{"id":197162,"date":"2025-11-24T06:20:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T06:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/197162\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T06:20:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T06:20:09","slug":"white-tailed-eagle-sighted-in-saudi-arabia-for-first-time-in-20-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/197162\/","title":{"rendered":"White-tailed eagle sighted in Saudi Arabia for first time in 20 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"defaultstyled__StyledText-sc-11u52t4-1 huqwQJ margin-lg-bottom\" id=\"el-0-PL32MAQ67FGOPAXAF6ROR63BGE\">A white-tailed eagle has been sighted in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenationalnews.com\/tags\/saudi-arabia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.thenationalnews.com\/tags\/saudi-arabia\/\">Saudi Arabia<\/a> for the first time in 20 years by a nature reserve manager who said he could \u201cnot believe his eyes\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"defaultstyled__StyledText-sc-11u52t4-1 huqwQJ margin-lg-bottom\" id=\"el-1-VY5OV4DUZNB6PA3A4IOQUHDQYE\">The juvenile, migratory white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) \u2013 which usually lives further north \u2013 was spotted over wetlands at the kingdom&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenationalnews.com\/tags\/mohammed-bin-salman\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.thenationalnews.com\/tags\/mohammed-bin-salman\/\">Prince Mohammed bin Salman<\/a> Royal Reserve.<\/p>\n<p class=\"defaultstyled__StyledText-sc-11u52t4-1 huqwQJ margin-lg-bottom\" id=\"el-3-PXGMSQAVWFALHD4BSEJEM25U5M\">It was photographed in flight by the reserve&#8217;s biodiversity monitoring and research manager Ali Al Faqih, according to a statement from the reserve. It said the eagle&#8217;s presence shows the growing significance of the sight as a refuge for migratory bird life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"defaultstyled__StyledText-sc-11u52t4-1 huqwQJ margin-lg-bottom\" id=\"el-4-L3F3YFUHCRDGZNH66MDJU2RFKI\">\u201cI could hardly believe my eyes when I saw a large raptor flying heavily after drinking. I gazed intently at this magnificent bird and realised I was looking at an unfamiliar species that I had never seen before,\u201d Mr Al Faqih said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"defaultstyled__StyledText-sc-11u52t4-1 huqwQJ margin-lg-bottom\" id=\"el-5-UQIM3G7SL5DGXPLPW4MWIAFHO4\">\u201cObserving a rare bird in the reserve indicates to me that we are seeing improving <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenationalnews.com\/tags\/conservation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.thenationalnews.com\/tags\/conservation\/\">habitat<\/a> quality and providing migratory birds with a safe and productive environment to rest and feed during their long journeys.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"defaultstyled__StyledText-sc-11u52t4-1 huqwQJ margin-lg-bottom\" id=\"el-7-TDOJ7RXRTJG6BFMXFTEEXWQUZY\">The reserve said the sighting at the Wadi Thalbah Wetland \u201creflects the progress\u201d of its efforts to restore habitats. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenationalnews.com\/news\/gulf\/2024\/05\/03\/saudi-arabia-vision-2030-mohammed-bin-salman\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.thenationalnews.com\/news\/gulf\/2024\/05\/03\/saudi-arabia-vision-2030-mohammed-bin-salman\/\">Saudi Arabia&#8217;s Vision 2030<\/a> has environmental objectives of protecting 30 per cent of the kingdom&#8217;s land and sea area by that year, restoring ecosystems and enhancing biodiversity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"defaultstyled__StyledText-sc-11u52t4-1 huqwQJ margin-lg-bottom\" id=\"el-9-WHBL7TIO7VH5NBRC6CBO5GT7RQ\">The 24,500 square-kilometre reserve, which includes marine areas, is home to 15 distinct ecosystems and an exceptional level of biodiversity. More than 50 per cent of all recorded species in the kingdom have been documented within its boundaries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"defaultstyled__StyledText-sc-11u52t4-1 huqwQJ margin-lg-bottom\" id=\"el-10-2QKKHIJ5QJF33APXEI7MBM7TVU\">Since 2021, the reserve has conducted six biodiversity studies with experts from Saudi Arabia and five other countries. To date, these studies have recorded 247 bird species, including seven new global range extensions. This represents 49 per cent of all bird species documented in the kingdom. <\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0specs<\/p>\n<p><strong>Engine:<\/strong>\u00a05.2-litre\u00a0V10<\/p>\n<p><strong>Power:<\/strong>\u00a0640hp\u00a0at\u00a08,000rpm<\/p>\n<p><strong>Torque:<\/strong>\u00a0565Nm\u00a0at\u00a06,500rpm<\/p>\n<p><strong>Transmission:<\/strong>\u00a07-speed\u00a0dual-clutch\u00a0auto<\/p>\n<p><strong>Price:<\/strong>\u00a0From\u00a0Dh1\u00a0million<\/p>\n<p><strong>On\u00a0sale:<\/strong>\u00a0Q3\u00a0or\u00a0Q4\u00a02022\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?<\/p>\n<p>1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull<\/p>\n<p>2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight<\/p>\n<p>3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge<\/p>\n<p>4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own<\/p>\n<p>5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies\u00a0formed<\/p>\n<p>UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pocketsBiography<\/p>\n<p><strong>Favourite drink:<\/strong> Must have karak chai and Chinese tea every day<\/p>\n<p><strong>Favourite non-Chinese food:<\/strong> Arabic sweets and Indian puri, small round bread of wheat flour<\/p>\n<p><strong>Favourite Chinese dish:<\/strong> Spicy boiled fish or anything cooked by her mother because of its flavour<\/p>\n<p><strong>Best vacation:<\/strong> Returning home to China<\/p>\n<p><strong>Music interests:<\/strong> Enjoys playing the zheng, a string musical instrument<\/p>\n<p><strong>Enjoys reading:<\/strong> Chinese novels, romantic comedies, reading up on business trends, government policy changes<\/p>\n<p><strong>Favourite book:<\/strong> Chairman Mao Zedong\u2019s poems<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE ABOUT CORONAVIRUS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A white-tailed eagle has been sighted in Saudi Arabia for the first time in 20 years by a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[273],"tags":[18,108244,19,17,15112,133,1702,1217,461],"class_list":{"0":"post-197162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-foreign-desk-team","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-saudi-arabia","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-standard","15":"tag-story","16":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115603231395650751","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}