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

Hluhluwe birds 12-13/2/18

We spent a day and a half inside Hluhluwe - Imfolozi Game Reserve, safari-driving which isn't the best way to watch birds. So birding was rather casual, but still very enjoyable. Here are my eBird checklists of day 1 (eastern section) and day 2 (southwestern section). We didn't see anything unusual, and missed some target species (like Southern Bald Ibis), so I celebrated the common and beautiful South African birds. Always a treat. My favourite was Mocking Cliff-Chat. There's a territorial pair on Nyalazi Gate itself - stunning birds:

I like the pastel colours of the female too:

Black-backed Puffback - mobbed a Natal Green Snake

Purple-crested Turaco - crazy bird

Burchell's Coucal

African Pipit

White-faced Whistling Ducks

Fan-tailed Widow

Pin-tailed Whydah - trash bird but a real cracker

Square-tailed Drongo

Lesser Striped Swallow

Nice to encounter Palearctic migrants in fair numbers - mainly European Rollers and Red-backed Shrikes:

On our last afternoon we seeked a change of scenery, and headed over to the private nature reserve False Bay Park, an extension of St. Lucia lake that is very close to Hluhluwe. We had higher expectations of the site, but it was half-disappointing there. Still, managed to add a few trip ticks, and snap some common stuff.

White-fronted Plover

Yellow-billed Stork

Grey-headed Gull - sorry about the clipped wingtip

Water Thick-knee

Next post - Kruger Park!

Yellow-billed Stork still around

Drove around the Bet She'an, Harod and Jizre'el valleys today with Re'i, who's the team leader of our coming Soaring Birds count. We checked all posts to make sure everything's OK there (that the sky hasn't fallen or anything similar). Had a quick look at Tel Yosef fishponds - the long-staying Yellow-billed Stork is still around. Other than that not too much; 1 Great Spotted Cuckoo, some shorebirds and quite many (500+) Armenian Gulls already.

Yellow-billed Stork

Yellow-billed Stork revisited

On May 28th I went to twitch the Yellow-bileld Stork that had been found by Irad Solnik the previous day at Tel Yosef fishponds, in the Harod Valley. That day I was semi-disappointed because after the intial scope views the bird disappered and I couldn't get a proper image of it.

As expected, this is a real long-stayer, and today I decided to try and get better images of it. I went with my brother Gidon who hasn't had the chance to go for it yet. Early start and 06:00 we were already on site. Took us about half an hour to locate it but eventually it showed well in an empty fishpond among many White Storks. It didn't do much, only preened a bit. Once it took a short flight - caught me out of focus and I missed the jumpshot. Light was not great, ugly dry fishpond background, but still a fantastic bird.

Yellow-billed Stork

  

Other than that only some early tringas and Ruffs.

Yellow-billed Stork - check!

Yesterday news came out of a Yellow-billed Strok that was found by Irad Solnik in the Harod Valley. I immediately started itching and twitching as this was my bogy bird - I missed the two birds present since 1985 when I started birding. 

This morning I left home very early to arrive on site (Tel Yosef fishponds) at first light. Very soon a nice group of birders assembled, and rather quickly we got on the bird, in a field among a flock of White Storks. We had good scope views (but crap record shots, sorry) as the bird fed in the field, and later on it flew east and disappeared for the rest of the morning. Other birders refound it later on in another fish farm. There are so many fish farms in the valley, and so many storks.

Regarding the age of this bird, it's young but I'm not sure how young. As many other tropical species their breeding depends on rainy season, so it's hard to say when this bird hatched. Conventional Northern Hemisphere ageing codes (1cy, 2cy etc.) do not apply to this bird.

Congrats to Irad for this great find and info!

Yellow-billed Stork