Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Arabia: 
Progress Report 
Mike Jennings 
The Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Arabia (ABBA) project has now 
completed six years of fieldwork. The atlas covers the whole of the 
Arabian Peninsula, and generally follows the European Ornithological 
Atlas Committee's breeding evidence categories. It aims to bring together 
all knowledge of Arabian breeding birds, from published records, 
museum specimens and recent observers' reports, to compile a definitive 
study on Arabian breeding birds. The basic Atlas unit is the half degree 
square (approximately 50km x 50km), which is 25 times the size of each 
square of the British Atlas grid. There are 1,100 Arabian atlas squares. 
The Ornithological Society of the Middle East was a major sponsor of the 
project during its important formative years, but now the project is 
backed by the National Commission for Wildlife Conservation and 
Development in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This generous financial help will 
enable the computerisation of records, the employment of a researcher 
and the eventual publication of the results of the project. 
So far, the project has received generally good coverage by recent 
observers in the Gulf States and northern Yemen, as well as parts of Oman 
and Saudi Arabia. (DSME's contribution to northern Yemen records has 
been very significant. The help and assistance given by many individual 
OSME members and those of local natural history societies in Arabia has 
greatly assisted the credibility of the data collected so far. Southern Yemen 
remains relatively poorly covered, but hopefully this situation will be 
remedied following the OSME expedition. The other large area where 
coverage has been poor to date is the Empty Quarter (mainly Saudi 
Arabia, but including parts of UAE, (Dman and Yemen). This zone has, 
however, a very poor range of breeding species, perhaps only five or six, 
throughout its extent, and so is probably one of the least imfX)rtant areas 
to cover. 
I have now made ten separate atlassing surveys to Arabia (eight in Saudia 
Arabia and one to southern Yemen) to fill in the gaps left by other visiting 
and resident observers. This still represents approximately only half of 
Saudi Arabia. From results so far, it was particularly interesting to see 
that a large bird like the Lappet-faced Vulture, which is now known to 
breed in numerous squares in central Arabia, was not even known to 
Meinertzhagen when he wrote Birds of Arabia in 1 954. This illustrates the 
point that most Arabian ornithologists travelled only short distances 
from the coast and the main towns until about 1980. The known range of 
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