Greg Askew found a group of six
Short-eared Owls near Al Asfar Lake, Hofuf 27 January. He very kindly let a
couple of birders know and so I went the following weekend with Arnold and met
up with Greg at the location. We arrived at first light and spent some time
walking the area before seeing five birds in flight at some distance. After
careful searching we managed to get better views but were unable to see any on
the ground and only got flight views although some were close. We did not want
to disturb the birds too much so left before we managed to get any shots of the
bird on the ground. Short-eared Owl is a scarce to uncommon winter visitor to
all areas north of Jeddah, Riyadh and Hofuf. Two birds have been seen on
occasion woth the last record being two birds seen on the Bisaita plain in the
north of the Kingdom on 13 February 2009. In the Riyadh area it is a rare or
scarce winter visitor. The birds of the Eastern Province (Bundy et al 1989)
says it is a winter visitor with the following records: one found dead at
Abqaiq 12 December 1975, one on a ship in the Gulf 18 October 1979, one Haradh,
29 November 1979, one Abqaiq 3 December 1982. The largest number ever seen were
a minimum of eight near Wari’ah, Diddibah 12-13 February 1987. This makes the
group of six found by Greg a very rare sight.
