Whilst birding the ‘patch’ 12 November I came across a
Jack Snipe Lymnocryptes minimus. This is an unusual but annual occurrence
in the area but normally they are flushed from the long grass of the wet spray
fields in mid-winter. This bird was pretending to be a bit of grass in a small
patch of cover by the side of the wet ditch. Initially it was feeding out in
the open but at some distance so eventually I tried to move closer to it when
it took up it hiding posture, even though there was virtually nothing to hide
behind. I took a couple of photos, although the light was not very good, and then left it still hiding in the same
place. The Jack Snipe is a winter visitor to the Eastern Province of Saudi
Arabia where it is scarce in marshy areas away from the coast from early
September to early April. In the rest of Saudi Arabia it has been recorded most
frequently in the Riyadh and Tabuk area and rarely in the Tihamah in the southwest.
