The Greater Flamingo Phoenicopterus
roseus is a common visitor, predominantly in winter, to all coasts, but is
scarce to rare inland. Records of several thousand have occurred at Sabkhat Al
Fasl in the Eastern Province in recent years with a maximum of 5000. Birds of
the Riyadh Region (Stagg 1994) mentions they are an uncommon and irregular
visitor to that inland region but have been recorded in all months except July.
The majority of records are of groups of 2 -4, predominantly first winter
birds, arriving in January and February and lingering sometimes for many weeks.
The record of Viv’s is of two adults in September so makes it even more
interesting and was the first time he had seen the species on his local patch.
I have only seen the species once on my inland local patch, which is only ten
kilometres from the coast and they were two immature birds but Phil has
recorded a small flock of adults flying overhead, well inland, in previous
years.
