Whilst birding Dhahran Waste Water Lake 7 September, I saw two Pied Avocet Recurvirostra avosetta flying over the lake. This is a new species for me on my local patch, but unfortunately, they did not land and flew off towards the coast. Pied Avocet in Saudi Arabia is an uncommon migrant and winter visitor to all coasts that is locally common along the southern Red Sea coast and scarce inland. It is a rare breeding species and in the Eastern Province two pairs attempted to breed at Abqaiq 1976 & 1982 and three pairs in 1983 although it is generally a rather scarce visitor from August to March. Records have occurred throughout the year in the Jubail area but records in summer are much less common. A number of breeding pairs (possible as many as twelve) were found in 2020 in Jubail and were breeding at the same location the following year.
