrush, African Stonechat, and lots of House Sparrows. 

Meanwhile, back where we parked the car we could hear Brown Woodland Warbler and a scratchy song that I was sure was Yemen Warbler. A quick burst of tape and one flew in to the isolated small juniper next to us and proceeded to sing back. What a cracker this is and we thoroughly enjoyed such fine, close views. 

Yemen Warbler

In fact, another bird flew in and the pair of warblers showed incredibly well. So once they left we drove over to Al Soudah Creek where we saw many of the same birds, as well as our first Afrotropicals in the shape of White-browed Coucal, Little Rock Thrush and some exceptionally close Brown Woodland Warblers. 

Brown Woodland Warbler

White-browed Coucal

Yemen Linnet

Yemen Thrush

We had even better views of Arabian Linnet here, a very close Yemen Thrush and our first Arabian Wheatear. It was very pleasant birding in the warm sunshine but I was starting to get a trifle concerned at the lack of woodpeckers!  Nevertheless, we had multiple sites to check for them so decided to head an hour away to Habala plateau for Rufous-capped Lark. 

Arabian Wheatear

They are not meant to be around at this time of year but we checked anyway and.... yep, not here at this time of year! We had a group of Scrub Warbler of the race buryi and some people call them Levantine Scrub Warblers..... Don't know about that tbh! A couple Long-billed Pipits and a few Crested Larks were here as well but not a lot else. With time slipping away we decided to drive to Wadi Atoud Reservoir for Arabian Waxbill - a bird we knew that could be hard to find. We hadn't got far when I had a message that the larks could be at the small dam so we drove back and found a trickle of water at the dam that's right above a large farm. Well, barking dogs and inquisitive farm workers put aid to any chance of larks and it was 3pm by now! A quick stop at an area of trees gave us African Pipit and a confiding Buff-breasted Wheatear but not a lot else. Leaving here we had a dark morph Steppe Buzzard flying overhead - i've never seen this form before and it really perplexed me for a while!

Steppe Buzzard...

So we decided to just return to the hotel as we were all hungry. This proved to be a good move as we had several options for dinner within walking distance of the hotel and plumped for an Arabian restaurant that dished out some tasty stuff!

SAUDI ARABIA DAY 2 Riyadh - Abha

 We returned to Rawdat Nourah just after first light this morning in search for Arabian Lark. It was great to be out in the desert this early and we were optimistic about our chances, despite the vastness of the area. There'd been a lot of rain a month earlier so the desert was quite green, so we wondered if this would hinder or help our chances? We quickly found another Asian Desert Warbler, a Crested Lark, Greater Hoopoe Lark, Eastern Imperial Eagle, and eventually a group of around 8 Bar-tailed Larks. The Arabian Lark is meant to hang out in the vicinity of these groups of BTL's but despite a lengthy scan we couldn't find one. So with time pressing we headed to another area about an hour away as Peter wanted to try for Thick-billed Lark. Again, we drew a lark-blank but had Desert Lark here and it looked a decent area but time was not our friend so we hot-footed it back to Riyadh Airport for our flight to Abha. To be honest we left it a little late but still made the flight despite a bit of a rush to get through the airport!

Yemen Linnet

Yemen Thrush

It was a short flight of just over an hour to Abha, where an extraordinarily slow car rental episode occurred, eating in to our birding time. Once again, more crazy local driving ensued as we headed into the city and to Abha Reservoir, as this is meant to be a decent place to try for Arabian Waxbill. In hindsight, we should have gone to Wadi Atoud Reservoir but who knew?! Anyhow, this was a cracking little spot where we saw our first Arabian Serin, Yemen Thrush and Yemen Linnets, plus we did have 2 jet-propelled waxbills fly overhead but it just wasn't tickle views. Some Red-knobbed Coots were present, along with what was probably a distant Siberian Stonechat, several Palestine Sunbirds, and a bunch of herons and egrets.

SAUDI ARABIA DAY 1 JANUARY 2023

Saudi Arabia hasn't really been on the birding map so far, with the first commercial tour last year by a UK company and numerous trip reports posted on CloudBirders by Greg Askew. But there's been a few private trips over the past year or so and there's some decent info out there! So I decided to go take a look after my Southern Oman tour and flew from Salalah to Riyadh via Doha, arriving at 10am on 20th January with Peter Nickless and meeting David Todd in the Arrivals Hall. 

What I would say right now is that it's important to understand how things work in Saudi and initial impressions were that things were just awkward. With building renovations at Terminal 2 making actually finding the car rental desk our first challenge and then computers at the Enterprise desk crashing, I was left to search around for another car. Eventually I was able to get a SUV from Sixt and we finally left the airport at 11.30am only to find the gas tank was practically empty and we had to turn around back towards the airport to find a petrol station! This gave us the opportunity to get some bits & pieces for lunch and then we headed about an hour north from Riyadh out into the vast desert to Rawdat Nourah. This is THE site to search for Arabian Lark (a recent split from Dunn's Lark) and we immediately headed off the tarmac across the sandy desert and began searching around the small shrubs present. It seemed pretty dead tbh and we drove and scanned.... and drove some more.... and scanned.... It's good fun driving 'off-road' and we covered a fair amount of ground, but we just couldn't find any Arabian Larks. They are meant to loosely associate with Bar-tailed Larks, and we did find a group of 4 or so TL's but had no joy. There were a few Temminck's Larks, the odd Crested Lark, an Asian Desert Warbler, a Great Grey Shrike and that was it. 

Asian Desert Warbler

Temminck's Lark

So with the sun setting fast we hotfooted it over to another area that was meant to be a site for Pharaoh Eagle-Owl, but it was right beside a busy road. It was dark by the time we arrived but we managed to find a track that took us away from the main road and the lunatic, crazy drivers. Sure enough, as soon as we arrived we could hear a bird calling but despite spending quite a while waiting and playing the odd call, it never moved from its position. So we drove up the road a bit and found another pull in away from the traffic and this time the calling owl flew behind us and continued calling from some distance away. We were patient and spent maybe an hour but the bird didn't come closer. 

So by now it was around 8pm and we had to drive back to Riyadh and find our hotel, which is another story in itself. Despite using Booking.Com the hotel didn't honour our booking and we had to find somewhere else, which was fortunately another hotel just further down the street. And then finding somewhere to eat took ages. Actually this was a theme during our visit, and it seems that an actual restaurant where you go in and sit down to eat is quite rare! Well it was in the places we looked! And that was our first day. We were all pretty tired by the time we got to crash out tonight.