Whilst birding the landfill site at Shaqra looking for Steppe Eagles I can across a small flock of Spanish Sparrows. This is a common resident of northern and western parts of the Kingdom with numbers increasing in the winter months. They are not so common in the area where I live in the east of the Kingdom but numbers are increasing. They are presumably common in the area I was as it is well north and west of Riyadh in central Saudi Arabia but I only saw a few small groups. House Sparrow and Spanish Sparrow appeared to be equally common in the Sharqa area.
