Phil went to Sabkhat Al Fasl as normal on Friday and
although the weather was poor, cloudy and overcast with rain, he managed to see
a couple of really good birds. Probably the best was a fulvescens Greater Spotted Eagle, as this colour type is very
uncommon making up a maximum of 3% of the birds seen in the Middle East, where
it is more common than in any other area where it occurs. When you think how
uncommon the species is on a world scale there are not that many fulvescens about worldwide. Phil said he
had distant views of the feeding on the Sabka and the light was really bad so
the photos are not that good, but he has kindly allowed me to use one on my
website. Hopefully this bird will hang around for the winter and allow better photographs to be taken of it. The other good bird Phil saw was a White-throated Kingfisher, which is
the first of the autumn but it flew off before any photographs could be taken
of it. This species was a vagrant to the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia until
a few years ago but it is now a scarce winter visitor.
