Photo Credit: Shai Kavasa / Israel Nature and Parks Authority
The European shag or common shag (Phalacrocorax Aristotelis) is a species of cormorant that normally breeds around the rocky coasts of western and southern Europe, southwest Asia, and North Africa. Israel does not have such a rocky landscape along its shores to offer, but this cute fellow showed up this week anyway, at the Tel Dor nature preserve, next to modern moshav Dor, about 20 miles south of Haifa
This cormorant has been spotted only twice before in the Holy Land: in the summer of 2005, and last March, on the Ashkelon beach.
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