On 7 October Phil Roberts and I went to
Jebal Lawz, about 200 kilometres outside Tabuk, to look for Chukar Partridge.
We git there before first light and waiting to try to hear any birds calling.
The site is very remote and as a result is very quiet so hearing calling birds
should have been easy. In reality it was very difficult, made more so by the closed
and locked gate across the road preventing access to the top of the mountain
where birds had been seen before. We did eventually hear birds calling lower
down the road, but they were high up on a rocky mountain. I eventually saw two
birds calling from this high cliff face but the distance from the birds was
huge and the views poor. We stayed around for almost ten hours trying to hear
or see the birds again but without luck. Bird life was very limited in the area
and we only saw a few species including White-crowned Wheatear, Montagu’s
Harrier, Common Kestrel, Rock Dove, Desert Lark, Tristram’s Starling, Lesser
Grey Shrike, Pale Crag Martin, Scrub Warbler and Sinai Rosefinch.
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| White-crowned Wheatear |
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| White-crowned Wheatear |
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| Streaked Scrub Warbler |
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| Streaked Scrub Warbler |
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| Pale Crag Martin |