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 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 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: