Streaked Shearwater Calonectris leucomelas, Red Sea, February 2nd, 2003.
Eilat, Israel and Aqaba, Jordan.

Streaked Shearwater Calonectris leucomelas. Field sketches made before consulting any major references. This individual was much whiter about the head that the long staying bird that I saw at the same site in July 1993. A second shearwater seen on February 2nd '03 may also have been a Streaked, but high winds and the focus of attention on this bird prevented its identification with any sort of certainty.

This record was accepted as the third for Israel and the West Palearctic, and appears in the IRDC bulletin http://www.israbirding.com/irdc/bulletins/bulletin_3/ The previous records have also been from Eilat/Aqaba:
2 or 3, June 21st - September 18th, 1992 (Morgan & Shirihai 1992); 1, May - July 1993 (Shirihai 1996).

Streaked Shearwater Calonectris leucomelas. 'Digibin' image taken using Nikon Coolpix 995 through Leica 10 x 42 binoculars. 'Shearing' above white-caps in the Gulf of Aqaba. This image was taken from Eilat's North Beach with Aqaba Port clearly visible in the background. Southern storms will sometimes 'trap' vagrant seabirds against the head of the Red Sea. On reaching land, some of these seabirds cruise up and down the Aqaba shore and Eilat North Beach until the wind subsides, as was the case with this Streaked Shearwater which gave prolonged scope views for almost an hour. It spent most of its time on the Jordanian side of the border.

Streaked Shearwater Calonectris leucomelas. Digibin image taken from Eilat's North Beach.

Streaked Shearwater images from Australia >>

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