I found my first ever Booted Eagle for my local patch in February, flying over between the lake and the golf course. It was dark phase bird but was distinct even at distance. The species is a vagrant to the Eastern Province with eight records, although appears to be seen more regularly in the last few years. In the Kingdom as a whole it is mainly a scarce passage migrant en-route to Africa via the Bab al-Mandab Strait in Yemen. An increasing number of records in December and January, however, indicate it is now also a rare winter visitor, with the majority of these records in the northwest of the Kingdom. They breed from northwestern Africa and Iberia to Mongolia and winter south in sub-Saharan Africa and India.
