The flock of eleven Dead Sea Sparrows found in the Jubail area on 26
February were still in the same general area on 4 March. This is only the
second time this species has been seen in the Kingdom with the previous record
also in the same area when a flock of 60 – 70 birds were seen at Jubail Golf
Course on 13 November 1991. The species is a vagrant to most areas of Arabia
with other records coming from Bahrain (one record) and the United Arab
Emirates (two records) with no records from Qatar, Yemen or Oman. Kuwait has
had more records since the first sighting in 1996 but they are rare even here.
The closest place for this subspecies to come from is Jordon so it is a very
good record. The birds are quite vocal and stay together by calling to each
other. Whilst watching the group they split up into smaller groups but always
return to make a single group after a short period. The makeup of the group of
birds is five males and six females.
