Eurasian Hoopoe - Dhahran Hills

A quick trip around the jabals produced very few birds but a Eurasian Hoopoe was present posing nicely. There were also two Steppe Buzzard in flight together over the jabals and a Eurasian Sparrowhawk over the scrubby desert area. Eurasian Hoopoes are also becoming more obvious around the grass areas of the camp and can be seen on most sports fields and grass verges at the moment. Rose-ringed Parakeet numbers are again building up, or at least birds are becoming more obvious, with flocks of up to ten birds regularly overflying the Golf Course area of the camp. Tawny Pipit numbers are also on the rise with seven birds in the scrubby desert area, but no sign of anything better in amongst them. The percolation pond is still virtually bird-less but had one Grey Heron, two Western Cattle Egret, three Kentish Plover flying around looking for somewhere suitable to land but failing and 250+ Greater Cormorant. A quick look at the spray fields in the fading light produced one Meadow Pipit, one Jack Snipe, one Southern Grey Shrike, one European Stonechat, seven Eurasian Skylark and 28 Water Pipit. One the way home when it was almost dark, I decided to look in the scrubby desert area for Egyptian Nightjar, which I failed to find, but I did have very close views of a pair of Ruppell's Fox scent marking their territory.

Eurasian Hoopoe