Offshore birding in the eastern Mediterannean

Eastern Mediterranean - the Tamar field off Israel.
November - December 2009

The job was an AUV geophysical survey with a variety of geotechnical sampling in order to map possible routes for the offshore section of a gas pipeline from the Tamar field to Israel. The vessel mobilised late November at Limassol, Cyprus and we went home just before Christmas via Haifa in Israel. Early in the New Year I returned for a couple more weeks.

The HUGIN 3000 AUV - the reason for being in the Med.....

As usual the eastern Mediterranean was disappointing for seabirds with very little to be seen other than a few presumed Yellow-legged Gulls, occasional Cormorants, a single Lesser Black-backed Gull and a single Pomarine Skua. January was even quieter with almost no birds at all sighted - with the notable exception of at least two adult winter Pallas's Gulls on the penultimate night of the project. These birds were feeding offshore not far inside the Israeli 12 nautical mile limits.

In late November quite a few migrants landed onboard, mostly during spells of cloudy or rainy weather. No passerines landed on the vessel during December but quite a few were flying around at night during the frequent periods of strong winds. All remained unidentified but included larks and a wader. Christmas and New Year saw most of Europe struggling with extenisve snow and temperatures well below freezing - a Song Thrush on the back deck bore testament to the harshness of the conditions further north. This bird was obviously fleeing the cold and attempting to cross the med in a desparate bid to survive.

Very little of any kind of sealife was seen either, occasional schools of Tuna, some flying fish (especially nearer to shore) and small numbers of squid - a few of which were washed up on deck during periods of bad weather.

This Kingfisher fished right beside our vessel alongside in Limassol

The last week of November was by far the most productive with Black Redstarts onboard more or less daily. On one occasion they were joined by a Stonechat. Other birds included White Wagtail and Meadow Pipit. Perhaps the most unexpected sighting of the trip was a migrant Crag Martin seemingly hunting insects attracted to the lights illuminating the back deck during the night of 01 December.

There was much more drama with vessels sinking than with any natural phenomena - at least three different vessels went down in the space of a few weeks. Our vessel was invloved in the search for survivors from one of these - the Salla 2. All we found was a lifebelt from the stricken ship. Whilst scanning the sea with the searchlights quite a number of birds were picked up struggling to cross the stormy seas to Africa.

Lifebelt from the Salla 2 which went down not far from where we were working and were involved in the search for survivors

Perhaps surprisingly an amazing number and variety of insects were seen onboard - no doubt attempting to cross the Mediterranean. These included dragonflies, butterflies, bugs and moths.

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Black Redstart on the back deck, November 2009	Meadow Pipit, November 2009

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Migrating Stonechat takes a break onboard, November 2009	Black Redstart, November 2009

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White Wagtail, December 2009	Yellow-legged Gulls, December 2009