Blanford's Short-toed Lark |
Jem's Birding & Ringing Exploits in the Eastern Province and elsewhere in Saudi Arabia
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21 July 2014
Blanford’s Short-toed Lark - Azezza
A trip to a stony plateaux area of Azezza
in the hope of seeing Blanford’s Short-toed Lark, formally Red-capped Lark,
provided few birds but did turn up a flock of about 40 larks. They were
incredibly flighty and very difficult to photograph and as a result I only
ended up with a single photo of one bird. We were at the location in the late
morning which was not the best time to bird there as it was very hot and we did
not want to disturb the birds too much by chasing them around. As a result I
will go back to this area again when in Abha to try to get better photographs
at a later date. The subspecies seen was Calandrella blanfordi eremica which is restricted to
southwest Saudi Arabia and Yemen with other subspecies occurring in Africa in
Eritrea and Somalia. Blanford’s Sort-toed
Lark is an uncommon breeding resident at high altitudes in the Hejaz and Asir
mountains where its preferred habitat appears to be open stony summits with
scattered juniper bushes. I would like to thank Lou Regenmorter for putting me
onto this site as he had seen birds here in summer 2013. The directions did not
have a way point for the exact site but with Phil Roberts navigation skills we
managed to work out how to get there. The only other birds we saw at the site
were several Little Swifts, one Alpine Swift, five Common Swift and a
Short-toed Snake Eagle.