I am very grateful to Mansur Al Fahad and Mohammad al
Mohatrish who have sent me details and photographs of a Great Spotted Cuckoo Clamator glandarius seen on 26 April
east of Zulfi in north Central Saudi Arabia. Mohammad al Mohatrish took the
photographs with the details supplied by Mansur and they have very kindly given
me permission to use the details on my website. Great Spotted Cuckoo is a
scarce passage migrant through Central Arabia, with Mansur knowing of three
records in Zulfi in the last three years mostly in spring. A bird was also seen
in January 2015 west of Hail with Mansur hearing of a number of additional
records in the central area of the Kingdom. Elsewhere in the Kingdom it is an uncommon passage migrant in
Western Saudi Arabia becoming less common as you travel eastwards where it is a
vagrant in the Eastern Province. There has been some suggestion that the
species may winter in Saudi Arabia but they are very early migrants often
occurring on passage in January so this obscures the picture slightly and they
are almost certainly just passage migrants in the Kingdom.
