Eilat seawatching

I spent two and a half days in Eilat, that included work, scuba diving and birding. Order of importance is debatable... This is the story: My elder son is really into scuba diving, and I am too. We went down to Eilat for him to complete his advanced open water training. I joined him on one dive but got an ear infection and couldn't dive anymore. I spent the rest of my days working, with compulsory dawn and dusk visits to North Beach, where all the action is these days. Everywhere else in the country spring migration is officially over and birding has become very static. In contrast, at North Beach, especially in the very early morning, birding was very dynamic with lots of stuff moving. I enjoyed that a lot. Check this representative eBird checklist.

Super moon setting over Sinai

Shachar's two recent rarities, Sabine's Gull and Great Crested Tern didn't linger, but there was plenty of interest at sea to keep me busy. Sooty Shearwater numbers are higher than normal, with a maximum of 14 yesterday morning. This could be an underestimate - shearwaters kept flying from one side of the gulf to the other constantly. Every scope sweep came up with at least one or two. One early morning, two sooties patrolled over the beach, even flying inland a bit, then returning to sea - could they be prospecting an overland crossing - to where? It was almost dark when I took this photo, as it flew over my head, so it isn't great:

Two Cory's Shearwaters were present too. There was very good skua/jaeger action too - three species seen: Arctic/Parasitic, Pomarine and Long-tailed - two magnificent adults with loooooong tail streamers, too distant for photography I'm afraid but good scope views. There were plenty of terns too, quite large numbers of Common and Little moving through. Quality terns included Lesser Crested, Bridled and White-cheeked. 

Three White-cheeked terns with a casual Sooty Shearwater

Little Terns on the move

There aren't many shorebirds in Eilat now, most should be busy breeding now very far north. This lovely female Greater Sand-plover shared the beach with humans one morning:

I spotted at a great distance a tiny white dot heading north. As it approached it became clear it's a Red-necked Phalarope - you should be in the arctic now, in nicer plumage than this!

Crested Eagle meets Red-necked Phalarope

Greater Flamingo is a silly bird. I counted 820 at KM20 saltpans where they look very settled - don't know why they don't breed there. Therefore it was very cool to spot a flock of 25 flying low over the water, heading north, battling against the wind. Migration magic.

Swerved from side to side, they eventually passed overhead

Unbelievable that such comic birds can actually migrate

White-eyed Gull for dessert

Eilat

On Wednesday I travelled down to Eilat for a short combo of work and birding. Arriving at Eilat in the early evening, it was a bit hot.

Seawatching was quite productive in the evening and in the early morning, despite the heat. I found an Arctic Tern, and saw Lesser Crested Tern and Long-tailed Skuager, all new to my year list. Arctic Tern is a good one, about annual in Israel. There was relatively good activity altogether, with three skua species, many commoner terns including White-cheeked, Cory's and Sooty Shearwaters (eBird checklists here and here). My photography efforts weren't very successful. I failed to photograph any of the rarities above.

White-cheeked Tern and 2cy Common Tern

Early morning White-eyed Gulls:

An early morning flyby of a tern flock demonstrated how tricky it is to separate Little Tern from Saunders's Tern in Israel. Note how large the black primary wedge is - four primaries at least; also rump and tail are concolorous with mantle (but too dark for Saunders's).

KM20 saltpans were very hot and quiet. There were hardly any migrant shorebirds. Kentish Plovers seemed to have had a good breeding season - they're on our Red List so this is good news.

Iris of IBRCE team and I picked up an exhausted/ill Caspian Tern. I drove it to the Wildlife Hospital near Tel Aviv - what an impressive beast. Hope it recovers.

Champions of the Flyway day 2 - Turkestan Shrike!

Headed out early with Tom and Dan to Yotvata. Weather was quite pleasant to start with. Birding was pleasant too, with fair number of 'ground' birds (larks, pipits and wagtails), several harriers cruising over the fields, and relative highlights that didn't show well in the form of Richard's Pipit, Lesser Short-toed Lark and Sibe Stonechat. Then the weather started to deteriorate rapidly. Southerlies picked up quick, and a horrible sand storm began. Just as we were about to leave the area because it became unbearable, we bumped into a - 'Hey - Turkestan Shrike!' I exclaimed first... We were as surprised as the shrike with this encounter from 5 meters - by the time Tommy and I picked our cameras up it shot off. After a tense minute of searching we found it sheltering from the storm in a bush. We secured some shots and backed off; a minute later the shrike literally blew with the wind and we thought it was gone - luckily it was relocated not far away and twitched by many. In the afternoon it showed pretty well - see Shimon Shiff's awesome photos with SX50 on Facebook. Great stuff!

Blowing a hooley as they call it in Norfolk

Desert Finch

Spanish Sparrows

We escaped from the sand storm towards Eilat, and found shelter at IBRCE. We had a short and sweet walk there with 8 Red-necked Phals, 2 Citrine Wags and an interesting cormorant, that I can't see why it's not lucidus - more on it to follow.

Red-necked Phalaropes

Citrine Wagtail

It's spring, he shouts, it's spring!

Putative White-breasted Cormorant

In the afternoon I drove around with Jonathan. The wind switched to northerly but was still blowing like hell. To be honest, there were very few migrants around. A quick circuit of the southern KM20 pond didn't produce much. 3 Collared Pratincoles were almost exciting. Too many birders there so we left.

North Beach was better with Long-tailed Jaeger, and first Common Terns of the season.

In the evening another inspiring event - this time the official opening event at IBRCE (thanks for hosting!). Great spirit and enthusiasm - proud to be part of this global community.

Global Tern Conference

This morning I went with my good friend Gert Ottens to do some seawatching at Eilat. I owed him one after the royal treatment I recieved in NL in February, so despite an extreme shortage of sleep this week we took off at 02:30 to arrive at North Beach right on time, at 05:30. We started seeing lots of terns instantly - they roosted on the border buoys. There was a big flock of about 30 White-cheeked Terns that left the roost (tick #1 for Gert) plus quite many more terns. This year there are exceptional numbers of White-cheeked terns at Eilat - it was by far the commonest bird at sea this morning. The mornings' total must have been about 35-40 birds! Lots of moulting adults, nice and dark, and lots of 2cy too. We had them flying around the gulf in small groups the whole morning.

White-cheeked Tern - adult

White-cheeked Terns - adult and 2cy

Star bird of the morning (for me) was a 2cy Arctic Tern. I first noticed it fishing W of us on the Israeli side of the gulf, with other terns. Then it flew back into sea and reappeared again fishing with other terns on the Jordanian side of the border. It was always too far for photography but we had good scope views and saw all the important ID features, including small size and compact structure, small bill, very white above with transparent primaries and only thin dark band on upperwing coverts. Arctic Tern is more or less annual at Eilat.

Another very good tern was Lesser Crested Tern (tick #2 for Gert). At first we had one bird sat on the border buoys; then it took off and was briefly joined by a second individual. One individual was seen throughout the morning. Crazy distance record shot: 

Lesser Crested Tern

We had only two Bridled Terns - larger numbers were seen in recent weeks:

Other terns we had at sea were common and caspian. Nice to see all of these species together, originating from different parts of the world. Other seabirds we had were an adult Long-tailed Skua, one Cory's Shearwater and several White-eyed Gull. All of these birds made the long drive worthwhile. Excellent morning!

When the wind and temperatures picked up we continued to the IBRCE saltpans that were good with lots of shorebirds and gulls. Some White-winged Terns there as well:

KM20 saltpans were quieter and held smaller numbers of shorebirds. Nothing really interesting there. The long-staying melanistic Greater Flamingo was still there - what a distinctive bird!

Among the flamingo flock two Turkish-ringed birds, present for a few days now:

A pair of Namaqua Doves sat on the fence nicely:

On the way back home we had a male and juv. Hooded Wheatear at Neot Smadar sewage, and in total four Egyptian Vultures. Thanks to Gert for the company today.