Eilat mini-break

With all the missiles, rockets, strike drones and bombs flying around me causing unimaginable human suffering, it feels so crazy and bizarre yet so natural to go out and enjoy nature and birding. This is how we roll here. I went down to Eilat with my family for a quick break, combining birding, scuba diving and family time. It was fun as always. Birding this time of year is dominated by seawatching off north beach. I spent two early mornings and an afternoon there, taking in the tern activity. It was very good, with a lovely show of Bridled and White-cheeked Terns - many tens of each, some coming in very close. If you look closely at two O'clock of this phone photo of north beach at dawn, a flock of thirty something bridleds and white-cheeks can be seen:

When they flew over us I sound recorded them with my phone:

The more noisy birds are White-cheeked Terns. The Bridled Terns gave softer calls, that can be heard in the background.

I took a few photos using my real camera too:

I found two Arctic Terns - an adult in the evening of June 26th, and a 2cy in the morning of June 27th. In Israel, typically 2cy birds are seen - about 1-2 annually. Adults are less frequently recorded so that was very nice. I also managed to get my first photos in Israel of this rarity (albeit at a great distance). I have seen and found quite many but always settled for scope views and never managed to get a photo, until yesterday morning. ID pointers here include the small size and short bill, very pale overall, narrow carpal bar, and pale primaries with narrow dark trailing edge. In the field, the weaker and more bouncy flight action was obvious, compared to Common Terns accompanying it. Here it is with a Bridled Tern:

Driving back and forth between north beach and our accommodation, I was hoping to bump into the Yellow-billed Stork that has been hanging around Eilat since early May. In recent weeks it has become very mobile and more difficult to track down. I missed it during a quick work visit last week, and during a couple of searches on Thursday and Friday. Eventually, on Friday night, after leaving north beach, I finally found it feeding in the southern canal - what a super bird and lovely to see it here.

Scuba diving was fun as always. Finally we purchased a GoPro and can show some of the stuff we see underwater when we go scuba diving. My elder son Uri and I still need to learn how to use it better but the first dives with it were already enjoyable.

Red Sea Clownfish

Eilat quicky

Yesterday I had a couple of important meetings in Eilat, leaving me with just enough time for birding after dawn and on the way back home. My main interest was in seawatching off north beach. Very early there was really nice activity at sea. Interestingly by 06:30 the sea became totally empty, and it felt OK to leave for the meetings - it was unlikely I would miss anything (who knows? Maybe my nemesis-bird, Crab Plover, flew by five minutes after my departure?). There were lots of terns at sea, including a 2cy Arctic Tern that has been around for a few days, three Bridled Terns and several White-cheeked Terns. Typical summer mix. Good scope views of the arctic, that spent most of its time behind the pier in Aqaba. I have seen many Arctic Terns in Israel but still don't have a photo of one. 

White-cheeked Tern - adult

White-cheeked Tern - young bird (I am not sure whether they breed according to northern hemisphere calendars)

White-eyed Gull - one of Eilat's signature birds - quite a few flew around and two young birds perched briefly on some rocks, that are exposed at low tide.

Squacco Heron - common but always attractive, especially when coming in-off:

eBird checklist here.

On the way back home I stopped briefly in a nice Arava wadi, still (relatively) lush and green after the late-spring climate-change rain storms. The rain was very welcome by desert breeders. During the short time I was there, I saw several families of Bar-tailed and Temminck's Larks, flying around with their young. Great to witness that Thick-billed Lark bred again in Israel, successfully, perhaps not in high density but what a treat. I speculate that Thick-billed lark is one of the few species that benefit from Climate Change. In our region, climate change is expressed in more extreme weather. In Israel's desert regions, this translates into extreme storms developing in higher frequency and with higher energy. Once-every-50-years weather events happen almost every winter now. Nomadic larks like Thick-billed Lark utilise the high productivity patches created by these often very local downpours. In practice, since the first breeding was discovered by Barak Granit in 1999, this species has become regular, almost sedentary, and much more common, present almost year-round in the southern Negev and Arava in small numbers, and breeding almost every year. Exceptional breeding events occur when the winter storms arrive at the perfect timing and location, like in 2010.

Dad feeding young

Baby Thick-billed Lark

Daddy is off to collect more food for its baby

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.

Distant

I spent one night in Eilat with my family, spontaneously escaping from another hot and sticky weekend in the center. While Eilat was certainly hot, at least it wasn't sticky and it was better fun than staying at home. Yesterday early morning I met up with Shachar and Dudu for a couple of hours of seawatching off North Beach. I have had worse morning there: highlight was a 2cy Arctic Tern, that gave good scope views as it flew rather distantly just behind the border, often alongside a Common Tern allowing good comparative views. I failed even to get a record shot - all I managed was a lovely photo of a Jordanian border police boat:

There's an Arctic Tern somewhere in there, honest

Arctic Tern is just about annual in Israel, typically in July-August. I assume it's overlooked, because of my biased luck in finding them - I have already found several during 'random' one-day visits, including here.

Other highlights were two (distant) Lesser Crested Terns, 2 (slightly less distant) Cory's Shearwaters, and nice numbers of (even less distant) White-cheeked Terns. 

White-cheeked Tern - 2cy

White-cheeked Tern - adult (moulting)

eBird checklist here.

After a lovely day spent snorkeling at Coral Beach, on the way back hope kidnapped my family for a very quick whiz through KM20 saltpans. I saw one Red Phalarope. At what distance you ask? Distant... But hey-ho, a year-tick is a year-tick. Two birds are present for about a week, though they could be the same two seen in late May.

Extra time WP tick

I had little expectations to go birding in the UK again, but yesterday a Semipalmated Sandpiper that was found by James McCallum at RSPB Snettisham made me reconsider my priorities... In an atypical display of responsibility and maturity I didn't go yesterday, but this morning I was on site at dawn. First thing there were very few birders (I guess many were waiting at home for news). The tide was advancing up the Wash, and I was scanning the mud like crazy. After a while I spotted THE bird feeding among Dunlin and Ring Plovers - it was distant but I knew exactly what to look for, and as soon as I got onto it everything fell into place - stockier than Little Stint, nice and grey above with no rufous scapulars, thick bill and really obvious flank streaks. Too distant to see the palmations and for photography, so I took in all details I could with x70 magnification on my Swarovski ATX95. I saw it for maybe 20 seconds, and I think another birder got onto it as well; then the whole flock took off with the rapidly rising tide and I lost the bird in a scenario similar to this:

I spent the next couple of hours scanning through the roosting flocks at high tide. Very challenging task to say the least:

Scanning back and forth I did add some quality - a 2cy Roseate Tern (in the field I first had some self doubts but after reading a bit more if seems fine), 2 Arctic terns, 1 Black Tern, 15 Curlew Sandpipers and 2 Little Stint scattered in the Dunlin flocks, 10 Spotted Redshanks and one Turtle Dove that flew south. I was getting a bit worried that I couldn't relocate it, neither did other birders scanning. I was happy to hear that after I had left the bird was relocated in the early afternoon.

Attention: horrible phone scoped images. I really need to buy a phone with a proper camera.

Curlew Sandpiper roosting among Dunlin (adults and a juvenile)

Sanderling

There were several thousand lovely red Knot. Only this grey job was near enough to phonescope.

Snettishem is a special reserve. I must admit that I find the pans unattractive; but the spectacular murmurations of Knot and Bar-tailed Godwit over the Wash always impress. Overall it was an enjoyable morning with 81 species - check my eBird checklist here. Thanks to James (good to meet up one last time in the field, mate) and to other birders who worked pretty hard this morning.

Sweden road trip part 1 - birds

Got back last night from a week-long family trip to Sweden. Sweden is a wonderful country. We landed at Västerås and drove from there up north. First night we stayed near Sandvik, second near Bispgården and then we reached our destination - Luleå in the far north of Sweden. Lots of driving...
From a family point of view it was a great holiday - weather was perfect, we did lots of outdoor stuff and got to know special people. From a wildlife point of view I could have achieved more. At this time of year, best hours for birding are between 22:00 and 04:00. Because of all the driving I did, and long days of family stuff, I could afford only one night of proper birding. Other times when I was outdoors during hours when normal people are awake were rather quiet, and light conditions were horrible.
However, all in all, I saw some stuff and enjoyed the common birds Sweden has to offer.
I enjoyed seeing in good numbers migrants that are doing pretty bad in England. Red-backed Shrikes, Pied Flycatcher and Willow Warbler were present at almost every stop in the south and centre. Pied Flycatchers were breeding in almost every nestbox I saw.

Pied Flycatcher

Heading up north, a short stop at the lovely nature reserve Ålsjön was productive with breeding Whooper Swans and Slavonian Grebes.

Luleå is a special town, with lots of wildlife in it. Urban birding with Arctic Terns and Whimbrel can't be bad. 

Arctic Tern

Whimbrel - taken at 00:45 without flash...

On my final morning, before flying out, the kids had an hour at a play area in Västerås. I had time for a quick walk around Mälarpark which was rather nice with Icterine and Wood Warblers. The Icterine was singing from high up in the trees. 

Icterine Warbler

Up in the north I did have a couple of target species. I succeeded with one - more on my next blog.

Scotland #3 - seabird extravaganza

Back home in Norwich already, but I have some more Scottish tales to tell. On July 31st we went out to sea with my mate Phil from Shetland Seabird Tours. We left Lerwick harbour and headed towards Noss NNR. Phil boat is great - small enough to get close to water level, but sits very well on the water. 

Noss is an impressive rock and has even more impressive gannet numbers - in fact 22,000 pairs breed there. The sea was somewhat choppier than normal but we all did well, especially Libby who fell asleep halfway through the trip...

The gannets there know their duty and showed up when they were invited by Phil. I was so unprofessional and forgot my small lens onshore. At these distances, my 500 was useless, so all these photos were taken with my phone. Phone photos should never be displayed on a computer screen, I know. But all in all they're not too bad I think, for phone photos at least.

Quite a few Bonxies joined the feast too:

As did the local Great Black-backed Gulls:

Most breeding gannets had Masked-Booby-like fluffy chicks still in the nest:

Lots of non-breeders too

Shags, made in 2017

On the way back we stopped for some seabirds away from the cliffs. We encountered some feeding concentrations of puffins and Arctic Terns. Closer views on Sumburgh Head but lovely to see them at sea:

Most Common Guillemots had already left - only few seen

Several Black Guillemots (Tysties) were loafing in the harbour - losing their summer plumage:

 Some more Arctic Terns in the harbour:

And a few Common Eider families: 

Back on land, one of the few Common Terns on Shetland was especially obliging just in the carpark:

Many thanks to Phil for the brilliant tour. Great fun and quality birding. Highly recommended to anyone visiting Shetland. Till next post...