Whilst in Abha in mid-October, Phil Roberts and I spent almost the entire night out looking for owls and managed to see and photograph a couple of Arabian Spotted Eagle-owl. One was perched on some overhead lines and the second on a high man made wall. Recent papers have suggested the species should be split form African Spotted Eagle Owl due to call and plumage differences and as the subspecies in Arabia is an endemic. The species is not rare in the southwest highlands but it is difficult to locate. Birds are resident near the Red Sea coast north to Jeddah and can be seen in the Tihamah and Asir areas including Najran and Hejaz north to Taif.
