Whilst birding the Abu Arish area last summer Phil Roberts and I spent some time after dark looking for owls and nightjars. We heard a single calling Nubian Nightjar but could not locate it so went driving around the nearby tracks. Here we managed to see good numbers of Plain Nightjar with more than twenty birds seen catching insects and alighting on the dusty tracks as well as a single Nubian Nightjar. This species is resident and breeds in the lowlands from the Yemen boarder to the Hijaz in Saudi Arabia where it has been seen northwards to KAUST north of Jeddah. There is a single record from the far north in the Kingdom at Sharma although the bird may have been a migrant rather than a resident in the area. Where it is found, which is a very limited number of locations, it can be locally common and favours rocky or stony areas with some vegetation although they have also been seen in sandy areas with vegetation.
