Phil Roberts and I found an African Openbill at Wadi Jizan (Malaki Dam) Lake on 16 June 2024. A bird was seen for a couple of months up until March but has not been recorded since so it is difficult to know if this is the same bird that has been hiding from view or a different individual. A pair of this species was found on 3 September 2021 and was a new species for Saudi Arabia. Numbers increased to a maximum of 18 birds in summer 2022 decreasing to six in July 2022. Since then, one or two have been occasionally seen in the same area. It is a widely distributed species occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa and western regions of Madagascar, where it is common to locally abundant, although it has a patchy distribution.
