European Roller - Dhahran Hills

Yesterday on the 'patch' things were fairly quite as the migration season is almost over. I still managed to find a European Roller hidden in one of the large trees surrounding the Percolation Pond which is the first European Roller I have seen this spring although there have been records from Sabkhat Al Fasl and the Riyadh area this year. In the spring they are an annular but rather scarce migrant in the Eastern Province from March to May, with a peak in late April. This individual was very active flying from tree to tree and often catching insects to eat. On three occasions it flew down to the ground to catch beetles. Last year I saw two spring birds and five autumn birds which fits in with the previous records for the region where autumn birds are more frequent the spring ones.