Birds of the Tihamah coastal plains of 
Saudi Arabia 
Asad R. Rahmani, Mohammed Y. Shobrak & Stephen F. Newton 
Introduction 
Only during the last decade have check-lists (e.g. Jennings 1981, Stagg 
1985, 1987), notes and papers (e.g. Green 1984, Stagg 1984a, 1984b, 
Gasperetti & Gasperetti 1981, Gallagher 1986, Symens 1988a, 1988b, 
Palfrey 1988), and books (e.g. Bundy et al. 1989) appeared about the 
avifauna of Saudi Arabia. As a result of the establishment of the National 
Commission for Wildlife Conservation and Development (NCW CD), we 
hope that a better picture of the distribution and status of birds will 
gradually emerge. 
Except for the checklist of Stagg (1985) and some unpublished reports by 
P. Symens of NCWCD, we could find no other works specifically on the 
birds of southwest Saudi Arabia. Lees-Smith (1986) analyzed the 
composition of the avifauna of south-western Arabia (including Saudi 
Arabia and Yemen), whilst that of North Yemen has been studied by 
Cornwallis & Porter (1982), Phillips (1982) and Brooks etal (1987) (also 
see papers in Sandgrouse volume 9). 
The Red Sea coastal plains of Saudi Arabia, known as the Tihamah, 
extend as a narrow belt from Khalij Al Aqabah to the northern border of 
Yemen. There is a transitional zone between the plains and the high 
escarpment mountains of Hejaz and Asir. The plains are very narrow in 
the north but widen to a varying extent in the south, with a maximum 
width of 40 km near Jizan. The low foothills of the escarpment which 
fringe the plain can be considered as a distinct physiographic sub-region, 
the hilly Tihamah. 
During studies on the highly endangered Arabian Bustard Ardeotis arabs 
from 1987 to 1992, the first two authors travelled extensively in the 
Tihamah coastal plains, mainly between Jeddah and Jizan, and made 
notes on all species of birds. Since most visits were in winter, we have few 
data on spring and autumn migration, or on summer breeders. Brief 
summer visits were made by the second author, with a concentration of 
observations near Kiyad, 20 km from Al Quz (Fig. 1), referred to as "our 
study area". Observations made during the course of other fieldwork by 
the third author help to clarify the status of certain species. The sequence 
of species follows the order of Hollom et al. (1988). 
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