27^th and 28^th October Eilat

After last weekend's spell of light easterly winds, the prospect of finding some interesting species found me trudging around some of the most smelly sewage pools in the country - during the heat of the day! I chose to visit my favoured area of Eilat's north sewage pools once again. It wasn't long before I disturbed a feeding Oriental Turtle Dove of the race 'meena', which perched obligingly for long periods on the sandy banks of the pools. This was clearly a different individual from the bird I'd found nearby during the previous week (on the 16th) and I could hardly believe my luck in finding another. If accepted this would be just the sixth record for Israel.

A good ninety minutes were passed by watching and photographing this bird, and the huge numbers of Shoveler, Pintail and Teal present on the largest pool gained little of my attention until I noted three handsome Ruddy Shelduck amongst them.

As I skirted the pools one by one, I noted many passerines including lots of Water and Red-throated Pipits and a couple of Citrine Wagtails. Then came the explosive, buzzing call of an Oriental Skylark like a true signal of late autumn. Once settled, this small Central Asian lark gave wonderful views until I became more distracted by its intriguing feeding companion. The accompanying bird was also a lark, and very like a (Greater) Short-toed Lark. However, it looked small and pale and seemed to lack the plumage contrast that I was used to seeing in (Greater) Short-toed Lark. I watched it for a while, in fact two hours slipped by before I noticed that the sun was getting lower in the afternoon sky. Two (Greater) Short-toed Larks were feeding nearby and I found it curious that the mystery lark chose not to associate with them, being much more at home with Red-throated Pipit and Oriental Skylark. I began to contemplate an extra-ordinary sighting and by 4 pm I became reasonably convinced that I was watching a Hume's Short-toed Lark, a species recorded in Israel (and the West Palearctic) just once before. That record also came from Eilat, in February 1986.

On the morning of the 28th, I was joined by Yoav Perlman from Beer Sheva who'd acted quickly on the news. Together we soon located the 'probable' Hume's Short-toed Lark, and also, very importantly, heard its distinctive flight call. Yoav had some former experience of this species from India and also became convinced of the bird's identification.

After the best part of two days of field observation we were quite convinced of our identification of Hume's Short-toed Lark at Eilat's north sewage pools.

Click here>> to view a gallery of the best images from the last two days.

So many other interesting species were seen over the these two days - most notable were; 5 Western Reef Herons from the public viewing area in Switzerland Park, a juvenile Montagu's Harrier near the Aqaba crossing, and Ferruginous Duck, 5 Temminck's Stint, Marsh Sandpiper, Stock Dove, Turtle Dove, 3 Pied Kingfisher, European Bee-eater, Tawny Pipit, Great Reed Warbler, and numerous common migrants all in the Km.19 area.

A hectic but very exciting couple of days in the field.

Good birding,

James Smith

Contact info

Daphna Abell
Program Coordinator
lotan-programs@lotan.ardom.co.il
Tel: +972 8 6356935;
Toll Free: 1800 2000 75 (when in Israel)