Whilst birdwatching near Jubail I
saw a number of Grey-headed Swamphens including one that stayed very close and
came so close I could not fit it all into the frame. Purple Swamphen Porphyrio porphyrio has been split into
five species largely in accordance with Sangster 1998 and Garcia & Trewick
2015 into 5 species with Grey-headed Swamphen P. poliocephalus occurring in Saudi Arabia. This has been confirmed
by Steve Trewick from DNA samples I sent to him for analysis. Swamphens from
Saudi Arabia now comprise both breeding Grey-headed Swamphens in the Eastern
Province and African Swamphen P.
madagascariensis which is a Vagrant with two records. A record of an adult
at KAUST near Jeddah in September 2013 remained for at least three weeks before
being killed by a car and two together at Dhahran percolation pond in December
2014 for several days.
