Whilst birding the Tanoumah area I came across
a pair of Streaked Scrub Warblers on some large boulders well away from the
road through Al Mehfar Park in Tanoumah. The birds were mainly keeping in the
shade but on one occasion came out in the sun on top of a large rock. This
allowed me to take my best photos so far of the species some of which are shown
below. The Streaked Scrub Warbler is a regionally common breeding resident in all
western areas of the Kingdom. In Central Arabia it is absent from the east of
the Tuwaiq escarpment and north of a line from Tabuk to Buraydah but occurs
elsewhere. It is very rare in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom. There are
three subspecies in Saudi Arabia: S. i.
inquieta that occurs in Egypt, Israel and northern Arabia east to the Persian
Gulf. S. i. grisea that occurs in
western Saudi Arabia, eastern Yemen and Oman and S. i. buryi that occurs in southern Saudi Arabia and western Yemen.
S. i. grisea is darker than nominate,
but greyer above, with less marked streaking; S. i. buryi is darker still, and very heavily streaked.
