Ma'agan Michael

On Wednesday I had a day at Ma'agan Michael with meetings and stuff. I had little time for birding before and between and after the meetings. I'm still hoping to get Great Shearwater this winter - my IL bogey bird (nine records...) therefore I spend any time I can scanning the sea. That early morning at MM the wind was blowing from the wrong direction and there was lots of rain, so seawatching conditions weren't good. But the sea and the skies and the rainbow were dramatic and beautiful.

Because I had nothing better to do I spent my time checking gull legs. All I could find were two Slender-bills ringed by Yosef in Atlit. This one was ringed in April 2020.

With Sandwich Terns:

Pallas's Gulls are developing their black hood and are looking damn sexy:

Later my team joined me and me met up with a TV crew. We dragged them seawatching with us which was fun in the masochistic way:

The sea didn't improve much birdwise, still we had a couple of Med Gulls, a Parasitic Jaeger and an Arctic Skua.

Mediterranean Gull

Parasarctic Jaekua

Over the sand dunes flew around many swallows hawking for insects. One bird almost gave us a heart attack until we figured out it is a partially-leucistic Barn Swallow:

In one of the fishponds four Little Gulls were hanging out. They are such adorable birds, these wee gulls, with their little bills. The adult plumage is very attractive with that dark underwing:

Those snowy wingtips 💗

I find the first plumage very beautiful too

Fluttering over the water like a Wilson's Storm-Petrel

Seawatching

Wednesday morning I visited Palmachim beach. A large storm was boiling, the wind was already good, the sea was properly rough - just before the rain started at noon. 

When I arrived at the seawatching spot, I was greeted by a sea full of birds:

There was really good activity of gulls close to shore, attracted to large fish shoals. Soon I noticed that there were good numbers of Yelkouan Shearwaters among the gulls, feeding very close to shore, sometimes down to 20m. Fantastic. This winter is special for yelkouans - their numbers are bigger than usual in recent years, and they are often seen feeding very close to shore. I focused most of my attention on the shearwaters, and took many hundreds of photos of them. I was hoping to find another shearwater among them (which I didn't), and document their variation. I also really enjoyed watching them fish, using short dives. It was difficult to digiscope in these conditions...

I will devote a separate blogpost to the Yelkouan Shearwaters - out of the hundreds of photos I took a few tens are blog-worthy. I will leave you with one I am pleased of.

The gulls were dominated by Black-headed Gulls, but there were a few other gulls mixed in, though the diversity was fairly low.

Lesser Black-backed Gull (fuscus)

Armenian Gull (adult) - lots of black on wingtip with little white, and nice black bill band

Yellow-legged Gull (I think) - bill too heavy for caspian, large head, and rather uniform wing

Many Sandwich Terns were fishing close in too:

One Pomarine Skua passed two distantly for a photo, but two Arctic Skuas made near passes - one super close. The first bird is especially small (check the size comparison with Black-headed Gull!), but still an Arctic.

Second bird

Back at the car, a Greater Spotted Eagle flew over, battling against the strong wind:

More images in the eBird checklist here. Stay tuned for a deep study of Yelkouan Shearwater.

Ma'agan Michael gulls

Today I had some time in Ma'agan Michael before a meeting (it often works out like that...). A serious storm developed overnight so I had some expectations for a short but productive seawatching session. I arrived at Crocodilopolis, an ancient mound just south of MM to discover that the gale-force wind was blowing from the wrong direction, SSE. What time I spent scanning the sea was fruitless - I did not see a single seabird. Therefore I focused on gulls and shorebirds on the beach. Nadav joined me. Several gull species were moving up and down the beach - Armenian, Yellow-legged, Caspian, Pallas's, Siberian, Slender-billed and Black-headed. Shorebirds sheltered on the beach behind the mound, including 11 Greater Sand-plovers and fair numbers of Kentish. Check my eBird checklist here. Light conditions were surprisingly good for a storm, so I enjoyed some relaxed photography.

Pallas's Gulls - have I mentioned before that they are the best gulls?

Yellow-legged Gull

I found this colour-ringed Armenian Gull roosting on the beach. In fact it is a bird I ringed back in April 2014 and released at ashdod (thanks Yosef & Amir for reminding me). It was rehabilitated at the Israeli Wildlife Hospital after a case of Botulism, and seen several times since at Ashdod and MM. I wrote an article after its release for the Israel Birding Portal; it includes a video of the release, featuring my son Noam, then 4.5 years old...

Sandwich Terns

Slender-billed and Black-headed Gulls

Slender-billed Gull

Grey Plovers

Huge numbers of Great Cormorants

Fishing shoals stranded in the rockpools

Norfolk rarity

Last night the wind switched to a proper northerly, which means better seawatching conditions. I haven't been out properly for toooooooooooo long, actually since I got back from Iberia, so I was very keen to head out. During the few hours of sleep I dream of albatrosses and Fea's Petrels. I arrived at Cley at 05:00. At first the few birds were disappointingly distant, because the wind had switched to north just few hours earlier. Rather soon I clocked on a Sooty Shearwater - nice, but too distant for a photo. Then birds were pushed closer inshore by the strong wind and there was a nice constant passage of terns and gannets. Albert didn't fly past, nor a pterodroma. Bird highlights of the morning were a Manx Shearwater, Little Gull, 40 Common Scoter and a Guillemot. Sadly I had to leave after a couple of hours - had to get back home for schoolrun. See full list here. After leaving the others had a couple of spoony Poms and a Velvet Scoter.

Sandwich Tern

Gannet and bird choppers

But the true highlight of the morning was an extremely visitor to Norfolk - DIM Wallace who walked into the seawatching shelter in nonchalance, like it's his midlands local patch. Great to see him here, alongside some of Norfolk's finest.

Ashdod bits and pieces

Sunny and cold morning. Set the nets up in the dark, just to discover that the water level is too high and my wellies are of no help... Ringing was pretty slow, as expected for this time of the year when the reeds are dry. Still some nice stuff around - Long-eared Owl at first light, late Masked Shrike and Lesser Whitehroat, Reed Bunting heard and Moustached Warbler trapped late in the morning.
Later, virtually no gulls at the gull site. Seven minutes of seawatching produced a 1cy Kittiwake, 1 Yelkouan Shearwater sitting on the water, and 15-20 Sandwich Terns. Not bad!
Thanks to Re'a, Miri and Shlomo for the help.

Ashkelon seawatching - short

Spent a couple of hours seawatching at Ashkelon this morning. even though the wind was wrong (SE), I had five Yelkouan Shearwaters, one ad. Kittiwake and several Sandwich Terns. Due to the wind all birds were far offshore so no images, only crap scope views.