This species resides in open, arid environments like steppe and semi-desert, favoring areas with scattered shrubby vegetation, often including xerophytic or halophytic plants. The Houbara bustard is most active during dawn and dusk, with a varied diet including plants, invertebrates, and even small vertebrates like rodents, lizards, small snakes, and young birds. During displays, the male showcases its distinctive features by raising its crest feathers, retracting its head into its chest, and performing a distinctive blind run in different directions.

Rawda, which means garden, are pockets of green in the desert. They form in depressions in the desert surface. Fine soils blown by the wind are gradually deposited and compacted in the depressions, allowing plants to grow in it. These soils hold water far better than the rocky or sandy surroundings. Rawda are known as sweet soil areas, as they are so fertile. Many different plants and animals thrive in these hospitable conditions. People use them for farming and date plantations.

Jennings, Michael C. (Author), Krupp, Friedhelm (Editor), Al-Suwaiyel, Mohammed bin Ibrahim (Preface By). (Series: Fauna of Arabia, Volume: 25). Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Arabia. Publisher: Karger Libri. 2010.