Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Ma'agan Michael nostalgy

Left early this morning and met up with Barak to go birding together at Ma'agan Michael. A few minutes after I left home my cars' turbocharger stop working and I almost U-turned and headed back home, but decided to give it a try. Took me about 50% more time to get to Tel Aviv, and eventually we made it to MM in good time. Miraculously the turbocharger came back to life soon after we arrived at MM.
Last time I birded with Barak here was 20 years ago, in November 1993. Then we had two Kittlitz's Plovers. 20 years older and wiser, we tried to find something good today but had nothing out of the ordinary. Best bird of the morning was a nice summer-plumaged Bar-tailed Godwit found by Yochai Koren. We saw the bird briefly, then it walked out of view and was not seen again. 


Lots of shorebirds on the coastal lagoons, many Little Stints and Ringed Plovers, about 20 each of Sanderling and Greater Sand-plover, and two Gull-billed Terns. Over 100 Garganeys was pretty impressive. We also saw the long-staying Mediterranean Gull almost finished moulting into second-winter plumage:


Some Baltic Gulls among the many Armenians:

About 30 Turnstones:

5-6 Curlew Sandpipers:

Invisible Snipe

Very nice flowering Sea Daffodils (Pancratium maritimum) on the coastal sand-dunes:


No comments:

Post a Comment