An early morning trip to the Dhahran Expro Wader Roost
produced a good number of birds. The number of waders built up significantly in
the last two weeks with hundreds if not thousands of birds present. The
majority of birds here are small waders but they are now reclaiming the inlet
leading to the roost and have completely blocked this off from the sea, so now
the large waders and Greater Flamingos are using this area to roost on. Large
waders included 100+ Bar-tailed Godwits and 50+ Eurasian Curlews with 17 adults
and one juvenile Greater Flamingos. Small waders were mainly Dunlins and Little
Stints with 500+ of each. Small groups of both Greater Sand Plovers and Lesser
Sand Plovers were seen including a few Greater Sand Plovers in adult breeding
plumage. 50+Common Redshanks and 30+ Marsh Sandpipers were present with the
later being the highest count of this species I have seen in one place in Saudi
Arabia so far. Kentish Plovers, Ruddy Turnstones and Grey Plovers made up the
remaining waders seen.
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| Little Stint |
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| Dunlin |
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| Ruddy Turnstone |
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| Greater Sand Plover |
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| Common Redshank (left) & Marsh Sandpiper (right) |
