I received an e-mail from Husain Alfraid, who
has an interest in photographing birds and wildlife. He mentioned that for the
past couple of years a fellow birder and photographer and Husain have been
closely watching a Pharaoh Eagle Owl nesting. This year there were two young but
only one survived. The birds were photographed in the Jubail area and Husain
has kindly allowed me to publish his photo on my website which is shown below. The
Pharaoh Eagle Owl is distributed throughout much of North Africa and the Middle
East, with two recognised subspecies. The subspecies Bubo ascalaphus ascalaphus
occupies the northern part of the species range, being found in Morocco,
Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, northern Egypt and Israel east to western Iraq. By
contrast, the smaller, paler and sandier coloured Bubo ascalaphus desertorum
can be found in the Sahara Desert south to Mauritania & Niger and from
Western Sahara, east, to Sudan, as well as in Eritrea, Ethiopia and much of the
Arabian Peninsula, as far south as northern Oman and as far east as southern
Iraq. They are found in arid habitats, including open desert plains, rocky
outcrops and broken escarpments and jabals, mountain cliffs and wadis. Most
records from Saudi Arabia have been attributed to the pale B. a. desertorum but there appear to be many birds resembling the
sub-species B. a. ascalaphus. The
bird photographed by Husain appears to be a typical ascalaphus desertorum.
