This morning, between 07:50 and 08:15hrs, I found a tiny brown hirundine amongst Barn Swallows, Sand Martins and House Martins at the southern end of Eilat's north sewage pools. I made a tentative identification of Plain Martin (Riparia paludicola) and have since been able to confirm the identification by cross referencing the images back at Lotan.

The bird was remarkable by its lack of interesting features apart from, and perhaps very importantly, its tiny size. In most of the images presented the bird is perched on wires with a House Martin on the right. In image 4, note how much smaller the Plain Martin (on the right) appears in comparison with a Sand Martin, the latter being the smallest of our regular hirundines in the area. The bird also appears to have a more stocky build, appearing less long winged than all the accompanying species and is a rather distinctive shade of grey-brown, lacking the deeper brown tones of Sand Martin.

Click on the pictures to enlarge (+)

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There are just two former documented records for Israel, one ringed at Eilat on 6th May 1985, and 1 at Yotvata on 8th April 1989. It's also a vagrant in the Middle East region with the range of this species including Central and South Africa, and South-Central Asia.

However, this report is only an alert at this stage. More on this extremely interesting occurrence will follow soon.

Good birding,

James P. Smith & The Birdingisrael Team