Euan Ferguson and three other UK
birders who were working in Saudi Arabia on two wind-farm projects found See-see
Partridge. They were working at a remote desert site a couple of hours drive
from Sakaka in Al Jawf province. On 23 April Euan photographed what he assumed
was a Sand Partridge in a wadi, but looking closer at the photo realised it had
a black forehead and supercilium, so was a See-see Partridge Ammoperdix griseogularis. The bird was a
calling male and was together with three other birds. The other birders who
have worked on site have also seen several, although they again did not look
closely and assumed they were Sand Partridge. See-see Partridge has been seen
in northern Saudi Arabia before in the 1990's but there have been few other
more recent records although birds have been seen in Harrat al-Harrah and areas
to the west of there. It is not clear if these birds were wanderers from their
recognised breeding areas in Iraq or they have spread south into northern KSA. Euan’s
records certainly add weight to the fact birds may now be resident in northern
Saudi Arabia. These areas are very seldom birded by the very few birdwatchers
in Kingdom so have probably gone unnoticed over the years. This is a great
record of a rarely recorded species in the Kingdom and I thank Euan for sending
me the details and for allowing me to use them on my website.
