On the 4 September 2015 Phil
and I found an adult Black-winged Kite Elanus
caeruleus, which was only the third record for the Eastern Province of
Saudi Arabia. The first two birds were also adults present at Dhahran Hills
from 29 March to 17 April 2012 found by Phil and 20 April 2014 found
independently by Phil and myself. This bird, like the previous two, appeared to
be of the eastern sub-species Elanus
caeruleus vociferous as it had very dark under-wing markings on the
secondaries unlike the more western race Elanus
caeruleus caeruleus. E. c. vociferous
occurs from Pakistan east to southern & eastern China, Indochina and the
Malay Peninsula and E. c. caeruleus occurs in the south-west Iberian Peninsula,
most of Africa and South-west Arabia. Its status in Saudi Arabia is a rare visitor
to Saudi Arabia and this bird was initially seen on the spray bars and flying
around a pivot irrigation field. It did not stay long and then flew off towards
a large group of trees but it was not seen to land. We drove to were the trees
were and could not see the bird in them but after a while it flew out and off
over the pivot field and could not be relocated. Phil has found all three of
the Eastern Provinces Black-winged Kites and I have found two and seen all
three. The species appears to be coming more common so let us see if we see
more over the next few years? Due to the fact we could not get close to the
bird I only managed a couple of distant photos of it, but it is still possible
to see from them that the bird is a Black-winged Kite.
