An early morning trip to Judah, a limestone escarpment with three pivot fields we have access too, an hour and a half drive towards Riyadh from Dhahran where we live, was undertaken at the end of January. The pivot fields were green and short and looked promising for larks but we were a little disappointed with what we found. Larks were not as common as previous visits with only a few Lesser Short-toed Larks, several pale coloured Desert Larks and a single Eurasian Skylark for our troubles. A small number of Tawny Pipit were scattered around the field edges but not much else was seen. We did hear a Pharaoh Eagle Owl calling on arrival and several real looking Rock Dove were on the cliffs with a couple of Brown-necked Raven flying over, but otherwise not too much else. The large amount of rain recently may have made it easy for birds to feed elsewhere, but this is only a guess as to why the number of birds seen was lower than normal.
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Desert Lark |
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Eurasian Skylark |
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Lesser Short-toed Lark |
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Tawny Pipit |
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Tawny Pipit |
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Brown-necked Raven |