Banding 
A banding station was set up at Maagan Mikhael, a fish culture kibbutz 
midway between Tel Aviv and Haifa on the Mediterranean coast. The area has 
•i. 
been declared a nature preserve. The fish culture ponds proved attractive 
to waterfowl and shorebirds while a number of passerines were taken in the 
nearby scrub. That winter eight other banding sites were visited to 
evaluate their potential for spring operation and specimens were collected 
for reference and documentation. Birds were banded and specimens collected 
at the Ahada River (2 kilometers east of Caesarea), the Alexander River 
(2 kilometers east of Haifa), Allonai Ytzhak, Gan Shmoel (3 kilometers 
north of Hadera), the Hadera River on the coast road, Yotvata, Zikhron 
Ya’akov, and Eilat. The last locality proved best and all operations were 
moved to Eilat for the spring migration and all subsequent PMS banding in 
Israel through the spring of 1969. Banding was continued by Israeli 
personnel alone in 1970-1971 at the same site. Mr. and Mrs. Steven R. 
Peterson were the principal PMS banders. They were assisted by Miss Bruria 
Glovinsky and other Israeli aides. 
Eilat (29° 33’ N, 34° 57’E) is located in southernmost Israel on the 
Gulf of Aqaba. The area was selected for study because the truck vegetable 
gardens and date plantation (Figures 1 and 2) provide the first large green 
oasis in the desert for migrants travelling north along the Red Sea coast 
and across the Sinai Peninsula, or south over the Negev Desert and Araba 
Valley where only low scrub and a few acacia groves are found (Figures 3 
and 4). 
The results of the three seasons of banding are comparable because the 
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