Whilst
birding the area of Haradh recently where we concentrated on looking in the
pivot irrigation fields we also saw a few other good birds around the filed
edges and surrounding areas. The first good birds we saw were just outside the
main entrance to the huge HADEC farm complex where a nesting colony of Spanish
Sparrows were found with at least 200 birds. Plenty of old nests were also in
evidence but whether they were breeding at the time I could not confirm. Also
amongst the Spanish Sparrows were several House Sparrows. Around the edge of
the spray fields we saw a number of Steppe Grey Shrikes and Daurian Shrikes as
well as a few Isabelline and Desert Wheatears as well as a single Red-tailed
Whatear on some rocks on a bank. Only a couple of Barn Swallows were flying
around and Eurasian Skylarks were thin on the ground with only five seen all
day. The lack of Eurasian Skylarks was partially made up for by the hundreds of
Greater Short-toed Larks with well over 300 birds seen in various flocks. One
of the better birds seen were a few Black-crowned Sparrow Larks. Although not
an uncommon species they are always nice to see and some of the birds gave
excellent views in good light, allowing some good photos to be taken, a rare
situation for this species. I would like to thank Yoav Perlman for correcting some misidentifications by me recently including the lark which is in fact a Crested Lark and not a Greater Short-toed Lark as I originally posted.
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| Spanish Sparrow |
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| Spanish Sparrow |
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| Spanish Sparrow |
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| House Sparrow |
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| Desert Wheatear |
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| Crested Lark |
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| Black-crowned Sparrow Lark |
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| Black-crowned Sparrow Lark |
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| Black-crowned Sparrow Lark |