In late January Phil Roberts and I set out early to go to Judah and Hanidh. We stopped at Judah first, but it was very slow going without a bird being seen for the first thirty minutes excluding feral Rock Dove. The pivot fields that used to attract a lot of birds to this area are now dismantled and the vegetation around the bottom of the escarpment is either dead or dying and this is even after a lot of heavy rain in recent weeks. We did eventually see Desert Lark and Pale Crag Martin, two common birds in the area and as always in winter Desert Wheatear and Eastern Morning Wheatear. This is probably to best site to see the later species in the Eastern Province with birds being very confiding when found. We moved on Hanidh in the hope of seeing more birds with the total species count from Judah amounting to nine. We went to a couple of large pivot irrigation fields a couple of which we gained permission to look around. Best birds seen were nine Common House Martin, a very early migrant species in KSA, as well as European Stonechat, Daurian Shrike, Tawny Pipit, a single Northern Lapwing, several Eurasian Skylark, Asian Desert Warbler & Menetries’s Warbler. Whilst driving along a road we saw a single Steppe Eagle in flight, which along with a single Common Kestrel were our only birds of prey.
Desert Wheatear 
Eastern Morning Wheatear 
Eastern Morning Wheatear 
Eastern Morning Wheatear 
Eastern Morning Wheatear 
Steppe Eagle 
Steppe Eagle 
Steppe Eagle 
Steppe Eagle 
Tawny Pipit 
Asian Desert Warbler
