Eilat

I spent the past week in Eilat. My younger son, Noam, did an open water diving course,  and I was there to escort him. I joined his group for a dive today (Thursday). On other days, I dropped him and his mates off in the morning, and picked them up in the afternoon. In between I tried to work...
At this time of year, when the temperatures are so high and fall migration is just starting, all eyes are on the sea. Naturally, every morning I showed up on North Beach at first light. I enjoyed good birding action until I had to leave, too early, at 07:00. There was really nice activity around bait-balls or fish-boils that formed once or twice every morning. It was exciting to watch this. On August 7th I had six tern species going crazy over the bait-ball, picking up little fish pushed to the surface by predatory tuna: White-cheeked (the most numerous), Common, Arctic, Bridled, Lesser Crested and Caspian. In this photo, spot the Bridled Tern on the right:

Crazy scenes off North Beach, Eilat this morning. Dozens of White-cheeked Terns and White-eyed Gulls in a feeding frenzy over a fish boil. Bridled, Lesser Crested, Arctic, Common and Caspian Terns thrown in for good measure.
Digiscoped through @SwarovskiOptik ATX85 pic.twitter.com/eAh34G1tim

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) August 7, 2023

I posted this video on social media, and it generated interest by our comms team. They pushed it and the 'story' featured quite well on national media. including in English here. Sadly the editor google-translated the Hebrew text, which came out quite a mess. I did my best to help her edit. the results is somewhat awkward but OK I think.

White-cheeked Tern numbers were really high - I counted over 100 together on Thursday morning. They were flying very actively back and forth across the gulf. I photographed these flying super-fast past me on their way back from a bait-ball feast, some carrying tiny fish in their bills. Note the recently-fledged juvenile - Noam Weiss says that they had a good breeding season.

I was also glad to get my first sound recording of this seldom-recorded species:

White-eyed Gulls were present in large numbers too. Several landed on the beach to rest. The adult is a really neat bird IMO.

It was interesting to see them catching flying insects, probably Chironomus midges that are abundant in the early morning.

A Brown Booby was present for a short while one morning, perched on a distant border buoy. Note the Cory's Shearwater sailing past at the very beginning of the clip:

Another welcome visitor to 'my' bit of beach - Striated Heron, made in 2023.

On August 9th I joined the monthly pelagic monitoring trip organised by INPA and Eilat Birding Center. On the boat were Chen and Ofer from INPA, and Noam and Netanel from IBRCE. Expectations were high, after last month's trip yielded European and Wilson's Storm-Petrels. Our trip was a bit hard going, to be honest. For a couple of hours we didn't see a single bird. Eventually, two Swinhoe's Storm-Petrels arrived to check the slick. They flew up and down the slick for about 30 minutes and showed very well. I managed to get my best photos of the species to date. Note how extremely worn this individual is - incredible how it can still fly so well like this.

Strange how times change. Only a decade ago, a pelagic trip with two Swinhoe's would be regarded as a huge success. Nowadays, that they have become so regular off Eilat, sometimes in quite large numbers, our result feels mediocre, almost disappointing. 

Away from the gulf, there wasn't too much to see. KM20 saltpans held decent numbers of shorebirds. best of the bunch was a Terek Sandpiper. Noam and I had an Olive-Tree Warbler during a meeting in Neot Smadar.

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

More Eilat birds and butterflies

 The rest of the week in Eilat was enjoyable. I did some scuba diving with my son, and continued to visit North Beach twice a day, dawn and dusk. I must admit that I had expectations for some extra rarities - with such effort (8 sessions in five days) I was hoping for a new rarity to show up (Crab Plover?), but nothing exciting happened. Still, I was pleased with the great action, especially of terns. The Great Crested Tern continued to show well as it flew back and forth across the bay, very close sometimes:

Bridled, Lesser Crested and White-cheeked Terns continued as well. Also the/an Arctic tern flew across a couple of time - still I haven't managed to photograph this species in Israel!

Lesser Crested Tern

White-cheeked Terns

The regular White-eyed Gulls did their thing:

Two Western Reef-Egrets (and three littles) in the adjacent canal:

At 45 degrees daily it's hard to think about butterflies in Eilat, but even in the harshest midday conditions Eilat has some on offer. One day I paid a quick visit to a concentration of a butterfly I haven't had the chance to photograph before - Arabian Sapphire. It's a wonderful little 'blue', mouse-white with two splashes of colour at the rear end. I really enjoyed them, nectaring on flowering acacia and baccatus:

Also Desert Bath White enjoyed the acacia

En route bumped into a lovely herd of Onager while driving through Hameishar, in beautiful golden light:

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.

Eilat family (and birding?) holiday part 2 - Lesser Crested Terns

On Saturday 17/8/13 the only birding I did was an early morning session at north beach. I met up early with Shachar Alterman, and together we had quite a good time. Again I had to leave at 07:00 which meant that most of the time I was birding was before sunrise. 

We had two Lesser Crested Terns (probably the same two birds hanging around the gulf in the last couple of weeks). One is a bit more advanced in its moult. At one point they were fishing very very close to us - if the sun was up I'd be a very happy man but even though the lack of light and high ISO I am quite happy with these results. Really like the backdrop of Eilat Mts. in the background.

Lesser Crested Terns

I know this image has too many problems but I like the more artistic look of it:

After the sun was up we had some close visits of White-cheeked Terns - this is one result, but much more on White-cheeked Terns in my next post tomorrow - stay tuned!

White-cheeked Tern - adult