Whilst biding the Jubail area on 7
April 2017 Phil Roberts and I found two Spur-winged Lapwings along the edge of
a flooded sabkha. The species is still scarce in the Eastern Province with all
records shown below:
Haradh 24th October 1986
Dhahran 22nd November 1986
Sabkhat Al Fasl 30th October &
6th November 2009
An adult Dhahran Saudi Aramco Camp,
percolation pond 12th & 13th May 2011
An adult Dhahran Saudi Aramco Camp,
percolation pond 8th August 2012
Dhahran Saudi Aramco Camp,
percolation pond 27th September to 2nd October 2012
An adult Ash Shargiyah Development
Company Farm (Fadhili) 12th October 2012
Two adult were at Ash Shargiyah
Development Company Farm, Fadhili 31 January 2013
15 birds were at NADEC dairy farm
in Haradh 7 February 2013 showing the species is expanding its range eastwards
into the Eastern Province
A single bird in a pivot irrigation
field next to the NADEC dairy farm 5 February 2016
150 birds NADEC dairy farm 14
October 2016
Ten birds NADEC dairy farm 13
January 2017
Eleven birds NADEC dairy farm 3
February 2017
In Saudi Arabia as a whole, the
Spur-winged Lapwing is a common breeder in the southwest from Yemen boarder up
the Red Sea coast to near Jeddah as well as the extreme northwest and the area
around Riyadh. It has now become established in the Eastern Province in good
numbers in the pivot fields of Haradh but birds are only seen occasionally and
in small numbers elsewhere in the Eastern Province away from this area.
