10th – 20th March 2025 Swallows run through in loose flocks overland, stopping briefly in the early morning to forage in vegetated wadis; small parties of green sandpipers huddle on the coast; and garganey flocks move north low over the sea. The coast is quiet and migration is just commencing; this is time when species…
Tag: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Birds of the Gulf of Aqaba and Northern Red Sea – Autumn
The northern Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba are wild and beautiful seascapes; on exposed rocky coasts there are windy, deep blue waters lined with white horses and fringed by a coral reef; elsewhere brown and coffee-coloured sands meet calm, shimmering, turquoise bays. In autumn, the coastline holds a sprinkling of waders, herons and raptors…
Red Sea mangroves and shorebirds
October 2023 The south beach at KAUST is full of resting waders and terns; crab plovers, sand and Kentish plovers, curlews whimbrel, spotted redshank, lesser crested terns, a Caspian tern and reef and striated herons. The crab plovers are both charismatic and enigmatic; they breed colonially on sandy islands in the Red Sea where pairs excavate…
Around Tabuk, north west Arabia
The landscape of north west Saudi Arabia around the town of Tabuk is huge and barren. What little vegetation there is, is grazed down by camels. The many herds are cared for by Sudanese herders; these men ride their camels with a slow, graceful rhythm and somehow tolerate the unrelenting heat. The huge sandstone buttes within the…
KAUST
The University established in 2009 is located on the coast just over 100km north of Jeddah. The Grand Mosque is an elegant balance of traditional arabic architecture and modern design. The golf course has a large water reservoir with surrounding Casuarina pines tucked away in a far corner. The trees hold large numbers of cormorants,…
Soudah Waterfall and Escarpment
The walk at Soudah Waterfall, a well known birding hotspot, is not more than a kilometre or so but it is an eventful one. The track passes through a narrow wadi where the water flow is consistent as it is fed by a spring. The stream sides are thick with emergent rushes and in places…
Wadi Marabah, Asir Mountains
The town of Abha sits on the Asir mountains at over 2,000m where the air is cool all year round and so in summer the population triples as Saudis escape the desert heat. In February it is quiet like any out of season resort; from here we travel north along the mountain ridge where at…
Farasan Kebir
The ferry crosses the Red Sea from Jizan to the the main island in the Farasan archipelago called Farasan Kebir or just Farasan. The road from the port runs to the main town where an Egyptian vulture is foraging in a dusty car park; the islands are a stronghold for this species perhaps because they…