Lesser Kestrels in trouble

Lesser Kestrel was listed as globally Vulnerable by BirdLife International, but has been recently downlisted to Least Concern as a result of positive trends over much of its range. A similar trend happened in Israel, when positive population trends were noted in the early 2000's and it was downlisted in Israel from Vulnerable to Threatened. Last time the population in Israel was properly monitored was in 2005.

This year I'm coordinating a national census of these delicate falcons. This project is funded by the Hoopoe Foundation. The falcons are almost finished breeding, and the results I have so far are quite alarming, with some sharp declines noted in the major populations in N and C Israel. 

Today I revisited two colonies in the N Negev - they seem to be doing here relatively OK, with stable numbers compared to a decade ago. This may be the result of a good rainy winter, resulting in high insect and arthropod productivity well into late spring. Today the birds were feeding like crazy which made nest locating very easy. The chicks should fledge in a week or so. Then they disperse somewhere - first the adults and later on the juveniles. Nobody knows where they spend the months between leaving Israel by mid June and arriving in E Africe in late October. Satellite tags anyone?

Lesser Kestrel - male

Goodbye spring, hello summer

Yesterday spent the morning birding with Meidad in Eilat and S Arava. It was a fine day, but it really gave the feeling of the end of spring - very few terrestrial migrants on the ground; only shorebirds put on a good show.

We started off VERYearly and arrived at north beach at 06:00. Markus and his hardcore Finnish mates arrived earlier and they had seen three White-cheeked Terns before we arrived. Unfortunately the terns did not reappear. There were quite many commoner terns around, three Sooty Shearwaters, 4 flyover Oyestercatchers and not too much else.

Striated Heron

Sandwich Tern

Little Tern

We then checked the saltpans. Those south of IBRCE had 19 Red-necked Phalaropes among the many shorebirds and gulls. They are such fine birds. Unfortunately all the images were taken from the car window, from the top of the bank, thus the lousy angle. Some of them were in really nice breeding plumage. Typically for phalaropes, they do nothing else than forage in circles, chasing small flies. This is really a video job.

Red-necked Phalaropes 

Curlew Sandpiper - unfortunately the prettier ones kept their distance

This must be a 2cy - very worn scapulars and coverts. 

Dunlin - I wonder which subspecies this is. Bill far too long for schinzii, but face, breast and flanks too streaked for alpina.

Little Stint - so lovely in summer plumage

 

At KM20 saltpans some more phalaropes, 3 Broad-billed Sandpipers, and some other stuff.

Broad-billed Sands

White-winged Terns

Grey-headed Wagtail

On the way home we checked some more sewage farms that were pretty empty. At Ketura sewage had this recently-fledged juvenile Hooded Wheatear:

Only at Neot Smadar we had few more migrants, including Spotted Flys, Masked Shrikes and a few Whinchats.

Spotted Flycatcher

Card recovered

Finally managed to recover the images from my dead memory card. Here are some images from May 9th:

Eastern Black-eared Wheatear

Masked Shrike

Montpellier Snake (Malpolon monspessulanus) - about 2 m long that crossed my path

In the afternoon my neighbour found this exhausted Scops Owl. We rehabilitated it and released it in the evening. Two images - one with flash, second with natural sunset light.

Card crash

Unfortunately my main memory card died, and I haven't been able to recover my images from it yet. Thursday morning I surveyed Mt. Amasa area again, part of the breeding atlas project of that region. Went there to confirm breeding of the important species there, and indeed I found families of Long-billed Pipit, many Eastern Black-eared Wheatears, some nests of Rock Sparrow, and Spectacled Warblers in second breeding cycle. Rather few migrants in this barren habitat, just some Masked Shrikes and Blackcaps in the wadis. Cool weather meant big numbers of low-flying swifts - alpine, pallid and common in hundreds.

Caught a flu today

Very nice day today - don't worry I feel well. Went ringing at my CES site at Ashdod this morning. An early start produced a superb male European Nightjar. At first light Shlomo and myself saw a snipe coming in to land in 'my' swamp. I went to look for it and as I suspected flushed a Great Snipe - saw the tail pattern, wing pattern and general size and structure well. Unfortunately it dodged my net and disappeared. This is a good bird in Israel, with 5-10 annualy, and my first record for Ashdod. However I am sure that they are heavily overlooked in marshy habitats. Another was seen by Meidad today at Nizzana.

Later on things picked up nicely and we had lots of fun - good numbers but not too busy (170 birds in total), lots of quality and colour. Hightlights included four (!) River Warblers - this seems to be an outstanding spring for this scarce species. One of them was immaculate and really green and well-patterned - as beautiful as a locustella can get.

River Warbler

European Nightjar - male

The catch constituted mainly of Blackcaps but there were lots of other warblers: many Reed and Garden Warblers, 7 Barred Warblers, 5 Great Reeds, Olive-tree Warbler, Ortolan, 4 Red-backed Shrikes etc. etc.

Red-backed Shrike - male

Turtle Dove

Many thanks to Arad, Liad, Shlomo and Miriam for their help.

When I got back home with the kids in the afternoon I noticed good raptor passage pretty low over my house. Ran in and got my camera out. In 10 minutes had about 200 Lesser Spotted Eagles, 100 Steppe Buzzards, 30 Honey Buzzards and fewer Steppe Eagles, Black Kites etc. My kids were impressed too.

Lesser Spotted Eagle

 Honey Buzzard

Steppe Buzzard 

Good local birding

Quick look late morning around Bet Kama - the complex of small, smelly sewage ponds and alfalfa field, turned out to be quite productive. At the ponds I had a nice selection of breeding birds, including three families of Mallards and four active nests of Little Grebe.

Mallards etc.

Quite many shorebirds were present (good numbers for this tiny site) - 25 Ruff, 10 each of Wood Sand and Little Stint. Highlights included one Curlew Sand and a flyover Collared Pratincole.

Curlew Sandpiper

Collared Pratincole

Two Montagu's harriers cruised over the fields:

The alfalfa was rather quiet with few Red-throated Pipits, some Ortolans and one Whinchat. Five male Zitting Cisticolas were zitting over the field. Just as I was about to leave I first heard and then saw six Pin-tailed Sandgrouse. They came in to drink in a small puddle. They must breed nearby. First time I see them here.

The huge wave of shrikes has moved on, and very few were seen today. Unfortunately, many of them will end up like this. I wish these bastards terrible hunting accidents.