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Asian Houbaras are large bustards. They have highly cryptic plumage and the two sexes look alike, although males are slightly larger and heavier than females. They can be distinguished in the field when/if a male displays for a female. Head, neck and front are all-grey, except for black moustachial stripes that extend down the sides of the neck to form a black "V" on the chest. The back and upperwings are sandy-brown, with dark-brown blotches, while the uppertail is sandy-brown with wide-spaced dark-brown bars and a thin white terminal band. In breeding plumage, the upperwings show a lot of black, especially on the trailing side and the tips of the primaries, while in eclipse, only the tips of the primaries and one small area near the alula are black, while the rest of the outer wing is white. The irises are yellow; the bill is grey with a dark tip Legs and feet are greyish-yellow.

The Asian Houbara is no longer considered to be conspecific with the African Houbara (Chlamydotis undulata) of North Africa, but has been given full species status.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of MacQueen's Bustard is available HERE .

MacQueen's Bustards are a partly sedentary, partly migratory or vagrant species. Their migration is peculiar because it occurs mainly in longitudinal direction, rather than latitude. Their overall range extends from the river Nile and the Sinai peninsula in the West, via Arabia and the Caspian Sea to the steppes and deserts of central Asia, up to Mongolia in the East. With few exceptions, where small populations are sedentary in the Middle East and Arabia, their breeding range extends from central Asia to southern Iran. In central Asia they are breeding migrants, while from southern Iran to Kazakhstan they are sedentary. Their winter quarters extend from north-western India, Pakistan and Afghanistan via the Levant (excluding Asia Minor) to all of Arabia.

In Arabia, Asian Houbaras are, except for a few areas where they are resident (mostly in the United Arab Emirates), winter visitors or migrants. During their migration, they can basically be found anywhere in Arabia. There is only one location near the East coast of Oman where Asian Houbaras are resident and records are few and far between.

Asian Houbaras are adapted to arid environments such as steppes and deserts.

A single Asian Houbara was by chance seen by us flying over wasteland on the edge of the Campus of Sultan Qaboos Universityin December 2009. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of only 3 reports of an Asian Houbara in northern Oman, and the latest of those. The earlier birds were recorded in the mid-1990ies.