26th March: Stop Press !!

A Chestnut-shouldered Petronia at Lotan today

Hi birders,

During my traditional Kibbutz rounds I found this Chestnut-shouldered Petronia feeding with Spanish Sparrows close to the changing rooms at Lotan's swimming pool this morning. Although not the most colourful bird in the world, this will be third record for Israel if accepted by the Israel Rarities & Distribution Committee and was certainly enough to get my heart racing, especially as these are the first photographs of this species ever taken in Israel.

Chestnut-shouldered Petronia is also known as Yellow-throated Sparrow and breeds locally in the Middle East in SE Turkey and Iran being more widespread across Central-south Asia to India. There are only two previous records in Israel, both of them from the Eilot region; Eilot fields on 10th -11th May 1982 and Kibbutz Lotan on 14th November 2001.

In keeping with our ambition to keep our site as current as possible, we present three of the better digiscoping images from the actual observation. The pictures were taken between 09:00 and 09:30 hrs.

Good birding to all,

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)