Last Friday
Phil Roberts and I went to the Taif area of Saudi Arabia in the hope of
locating Arabian Golden-winged Grosbeak, the last remaining unseen Arabian
regional endemic for us both in Saudi Arabia. Lou Regenmorter had seen birds in
this area last year and Brian James had seen them in the same area a few years
earlier. This thus sounded like a prime site for seeing the species so we
arrived at the location about 120 kilometres out of Taif on the way to Bahah just
before first light. Unfortunately the weather was against us and there was low
cloud, and strong wind making birding decidedly difficult. We spent the whole
day at the loactio walking up and down the mountains and around the tracks and
roads looking intently for the target species as well as anything else we may
see. After the entire day in the field we had only seen 16 species of bird but
did locate a few good ones but not the Arabian Golden-winged Grosbeak. The best
birds we saw were a group of eight Philby’s Partridges, one of the twelve
regional endemics with plenty of Arabian Wheatears and Yemen Linnets two more
regional endemics.. Other birds seen included plenty of Palestine Snbirds,
several Brown Woodland Warblers, Common Kestrel, Abyssinian White-eyes and
Tristram’s Starlings. Other species seen included House Sparrows, Song
Thrushes, Laughing Doves and White-spectacled Bulbuls, Scrub Warblers.
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| Palestine Sunbird |
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| Abyssinian White-eye |
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| Common Kestrel |