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: Red Sea
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…
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…