Arnold Uy found the fourth Striated Heron for
the Eastern Province along the seafront of Dammam cornice on 12 February 2016. Striated
Heron is a common breeding resident on the coasts of the Red Sea but is a
vagrant to the northern part of the Arabian Gulf including the Eastern
Province. Eastern Province records include one remarkable inland record of a
bird at Sabkha 40 on 30 May 2010 in the huge desert of the Empty Quarter. This
is a species usually associated with the coast of Arabia and had never been
recorded this far inland before and was the first record for eastern Saudi
Arabia. It would have had to be a migrant, but its position at Shaybah raises
the interesting possibility that it had travelled across eastern Arabia from
the Arabian Sea en-route to the Arabian Gulf. The only other Eastern Province
records, were one in Al Fanateer marina, Jubail on 15 February 2014 and one on
7 June 2015 at Sabkhat Al Fasl, Jubail. The increase in records in recent years
may mean that birds are spreading northwards.
