Yoav Perlman's birding in Israel blog

Winteringing

2012-01-27T06:49:00.006+02:00

Nice weather yesterday while ringing at Ashdod. Typical winter catch - rather quiet but good quality. Three models in a similar pose:

Moustached Warbler

Reed Bunting

Penduline Tit

Thanks to Ron, Shlomo, Liad and Mordi for their help.

Nizzana

2012-01-24T09:59:00.004+02:00

Yesterday I met up with Rune Palmqvist and we had an enjoyable day of birding together. Just after we met, north of Beer Sheva, we had two Eastern Imperial Eagles sat right next to the road. Though it was not raining anymore the weather was still pretty bad - cold, windy and dark. Like a nice Danish summer day.

We headed south to Nizzana. We arrived at the sandgrouse ponds too late for the sandgrouse, but had a nice Barbary Falcon and this cracking male Pallid Harrier (every time when I post photos of Pallid Harriers I call them 'cracking', but that's just what they are, aren't they?):

Cracking Pallid Harrier

Further south we had pretty good numbers of MacQueen's Bustards - seves birds within a few minutes of searching. All were males - it seems that the males have returned from their non-breeding grounds. No dancing seen yet.

MacQueen's Bustard

Apart for the bustards we had a nice couple of Cream-coloured Coursers and not too much else. Weather was not best for passerines.

In the afternoon we checked Lahav reserve, and had one Long-billed Pipit, three Finsch's Wheatears and a Spectacled Warbler.

I'm so horny

2012-01-19T21:38:00.022+02:00

Warning: if you're not into enjoying images of sexy species in the hand then skip this post.

This morning I joined Yotam and Itai from the IBRCE for an adventurous ringing session in the Uvda Valley, Eilat Mts. A good team that included Yosef, Ron, Meidad and poor Rafi & Avishai that don't have their own websites, assembled very early (I left home at 01:00 to arrive on site at 04:00). Check their respective websites for their stories and images.

We set the nets up in the freezing dark and finished right on time. At first it was very quiet but later on large numbers of seed-eaters started to arrive in the wadi. The main attraction was of course Temminck's Larks - about 80-100 birds in groups of 20-40. We caught 9 birds, each one more beautiful than the other. They are such fantastic birds in the hand - so elegant and pretty. Unfortunately, like all larks they don't behave well in the hand and look very sad. The males have these amazing horns - this guy had horns of 25 mm!

Temminck's Lark - male

Light conditions were bad this morning, with heavy clouds most of the time. In fact while folding the nets it was raining pretty hard on us.

Temminck's Lark - female

The wadi we worked in has tons of seeds on the ground. Amazingly, these seeds are still leftovers of the massive germination following the heavy rainfall of 18 January 2010! It was fun to watch these large mixed flocks of larks, Spanish Sparrows and Trumpeter Finches.

Regards from Hants

We also ringed five Bar-tailed Larks - another ringing tick for me, and very sweet little birds:

Bar-tailed Lark

We caught this young Mourning Wheatear of the nominate form. Note the rufous undertail coverts, limited black bib and extensive white on the primaries, excluding persica.

Mourning Wheatear Oenanthe l. lugens - 2cy

This was the brightest of all Trumpeter Finches we caught this morning:

Trumpeter Finch - 3cy+ male

That's the wadi we were working in:

Frozen ringers

Yosef

Other stuff in the area included some Spotted Sandgrouse flying around, and one Wild Ass.

Many thanks especially to Yotam and to all the rest of the team.

Barbary Falcon

2012-01-16T22:54:00.006+02:00

This morning I joined Mimi Ron who was doing a plant survey at Neot Hakikar. Mimi is the botanic equivalent of Hadoram in Israel - the lady just knows her plants! Anyway, while driving around I bumped into this cracking adult male Barbary Falcon. These guys breed in the mountains above the valley, and come down to hunt over the valley. This male must be very old - it is one of the least-streaked individuals I have ever seen, it has this lovely pinkish wash on the underparts. Interestingly, it has a completely dark crown, with some rufous only on the rear ear coverts. Note the dark wingtips, and distinct barring on the tail, getting bolder towards the tip.

Sorry for the record shots, it was very distant.

Barbary Falcon - adult male

INPA

2012-01-15T20:49:00.002+02:00

In recent months I have been involved in founding the Israeli Nature Photographers Association. My good friend Amir Ayalon is the main enterpreneur, and we joined forces with some of Israel's best wildlife photographers and wildlife experts. The main aims of the INPA are to better protect Israel's wildlife through better photography - more professional, ethical and sensitive to nature and conservation.

We have a brand new website with lots of interesting articles, info and forums. Of course the main focus will be on bird photography, but we have active forums for underwater, landscape, macro and plant photography as well.

I hope that we will achieve our goals by reaching as many members as possible, and maintaining a high level of activities for our members.

Many thanks to Amir for his endless efforts, and to my partners on the INPA's board: Gal Shon, Rony Livne, Yoram Shpirer, Moshe Cohen, Eyal Ogash and Danny Laredo. Personal thanks to Thomas Krumenacker and Klaus Bjerre who supplied useful information about sister organizations in Europe.

Some links:

INPA website

Facebook page

Nice article in Ynet

National Waterbird Count

2012-01-13T22:01:00.002+02:00

Today I participated in the National Waterbird Census, conducted more or less globally simultaneously. Weather was very bad today - very cold and windy (rain tsarted only later) so birding was not too much fun. I checked several reservoirs in the southern Coastal Plains.

Waterfowl appeared in relatively low numbers, with nothing out of the ordinary. Slight interest came from 5 Great Crested Grebe at Zohar reservoir - a regular wintering site for them. It was encouraging though to see two Eastern Imperial Eagles nearby, after three birds got electrocuted in this area during the past two weeks.

Sisyphus

2012-01-09T17:20:00.002+02:00

What it is about seawtching, that makes us spend so much time seeing nothing? In any other kind of birding I'd give up and go home much earlier. I guess it's the selective memory, of remembering only the good birds and adrenalin-filled moments over the years, and erasing all the long hours of seeing bloody nothing. Combine that with a certain degree of masochism - that's seawatching.

Arrived too late this morning at Jaffa. Shachar and Barak actually had a good couple of hours before I arrived, but as soon as I got out of the car the birds stopped. For the next few hours Schachar and I saw very little. Two distant 'Cory's' Shearwaters (could be scopoli's of course), one Gannet and that was it. Both Shachar and myself had to leave, but we played a stupid game of 'chicken' - I think we were both one hour late because we didn't want to leave the other one alone to see the petrel (that never came of course). Eventually we both left together.

Weird day

2012-01-05T21:24:00.002+02:00

Left home very early to arrive at Hameyshar at 06:15, first light, freezing temperatures, not one f***ing bird to be seen or heard. One lonely-looking Asian Wild Ass crossed the road and almost got knocked over by a lorry. Just as it started to warm up a bit and I started to see some birds I was courteously kicked out by the military there. Assholes. I called the relevant people yesterday evening to arrange my work there today. They said everything is OK...

I managed to see 5 Bar-tailed Larks before I left, and had a group of 140 Spotted Sandgrouse feeding by the road on the way out.

Near Nafha a Golden Eagle was perched on its regular pylon.

Back home, I had a fine Jungle Cat cross the road in the afternoon - a first for me for this region. Good one!

Almost, not quite

2012-01-03T10:48:00.003+02:00

After the previous nights' storm, Yesterday I went to Jaffa for a couple of hours with my half-Israeli friend Gert Ottens for some seawatching. We were hoping for some good activity, but when we arrived the wind slowed down seriously and even swinged to the east, so it was very quiet. Just as I was about to say again how boring it is and how seawatching in the Mediterranean sucks and how wonderful it was in the past I glimpsed a strom-petrel sp.! I found it too late, just as it was getting out of sight in the south, rather close, and I lost it immediately after that initial view. I managed to see it had a white rump but that's all, couldn't say anything about size, shape, flight action etc. Damn. After that our expectations rose and we wasted another hour or so but it was really dead, and then the rain returned hard and we escaped into the car. Other birds during the morning were one Gannet, one Arctic Skua and this 2cy Med Gull that showed really well the whole morning.

Mediterranean Gull - 2cy

Dead-Sea Sparrows

2011-12-31T22:08:00.005+02:00

This morning I went ringing with Ron at Neot Hakikar. We did a ringing demonstration, which was part of a large public event, aimed at increasing public awareness towards the serious conservation conflicts in this region.

Anyway, ringing was OK. It was nice to catch quite many Dead-Sea Sparrows. They are such excellent sparrows.

Thanks to Ron, Rafi, Hillel, Shachar and Aviv for their help.

Dead-Sea Sparrow - 1cy male

Dead-Sea Sparrow - adult female

Special: my birding review of 2011

2011-12-29T10:37:00.030+02:00

2011 was a very busy year for me. Personally, I moved to a new house, and many ideas developed and evolved in my job. Birdingwise, it was a fantastic year. Did much fieldwork, especially during spring, that allowed me to see some great birds. In addition, I maintained my flexibility at work, which allowed me to twitch heavily, and I didn't miss anything major this year.

The year began well with one of the three Israeli ticks I had this year. This Black-throated Thrush stayed for a week or two in January in the Upper Galilee:

The most interetsing phenomenon in February was the huge concentration of Thick-billed Larks is several sites in the Arava and S Negev. I organized a large ringing session at Ha'Meishar, and we ringed Thick-billed Larks for the first time in Israel:

March was a very busy month, with lots of fieldwork and lots of good migrants. Though not a full species (yet), this very striking male Masked Wagtail at Ma'agan Michael was the 2nd for Israel:

The main event during March was the Eilat festival. While guiding and between guiding I saw lots of great birds. Some of the personal festival highlights were this Menetries's Warbler at the IBRCE:

And this Siberian Buff-bellied Pipit I found at Lotan:

Photography-wise, this male Pallid Harrier at Yotvata made my week:

April and May were dedicated to atlas fieldwork in the Arava and Nizzana. Some of the better species I found breeding were Hoopoe Lark and Temminck's Lark:

June is normally a quiet month for birding in Israel, but this year June was a busy month for me. It began well with a late Green Warbler I ringed at Ashdod, only the 6th for Israel:

I also visited some good breeding habitats. Mountain Bunting is one of the better breeding birds in our deserts:
In late June I joined Avi Meir for a short 'pelagic' in the Gulf of Aqaba, which was fantastic. Cory's Shearwaters were the main attraction. Only in recent years we started documenting Cory's Shearwaters in Israel. Till then it wa thought that we receive only Scopoli's Shearwaters.

My main activity in July was the annual ringing session on Mt. Hermon, which produced the best birds of the mountain in the hand, like this Sombre Tit:

In August I moved to my new house so had little time for birding, but I did manage to find this very early Grey Phalarope at Revadim, a very good inland record:

In September migration picked up considerabely, and I had many enjoyable days out in the field. A pair of Black-winged Kites started breeding at Agamon Hula, and during the Hula festival in November we enjoyed watching their four youngsters:

This male Greater Painted-snipe at HaMa'apil fishponds in late September was a good starter for a rarity-packed autumn:
Early in October I found a Blyth's Pipit in a field not far from my house, but wasn't able to photograph it. Israeli tick number two.

During October I managed to get one of the best images of Nubian Nightjar I have ever achieved:
I went to have a look at this possible Taiga Flycatcher ringed at Sde Boker - no final conclusions on this bird yet:
In early November I ringed this Yellow-browed Warbler at Ashdod. It was a good autumn for these little beauties:

My main event during November was the Hula Festival - I guided there for a full week and saw tons of birds, such as Eurasian Cranes, and lots of good stuff in the Hula Valley and other parts of northen Israel
From mid November things really started to boil up. First, this Hume's Warbler I found with Re'a Shaish at Mitzpe Ramon:

Then, against my will, I had to drive down to Eilat for Israel's 2nd Red-flanked Bluetail:

A few days later I returned to Eilat to watch this fantastic male Grey Hypocolius at the IBRCE:

And a few days later, in early December, I had to travel all the way up north to the opposite corner of the country, for these Whooper Swans - the 5th record for Israel:

The next mega rarity was just slightly closer - the 2nd Bean Goose for Israel at Kfar Barukh:

Not at great rarity - but a super bird, and globally endangered - Sociable Lapwing in the NW Negev:
The last twitch of the year was another long-distance one, and produced my 2nd Israeli tick of the Year, Israel's 1st Firecerst in the N Golan Heights:

I wish you all a great 2012, and I wish myself another great birding year (hopefully I will not have to pay for my petrol...). My wish list for 2012 includes Pink-backed Pelican, Yellow-billed Stork and Blyth's Reed. Good luck!

National Ornithological Conference

2011-12-26T22:53:00.003+02:00

Today was our annual celebration - as every year, during Hannuka we conduct the National Ornithological Conference, held in the Tel Aviv University. Every year the number of guests increases, and this year we had about 1000 guests! The program is very varied, with some hardcore birding lectures, popular topics, and more scientific or conservation-oriented lectures.

For the fifth year I have been producing the Amit Geffen photo contest. This year the level was very high and I was impressed by some stunning images. The exhibition today presented the best images that were submitted to the professional category. You can view the complete gallery here.

In addition, I gave a talk about the atlas project in the south and its outcomes. It was a busy but very enjoyable day. A great chance to meet ALL the guys and do some mingling. Thanks to all the organizers and other participants.

Seawatching

2011-12-25T20:18:00.006+02:00

Spent the first half of the day in front of the computer. I finished my daily assignments earlier than planned, and I saw out of my window that the wind was blowing hard. So I decided to give Ashkelon a try, and headed out there for a couple of hours of seawatching. The conditions were pretty rough with very strong wind and heavy downpours occasionally.

Apart for many gulls there wasn't that much to be seen, but still some OK stuff - Sooty Shearwater, Arctic Skua, two Gannets. Nine gull species were nice: 1 Little, 2 Pallas's, Siberian, Caspian, Armenian, Baltic, Slender-billed, Black-headed and this very beautiful 2cy Mediterranean Gull. I really love this plumage.

Mediterranean Gull - 2cy

Some images from this morning

2011-12-23T22:43:00.010+02:00

Went down to Kikar Sdom early this morning. I showed the site to Amir Balaban - he's filming a program on the saltmarsh and its conservation problems. I had to be quiet while he was filming so clicked only few times, but still some nice birds:

Hooded Wheatear - 1cy male

At this time of year they typically descend from the mountains into the valley. This bird chose an ugly rubbish dump as its territory.

A few Namaqua Doves around. Here's an adult male with a 1cy male during its post-juvenile moult.
Only when I looked at the images when I got back home I noticed a Desert Finch had flown through the frame without myself noticing it.

Nice Little Green Bee-eater action - as always I can never resist photographing them:

Ringo Star

2011-12-22T22:01:00.012+02:00

Went ringing this morning at my local alfalfa field, near Bet Kama. Weather was good and there were lots of birds in the recently-cut field. A flock of about 400-500 pipits was impressive.

Star bird of the morning was this ringtail - adult female Hen Harrier. What a bird! It made me and Meidad sprint like maniacs when it flew into the net, not sure how come it didn't bounce out. It was a ringing tick for me - haven't had one in Israel for quite a while.

Hen Harrier - adult female

Meidad

I managed to screw the release image up - the focus escaped to the background...

We had some real birds too. We had a good catch of Meadow Pipits. Some, like this bird, were really grey (not age-related). From what i read it is monotipic, but are eastern birds greyer than western ones?
Among the meadows were some Red-throated and Water Pipits:

Red-throated Pipit - 1cy

I just love using my 500 mm lens for in-hand photography. Check this completely flat background:

Zitting Cisticola

Lots of raptors flying around and over the field - Eastern Imp Eagle, Peregrine, Merlin, Long-legged Buzzards etc.

Many thanks to Darren, Rony and especially Meidad for their help this morning.

The Golan is on fire!

2011-12-18T17:33:00.007+02:00

This morning I went with Ron to twitch the Firecrest found by Frank & Tuvia yesterday. It was a long drive but we arrived early enough to enjoy the terrible weather - cold, windy and heavy fog. We met up with quite a few others, and rather soon the bird was relocated in the same grove where it was seen yesterday by Barak, Avner and Eyal. It behaved very badly - it was silent and went missing for long periods, and I got only one very short glimpse of it during the first part of the morning.

We decided to walk around a bit until the weather improved, and went to search for the Radde's Accentors nearby, found by Barak et al. about a week ago. After a short search the two birds were relocated, and one of them showed relatively well, feeding out in the open. Photography was hard though - when the light was good it perched on an ugly fence, and when it perched on a nice branch it was against the sun. However it's a great little bird and I was very happy to see them.

Later on we returned to the firecrest grove. The weather became a bit more bearable, and the bird showed slightly better. I managed to grab a couple of record shots.

This is the only semi-decent one:

Firecrest - 1st for Israel

This one is closer to impressionist art:

Radde's Accentor

Again - congrats to Frank and Tuvia for this great find. But next time, guys, please try to find a mega a bit closer to my house. I am tired of all of this driving around.

Firecraker!

2011-12-17T21:28:00.002+02:00

Terrific news broke this morning - Frank Moffat (UK) and Tuvia Khan found a female Firecrest on Mt. Bar'on in the Golan Heights - the same site holds also two Radde's Accentors at the moment. Due to family commitments today (celebrating 10 years with my lovely wife) I couldn't go, otherwise I would not have celebrated 11 years. It was twitched by quite many birders today, and hopefully it stickes around for tomorrow.

This is turning out to be one hell of a winter for rarities in Israel. The latest scattering of mega records nationwide shows how underwatched Israel is, with super birds showing up in funny places.

This is the first 'first' for Israel since the American Golden Plover in 2008. I was hoping for a good sibe thrush, but this is not bad anyway. It is one of those species that are common and widespead in Turkey but never make it down here: Dipper, Eurasian Nuthatch, Coal, Blue and Long-tailed tit, and a few others. I know these are trash birds for European birders, but as you can imagine it's (almost) as exciting for us here as a White's Thrush. Almost.

Many thanks to Amir Ben Dov for this great image. Wish me luck for tomorrow.

Sociable Plovers

2011-12-15T14:43:00.013+02:00

Had a drive through Urim area this morning. Just as I drove in from the east I got a call from Avner & Carmel, who had just found the flock of 14 Sociable Plovers right by the main road on the western side (thanks guys!). So I headed over there and had a great time with these super birds. Apart for being Crticially Endangered, they have real charisma - I guess mainly because of their striking head pattern. It is always a treat to see one, so such a friendly flock was really terrific. I spent about an hour with them, at a safe distance, and they were very calm. Too calm in fact; apart for sleeping, looking around and some preening and wing stretching they actually did very little.

10 of the birds were young, with conspicuous pale tips to mantle, scapulars and upeprwing coverts. I don't know if that's good or not but at least they reproduce somewhere. None had rings or transmitters on - I wonder where our birds come from.

The Urim area is a traditional site for this species. In the 1980's and 1990's numbers were higher, but during the last decade these are the numbers more or less. Even though the whole region has gone through some serious habitat changes, namely more orchards and less open fields, it is encouraging to know that these birds are still loyal to this site.

Sociable Plover - 1cy

And in softer light:

Together with them, but more distant, were two Dotterels. Later on I saw two more flocks of about 20 birds.

There were pretty good raptor numbers, with about 6 Eastern Imperial Eagles, including this majestic adult - lucky I was not standing under the pylon:

Eastern Imperial Eagle - adult

4-5 Peregrines were feeding on the tons of skylarks, starlings and pigeons. It was nice to photograph this peregrinus-type Peregrine (thanks Barak!) perched on an object which is not a pylon:

Peregrine - peregrinus-type - 1cy

I saw also 1 Saker but it was distant and very fast. 3-4 Merlins were flying around too, including this juv.:

Huge flocks of Spanish Sparrows concentrate on large bushes. But to my eyes each one is a beautiful bird:

Mr. Bean

2011-12-13T21:29:00.005+02:00

This morning I finally had time to go and have a look at the Bean Goose found by Tuvia last week at Kfar Baruch reservoir. The bird was very distant - I had good scope views but photography on the deck was useless. For the first time since I quit digiscoping some years ago (Richard - digiscoping sucks, doesn't it?) I felt I could use a good digiscoping kit. Luckily the bird was flushed by a passing eagle and it flew past me slightly closer.

I have very little experience with the Bean Goose complex: 1 (possibly) rossicus at Eilat, several fabalis in Germany, and some middendorffii in Taiwan, But identifying a bird here, out of context, is much more complicated. The chance of getting E Asian birds is also higher here compared to W Europe.

In the field, the bird seemed large, powerful and long-necked. The bill is to me of 'mixed' dimensions. Quite long but deep-based and quite triangular, different to my eyes from a typical fabalis. It has an extensive pinkish area on the bill, extending towards the bill base. Perhaps Mr. Garner has something to say about this goose.

The reservoir and its surroundings were actually very good with lots of birds, and lots of good stuff. In the reservoir there were 21 Greater Flamingos, 700+ Golden Plovers, many Wigeons, several Citrine Wagtails and a late Yellow Wagtail. Flying around were many raptors. This young (2cy?) Eastern Imperial Eagle was sat on a nearby pylon - watch it mate...

Many buzzards were hunting around the reservoir; this young Common Buzzard enjoyed the morning sun:

It's raining rares

2011-12-08T21:20:00.003+02:00

After a pretty slow beginning to the autumn, things have really picked up lately. I've done too much long-distance twitching in the last two weeks (bluetail Eilat, hypocolius at Eilat again, swans at Hula), and this morning news broke of a Taiga Bean Goose found at Kfar Baruch in the Jizre'el Valley by Tuvia Kahn. Good one Tuvia! This is the second for Israel, but the first of the race fabalis. The first was at Eilat in March 2007, and was enjoyed by the guests of the first Eilat Bird Festival - the bird spent most of its time on the adjacent soccer field, about 200 m from the hotel where we were staying. It was closer to rossicus, though it was a difficult bird to ID (see below). Unfortunately I will not be able to try for this bird before Tuesday, hope it sticks around. But what next?

Tundra Bean Goose - March 2007

Yotvata geese on Birdingfrontiers.com!

2011-12-07T20:14:00.002+02:00

After my recent post with images of the White-fronted Geese at Yotvata, I was contacted by Martin Garner, who raised the idea that these birds belong to a Pacific or East Asian population. He sent me some interesting reading material, I sent him large images, and after a good ID discussion Martin produced this fascinating blog post. Read it - it is very mind opening. And for myself - I keep learning every day. Cheers Martin!

My twitching journal

2011-12-06T21:05:00.008+02:00

I have been very busy lately, and have time only for some twitching. A group of nine Whooper Swans was found on Sunday in the N Hula Valley, first by a local farmer and then confirmed by Dotan Yosha of the Hula Birding Center. Only today I had time to pay them a visit. I have seen Whooper Swan in Israel only once before, in 2002, and it's a great rarity - only the 5th record for Israel.

Just to give you guys the correct perspective: geese are rare in Israel, but swans are even rarer. Any swan causes great excitement here, and whooper is the star of swans in Israel. And fine birds they are, regardless of whether they are common or not.

Locating them was not difficult in the young wheat field. Luckily they are big birds because we kept a safe distance from them and all I could get were these record shots:

Whooper Swans

And a larger crop:
And a huge crop:

It was a nice field with lots of birds in it. A flock of 18 Ruddy Shelducks was very flighty:

And this small group of Euro Golden Plovers was nice:

On the way back home had a quick look at the Black-winged Kites - the youngsters seem to be doing fine:

Thanks to Ron, Shlomo and Nadav for their company.

Pallid beauty

2011-11-30T21:16:00.010+02:00

This morning I went with Jonathan to bird in the Eilat area. Our first mission was to see the Grey Hypocolius found by Barak Granit a few days ago near the IBRCE. We searched for it for a long time but at first with no success. We worked the nearby date plantation, in which we had an Olive-backed Pipit. I heard a very interesting Phylloscopus calling several times. It first sounded to me like an odd humei call, but after consulting with my iPod I found it closely matching proregulus! The bird was very mobile and stayed high in the canopies. I kept losing it, even with the help of Itai and Jonathan. I had a glimpse of it flying from treetop to treetop - it was tiny but I could get no plumage details. Eventually we gave up on it, but if a pallas's gets found tomorrow then it's mine!

We returned to the IBRCE, and soon after we had a few brief encounters with this beautiful bird. Unfortunately it was very shy and jumpy, and kept disappearing in the thick vegetation of the IBRCE. lucky I managed a couple of shots. I was very happy to see it - haven't seen one for many years.

Grey Hypocolius - male

While searching for the hypo I had quite a few Indian Silverbills:

We continued to Yotvata fields. In the southern field I had two Richard's Pipits, male Hooded Wheatear and a few Crag Martins. No sign of the recent rarities (Blyth's pipit and Little Bunting), but it was nice to see the couple of Hoopoe Larks that have been hanging around in the field for a week or so. Bizarre to see them feeding like Crested Larks in the dry field. I am used to find them in the remotest corners of our desert. Part of the time they were feeding with a small group of Ringed Plovers - interesting combo.

Hoopoe Lark

In the northern fields we enjoyed (too?) good views of two first-winter White-fronted Geese. The white forehead is quite developed for a youngster, but the lack of barring on the underparts and dark tip to bill indicate these are young birds.

White-fronted Goose

There was considerable size difference between both birds, but the small one was not small enough...

This seems to be a good season for white-fronts in Israel, with small groups recorded in several sites all over the country.

Other nice birds in the field were 1 Oriental Skylark and a couple of Caucasian Stonechats.

Caucasian Stonechat

Take-offs

2011-11-28T20:38:00.009+02:00

Nice to get back home after a week of bloody cranes all over the place. I had a couple of free hours this morning so went for a quick drive along the Urim powerline in the NW Negev. Didn't see too much, in fact raptors were rather few. Perhaps due to the fact that there is little raptor food - saw zero lapwings, few doves and starlings. Only skylarks in good numbers, with some calandras amongst them.

This powerful juv. Saker was sat on its regular pylon. What a bird!

Saker - 1cy

Only buzzards showed in good numbers, especially long-legs. I managed to screw this take-off shot:

Long-legged Buzzard - 1cy

Hula Festival days 6 & 7, and summary

2011-11-28T14:21:00.003+02:00

The last couple of days of the festival were very hectic, and I had no time to write about them. Anyway, on Saturday I went with my group up to the Golan Heights, to check some orchards and hillsides for good stuff. Despite the freezing conditions, we had a great time. Saw nothing special but had lots of seedeaters in mixed flocks - Goldfinch, Linnet, Chaffinch, Corn Bunting and Serin. Also impressive were large numbers of Woodlarks.

Corn Buntings and Linnet

On the way down from the Golan we had a quick lokk at a rubbish dump above the valley, where we finally conected with a juv. Eastern Impreial Eagle. A juv. Bonellis' Eagle was also present.

On the final morning of the festival, Nadav and myself headed up with my group to Biriya orchards in the Upper Galilee. Again, lots of seedeaters, with impressive numbers of Bramblings (about 150), and in addition some quality stuff - tristis-type Chiffchaff, Goldcrest, Hawfinches, 4 Yellowhammers, Siskin and a Redwing. These additions brought the festival total to a neat 202 species!

The Festival was a great success. It was our first northern festival, but our team has lots of experience from the Eilat festivals, and I think that in the bottom line our guests, participating in all the different activities (birding package, photography workshop, journalists, scientific conference) had a great time. We received some very positive feedback from our guests, and we are looking forward to see them in Israel again. Many thanks to the organizing team for their efforts: Dan, Jonathan and Nadav.

Hula Festival day 6

2011-11-25T17:20:00.006+02:00

After driving long distances the whole week, I decided to spend the time in the Agamon, enjoying a relaxing day of birding. We had a great day, nothing unusual but just lots of birds, fantastic weather and a lot of time to walk patiently and simply enjoy birding.

By the southern watchpoint of the lake we had great views of two Moustached Warblers, atypically feeding out in the open:

Moustached Warbler

We had great views of this male Pallid Harrier:

On the way back to the hotel we improved our views of Ferruginous and White-headed Ducks.

Hula Festival day 5

2011-11-24T20:33:00.012+02:00

Yet another fantastic day with the perfect combination of good birds, large, colourful birds, and great weather and scenery.

We started off in a site overlooking Lake Kinneret (thanks Meidad). After some searching we found a couple of Long-billed Pipit, that showed very well. While searching for them we had 4-5 Finsch's Wheatears, 3-4 Blue Rock Thrushes and a Little Owl.

Long-billed Pipit

Then we continued to Bet She'an Valley, where we checked some fields and fishponds. It was quite spectacular with many thousnads of birds all over the place. Gulls, kites, storks, pelicans, cormorants, herons, starlings - just spectacular. Some good birds we had there included two Oriental Skylarks (crap views of flying birds), Common Rosefinch, Steppe and Pallas's Gulls. This dark morph Marsh Harrier was a cracking bird:

Marsh Harrier - ad. male, dark morph

This stunning Black Kite was hanging around amongst the thousands of normal kites:

Some kites:

We had good numbers of Caucasian Stonechats:

Lots of Pygmy Cormorants were flying around:

About 20 Whiskered Terns were doing their thing over the ponds:
White Pelicans against the mountains of Jordan:

We spent the late afternoon at the awesome harrier roost in the Hula Reserve. It was absolutely great, with about 40-50 hens, lots of marshes and a few pallids. 3-4 Merlins added to the fun. Great way to end the day - at one moment we estimated about 150,000 birds up in the air.

Hula Festival day 4

2011-11-23T22:51:00.010+02:00

Today I took my group to Ma'agan Michael, and we had a terrific day. Jonathan and his reporters' group follow us wherever we go, thus Stephen Menzie has very similar posts to mine. Birding was good with lots of common, big and colourful birds (herons, gulls, kingfishers etc.), rarities and scarcities for the European visitors (best were Siberian buff-bellied Pipit, 15 Temminck's Stints and 10 Citrine Wagtails), and good Israeli rarities for myself - Bar-tailed Godwit, Gannet, Eurasian Curlew and several Med Gulls.

Bar-tailed Godwit

Eurasian Spoonbill

It wasn't me who flushed them!

Citrine Wagtail - 1cy male

Having fun on the beach:

A short visit to Atlit saltpans was very nice with more big, colouful birds.

Greater Flamingo

Mediterranean Gull - 1cy

Exciting news from the south today - James Smith struck gold again with a Blyth's Pipit at Yotvata. See the rarities page for full details.

Hula Festival day 3

2011-11-22T20:57:00.002+02:00

Today I went with my group up to Mt. Hermon and the Golan Heights. We started off on Mt. Hermon, and very quickly connected with some of our main target species - Sombre Tit, Western Rock Nuthatch and Rock Bunting. Later on we went up to the higher elevations where we had good numbers of Shore Larks (about 40) and four Crimson-winged Finches in flight. For us Israelis, 100 Fieldfare and 20 Mistle Thrush were good birds. Most frustrating were two Chough sp. Mark and I saw flying miles away. I have never seen a chough in Israel before. But nevertheless it was a fun morning, with good birds and spectaculr scenery, even though birding was rather slow at times.

On the way down we received an unexpected bonus in the form of two Wolves - great views of these mighty animals, bringing pur mammal list to 10.

After lunch we drove to Gamla. It is quite sad to be in Gamla without griffons, but still we had some good birds. Best were a pair of Bonelli's Eagles, performing some display and collecting nest material. Other good birds were many Rock Sparrows and several Eurasian Crag Martins. This nice momus Sardinian Warbler posed nicely:

Hula Festival days 1 & 2

2011-11-21T22:11:00.002+02:00

The first two days of the Festival have been awesome. A smooth take off with lots of smiling faces, great weather and fantastic birding. Was very happy to meet many old friends and many new ones from Europe and USA. I am leading one of the groups for the whole week; we have a very exciting program that I am really looking forward to.

And to the birds we saw - it has been truly awesome. We had some birding experiences to remember, such as 30,000 cranes coming to land on our heads practically. Yesterday we had a rather short intro tour, but today we had a full day in the Valley and had lots of good birds. In fact we saw almost all the specialties we planned, and added a few good birds. Hightlights for me were Saker (a huge, pale adult), Ruddy Shelduck, White-fronted Goose, the family of Black-winged Kites (2 adults and 4 juveniles), lots of Caucasian and Siberian Stonechats, Citrine Wagtails, Little Bitterns, Moustached Warblers, White-headed and Ferruginous Ducks, and the list goes on and on.

Stay tuned for my next updates!

0.0049% of 30,000 Eurasian Cranes:

Red-flanked Bluetail

2011-11-19T22:54:00.005+02:00

What began as a peaceful day at home with the family, ended with a long-distance twitch.

I am leaving tomorrow for the Hula Festival, so I was glad to stay at home today. It was raining so birding was impossible anyway. At 09:00 I received a call from Barak, asking if I could send out an RBA message. When he told me it's James P. Smith I instantly knew I was in trouble. And in trouble I was indeed - Red-flanked Bluetail at Eilat, the 2nd for Israel! I saw the first for Israel in 1996, and I will be away for the whole of next week, so I decided not to go. But as the morning developed, and I heard from the first twitchers arriving at the site that the bird was very showy, I grew more and more restless.

At noon I finally decided to test my wifes' love and commitment once again, and went for it. I took my elder son Uri with me for his first twitch. We picked Meidad along the way, and arrived at Eilat at 15:45, with fading light. Yotam joined us there. We got onto the bird quickly and had great views. That's how twitching in Israel is - such a mega bird, and we were the only birders on site. The light was awful and the bird was feeding inside bushes most of the time, but I managed to get this decent shot. What a great little bird, and congrats to James for yet another excellent find in Israel.

Red-flanked Bluetail - 1cy male

You can see the bird on the right hand side of the bush:

So tomorrow morning I'm leaving for the Hula. I am really looking forward towards the Festival. After five very successful festivals at Eilat, I am sure that our first Hula Festival will be just as good. I will be leading the visiting birders' group the whole week. We have a great program, making the best out of the Hula Valley, and visiting some of the top birding sites of northern Israel. I will try to post daily updates, so stay tuned!

Who, me?

2011-11-17T22:07:00.012+02:00

This morning I went with Re'a and Meidad to give the 'rarity sites' in the high Negev Mts. another chance. We started off at Sde Boker. Lots of birds but nothing better than 1 Brambling. From there we continued to Mitzpe Ramon sewage. Very quickly we had a brown, streaked bunting - but alas it was a Reed Bunting. That's a very good bird for this region, but we were hoping for something more exotic.

We continued scanning the trees and bushes, when Re'a found a wing-barred Phylloscopus. I got on to it quite quickly. It was rather shy and very mobile, but we got reasonable views, and heard it many times. It gave the classic humei call - "dooip", like a drop falling on water. I managed to get some record shots, all into the sun that give it a very contrasting look, much more than it was in the field. Good bird!

Hume's Warbler Phylloscopus humei

Rather faint wingbar on GC, very faint wingbar on MC:

Dark legs, no dark bases to secondaries:

White supercilium without dark lateral crown stripes:

Some pale at base of lower mandible - seen from below:

Little contrast on tertials pattern:

After an hour or so of trying to relocate the bird and only hearing it for a couple of times, we moved on. We had a look at the Mitzpe Ramon park for the ochrorus Black Redstart I had had there two weeks ago, and were surprised to find a different, striking Black Redstart. This bird has a very prominent wing patch. However, this bird is too striking to be anything else than an Eastern Black Redstart. It has so much orange on the belly, sharply demarcated against a grey band across the lower breast. The mantle is very dark, and extensive black on the face and throat. Very interesting bird that needs more studying.

When we arrived at Nafha it was already pretty late and hot, thus we were very surprised to bump into this stunning Wolf, walking out in the open, quite indifferent to our presence. It has acquired an impressive winter coat already. My best ever views of a wolf.

Birding was quite good, and we regretted for leaving this site last for this morning. I had very brief flight views of a 'black thrush', that was either a Ring Ouzel or a Blackbird. I got the impression of paler wing flashes, and it gave a very thrush-like call, unlike a Blackbird. However it disappeared, and despite intensive searching (an ouzel would have been a lifer for Re'a) we never saw it again.

Lots of Mourning Wheatears today:

Jaffa Bizzare seawatching

2011-11-16T21:12:00.005+02:00

Spent a few hours seawatching at Jaffa this morning. It was pretty rainy but between showers it was actually not a bad morning. Funny enough most birds of interest were not seabirds. Highlights were four Short-eared Owls (I saw two), 1 Euro Nightjar that flew in off the sea, 5 Med Gulls, 2 skua sp., 1 Yelkouan Shearwater (before I arrived), 16 Greater Flamingos, and four thrushes that were probably Fieldfares. Large gulls included several fuscus, michahellis, cachinnans and heuglini.

Greater Flamingos (use your illusion)

It was good to catch up with ALL the guys. At most times there were more birders than birds to be seen.

Trouble in the saltmarsh

2011-11-15T20:47:00.007+02:00

As you might have noticed, in recent weeks my post-rate has dropped dramatically. This is a result of the little time I have for birding during the most exciting birding period in Israel, when mouthwatering sibes can show up on any bush. The main reason for this is my increased time consumption in a campaign to protect the last saltmarsh in Israel, at Kikar Sdom, home to the last remaining population of Nubian Nightjars in Israel.

Nubian Nightjar

This unique, patchy habitat was common only 20 years ago along the Arava Valley, but increased cultivation destroyed all saltmarshes but this one, and overpumping of groundwater altered the hydrology of this fragile ecosystem. The main reason why the Sdom saltmarsh wasn't cultivated up till now is because the valley there is a big minefield.

I have been involved in conservation of this ecosystem since 2004, when I started my research on the nightjars. In recent years, I have been leading a campaign, as part of my work for the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, to protect the decreased and degraded habitat remaining down in the Rift Valley, south of the Dead Sea. In recent weeks, the campaign reached its' climax, when a plan promoted by the regional council, to cultivate practically all the remaining habitat, is being processed by the local planning authorities. Unfortunately, the regional council fails to understand its role in protecting its natural resources. To my point of view, they even fail to understand that the future of the existence of sustainable communities along the Arava Valley depends not on more and more cultivation, but on conservation and protection of natural resources, ecosystems and habitats.

Unfortunately, while taking part in endless meetings to try and find a sustainable solution to this conflict, the local farmers don't stand still. On Sunday, while showing the remaining habitat to a group of local experts, I noticed that another 10 hectares of pristine saltmarsh were cultivated recently, this time with the aid of the military that cleared the mines. This developement was carried out without the necessry permits, and is an action that only elevated mistrust between the different parties in this conflict. I sent the data out immediately to the local law enforcement people, and to the media, but of course that's too late.

Two nightjar territories less

What happens next? I will continue, together with my partners, to work on this in two aspects. First, to continue negotiations with the regional council and the local farmers to try and reach a sensible agreement on the future of the saltmarsh. But simultaneously, we will use all possible tools we own as a powerful NGO, to kick their asses, both in the planning meetings and in the media.

But at the moment, the situation looks very grim. For all those birders who have already seen the nightjars with or without me in Israel, you might be very lucky as potentially next year there is no saltmarsh and there are no Nubian Nightjars left in Israel. I still have the faith that with solid data, dedication and cooperation between various organizations, we can reach considerable achievements in this campaign, but it's gonna be a tough one.

I will keep posting about this in the near future.

Down south again

2011-11-10T22:05:00.006+02:00

This morning I headed down south again, in search of rarities. I never find rarities when I search for them, and today was no exception. To top this up, the morning began at 05:30, just as I arrived at Ezuz, with a phone call from Yosef: " If I have a snipe with pin-like outer tail feathers, does it make it a pin-tailed?". Of course it does. I went over the ID features with him, and woke Oz up to send an RBA out (I knew he'd twitch it so had no problem to wake him up). Great catch by Yosef. Luckily I have seen three in Israel before, including one I've ringed in Nov 1998. Otherwise I would have begged Yosef to bag it for me for a couple of hours until I reached Tsor'a.

Anyway, with great motivation to beat Yosef, I started birding Ezuz. The grove was very birdy, with lots of Chiffchaffs, Black Redstarts and Robins, but even though I tried very hard couldn't find anything good there.

I continued to Kmehin sewage ponds. The ponds were full of ducks (1 Garganey was the only interesting duck) but very little otherwise. I watched from a safe distance the sandgrouse coming in to drink (Spotted, Black-bellied and Crowned), but only some black-bellies flew close to me:

Black-bellied Sandgrouse

A nice bonus was a flock of 15 Lesser Short-toed Larks that made a brief appearence:

On the way back home had a quick look at a small field near Mashabe Sade. It turned out to be the best site of the day - a small field packed with birds. On every sprinkler either a Stonechat or a Black Redstart was perched. Lots of pipits, chiffies, Bluethroats and Skylarks too. I flushed a large thrush from the field. It disappeared several times and kept a safe distance, but eventually I identified it as a Mistle Thrush - a good bird.

Mistle Thrush (200 m away)

Today exciting news was released - a pair of 'Asian' Black-winged Kites have bred in Israel for the first time, and successfully raised 4 chicks! Check this article. They bred right next to the Agamon Hula ringing station. I can take small credit for this discovery, as I, together with Amir Balaban, discovered the nest for the first time in September, and confirmed the breeding. They are such fantastic birds. I hope they stick around for the Hula Festival in two weeks time.

It's raining chiffs, hallelujah!

2011-11-05T20:22:00.009+02:00

Yesterady a big storm hit us, and it must have knocked down huge numbers of migrants. This morning I went ringing at Ashdod, and as it turned out we were at the right place in the right time. We had a massive fall of Chiffchaffs, and we worked pretty hard this morning to handle them all (184 chiffies in total!). It was an impressive sight to see the bushes swarming with chiffies, like mosquitoes. We must have had several thousands at the ringing site.

The best bird among them was a Yellow-browed Warbler. Unlike in the UK, it's still a good rarity in Israel, with less than 5 a year on average. The last week has been good for them with four recorded, three of them ringed. This is my first at Ashdod, and my second good phylloscopus after the Green Warbler in June. Great little bird!

Yellow-browed Warbler

There were lots of other birds apart for the chiffies. This apparent 'fusca' Savi's Warbler was a tricky bird. I got it mixed up with River Warbler at first, but after a closer look at the images and discussing its ID with others, I agree that it's a savi's.

Savi's Warbler

Penduline Tits returned to my site, and we caught a few:

Other good birds we had in the field were a late Nightjar when we arrived early in the morning, and a Reed Bunting.

Many thanks to the excellent team that helped me through this big day without any pressure at all: Re'a, Shlomo, Carmel and Miriam.

Happy Re'a

Casucasian Stonechats

2011-11-03T20:04:00.011+02:00

This morning I had a good ringing session at my local alfalfa field near Bet Kama, with Eyal and Re'a. We had a good catch that consisted mainly pipits (red-throats, coutelii water and meadow). In addition we caught two Caucasian Stonechats, that are good birds for this region. In the NE Valleys (Hula and Bet She'an) and at Eilat one can see on a good day this time of year 15-20 individuals or even more. The male was a classic variegatus, with more than half of each tail feather is white.

Caucasian Stonechat Saxicola maurus variegatus - male

Females are much more tricky. In the field, the tail of this individual would look completely dark, and would be identified as maurus. However, when the uppertail coverts are moved aside, the white bases to the rectrices (about 10 mm) become visible. This of course is impossible to see in the field. This female seems to fit variegatus too; I'd expect armenicus to have less or no white at the bases of the rectrices.

For this reason I believe that many of the European records of 'maurus' females in fact involve variegatus. It would be interesting to compare the ratio of variegatus VS. maurus records in W Europe for males and females.

Caucasian Stonechat Saxicola maurus variegatus - female

"Field" views - all dark tail:

White bases to rectrices revealed:

Water Pipit Anthus spinoletta coutelii

Eurasian Skylark

Other good birds seen in the field were 1 Oriental Skylark, 1 Merlin and 1 Peregrine.

Many thanks to Eyal and Re'a.

Hero or zero - today zero

2011-11-02T23:30:00.006+02:00

Today I went with Jonathan to bird some of the best sites in the C Negev. We weren't expecting any fantastic experiences, as other birders who had visited the region over the weekend reported very few birds, but we still had some hopes for a goodie or two.

We started off at Mitzpe Ramon sewage. As we drove in we surprised a huge Striped Hyena from a very short distance - what a beast! I was driving but Jonathan managed to fire off a few record shots of the animal running away. This got some adrenalin pumping, but soon we realized that birding was very slow indeed. This site held very few birds; 1 Red-breasted Fly and that's it as far as decent birds are concerned. No sign of a probable Pied Wheatear reported there yesterday. On the way out we checked the park by the entrance to town; it held a male ochrorus Black Redstart, possibly a returning bird from last winter:

We checked the sewage ponds near Bahad 1; this used to be one of Israel's top birding sites, and has a fantastic rarity list. Now it's gone - totally dry and overgrazed; we had about 3 birds there in total. We then spent the rest of the day in a nostalgic (or even pathetic) mood, reflecting on all of the good birds we had seen here and there, and how once everything was so much better than today. But that's how autumn birding has always been in the south, really slow until you stumble upon a good warbler or bunting. But not today.

Nafha sewage and orchards were a bit more birdy that other sites. We added another two Red-breasted Flys, and the famous pair of Golden Eagles put on an appearence - such impressive birds! More images will come tomorrow.

We then drove to Nizzana, where we first checked the Kmehin sewage. It was very quiet there as well; the only birds of interest being 1 Eurasian Curlew and 1 Caspian Stonechat.

A visit to Be'erotayim grove killed us terminally. It was so dead we wanted to die ourselves. On the way out we found this unlucky lilith Little Owl; it was hit by one of the very few cars that drive to Ezuz every day. It had some kind of head injury, we took it into care and from what I heard it's feeling better this evening.

Recent updates

2011-10-30T21:38:00.003+02:00

Yesterday my family came for a visit, and together we constructed a new pond in my garden. It is not large (2X2 m), but with the correct vegetation should attract many birds. I live in an arid zone, so any water source is good for birds. Already fantasizing about Israel's first Yellow-browed Bunting coming in to drink...

My brother Gidon and his daughter Shira mixing cement (in the background my future photo-hide):

My dog Bamba enjoying the coolness of the newly-dug soil by the pond:

There are lots of good sibes around (see here), but today I was stuck at home with my kids, thanks to Hammas and Jihad (I live inside the rocket zone). I took the kids for a quick look at the Bet Kama alfalfa field, near our house. Slowly it is proving to be a quality site, holding good birds constantly. Today, among the hundreds of common pipits and skylarks, I had 1 Oriental Skylark and 2 Lesser Short-toed Larks. A juv Merlin killed a pipit metres away from us.

No Birthday Birds

2011-10-21T22:12:00.002+02:00

Today was my birthday, but contrary to previous years, I didn't bird today and as result didn't have any good birds for my B-day. But it was a good day nevertheless. I attended the Annual Ringiers Conference that was held at the JBO. Apart for listening to fascinating presentations, and participating in productive discussions about the future of ringing in Israel, it was great to meet all the guys (young and not so young).

I will be away from my computer for the whole of next week. Traditionally, whenever I disappear like this, especially in late October, some megas arrive. Who knows what happens this year.

Taiga Flycatcher !?!?

2011-10-16T20:26:00.010+02:00

This morning I was home after a sleepless night due to fever and nasty coughs. I was quite knackered when at about 10:00 I received a phone from Darren Burns, who said he had a probable 1cy Taiga Flycatcher in the hand. Suddenly I felt much better. I quickly went over the ID with him, sent the news out and headed off.

I had the possible first for Israel in 2007 (see images here; also article published in BW, 2008). It is still under circulation by the IRDC, but it should get accepted soon. But since Sde Boker is not too far away from my house, I decided to go for it.

When I got there Barak and Meidad had already arrived from their Sooty Falcon fieldwork nearby, and we started discussing over the birds' ID. A few minutes later Oz joined us.

When I first saw the bird I was quite troubled by it's 'warmness', especially across the breast band and on the flanks and underwing coverts, that were rather bright buff. Also the upperparts were brown rather than grey, and the pale tips to GC and tertials were rich buff and not white. This was very different to what I remembered a 1cy taiga should look like (see Hugh Harrop's excellent images here).

However, this bird had some strong pro-taiga features, including bill pattern and uppertail coverts. From a distance (through bins), the bill looked completely dark and strong. When seen from below, 2-3 mm of pink at the base of the lower mandible were visible. The uppertail coverts were jet black. In some angles and light conditions they looked darker than the central tail feathers, while in others looked just as black. The uppertail coverts had paler grey fringes.

We released the bird, and hoped to be able to watch it in the field and hear its call, but it just vanished and despite intensive searching it could not be relocated.

We drove back home with mixed feelings, but when I got back home later in the evening I went through some useful articles (Jännes, Alula 1996 and Cederroth et al., BW 1999) and now I am leaning towards taiga, based on these features:

Bill pattern and structure (rather heavy-looking).
Black uppertail coverts. Pale fringes are OK for 1cy taiga.
Very clear contrast between whitish throat and darker breast band.
Warmer tones of this bird are within the known variation of taiga: see these birds from UAE and the 1st Swedish bird in Cederroth (1999).
Tertial pattern - in Cederroth (1999), a difference is given in tertial pattern. Like in this bird, taiga has pale tips extending to a pale fringe on the outer web, while red-breasted has pale tips only. I googled images of both species and this feature seems to be quite solid.
Eyering - in taiga, like in this bird, the eyering should be narrower above the eye and in front of the eye, while in Red-breasted it should be more even and broader all the way around the eye. Again I googled this and found quite a lot of variation in Red-breasted on this feature.

At the moment the identification of this bird remains open. We will consult with some experts, and hopefully will be able to reach a final verdict soon.

Many thanks to Darren for alerting us on this intriguing bird and for his hospitality. Darren will upload more images on his blog tonight or tomorrow.

Possible Taiga Flycatcher (Ficedula albicilla)

Note the black uppertail coverts:

Strong, all dark bill; pale-tipped uppertail coverts:

Whitish throat contrasting to darker breast band:

Note the tertial pattern on the distant wing - pale tip extending onto the outer web:

This image was taken with my 400 mm lens - closer to how it would look like in the field:

Close-up on uppertail coverts and tertials:

Bill pattern from below; again note the contrast between whitish throat to darker, almost sooty, breast band:
Darren the man:
References mentioned in this post:

Cederroth, C., Johansson, C., and Svensson, L. (1999). Taiga Flycatcher Ficedula albicilla in Sweden: the first record in Western Europe. Birding World 12: 460-469.

Jännes, H. (1996). Finland next? Eastern Red-breasted Flycatcher. Alula 3: 120-125.

Perlman, Y. (2008). A Taiga Flycatcher in Israel. Birding World 21 : 158-159.

Autumn migration is fun

2011-10-15T20:49:00.003+02:00

This morning I went ringing at Ashdod, and have a very enjoyable time. No Purple Martins or Blue Grosebeaks, but still a very good catch with great variety and lots of colour. It was nice to have several species in large number - this is much better than a ringing session dominated by one species: Willow and Reed Warblers, Lesser Whitethroat, Bluethroat and Kingfisher. Among the willows I had two yekutensis.

Thanks to my skilled team (Ron, Miriam, Shlomo and Liad) we dealt with the large catch and handled a ringing demo with no problems.

Cretzschmar's Bunting - adult male

Willow Warbler - yekutensis

Bluethroat - adult male

Kvalitet fugleferie

2011-10-14T22:02:00.007+02:00

Yesterday I met up with Søren Kristofferson from Denmark. We had a great afternnon and evening with some of our region's best birds. We started off watching a family of Sooty Falcons, on a cliff high above the Dead Sea. We had a great show watching the two recently-fledged juveniles practicing flight, and chasing their parents and each other. I a couple of weeks they will have left us, on their way to Madagascar. fantastic birds but poor images.

Sooty Falcon

After dusk we went to look for Nubian Nightjars. The evening was very pleasent with comfortable temperatures, bright moonlight and no wind. However it took us some effort to have good views of a nightjar. But finally this moulting 1cy showed extremely well. Søren was very pleased of course.

Nubian Nightjar

Some additional adventures from last week: on Monday I went up north for a family holiday. We stopped briefly at Ma'agan Michael where I saw the lingering Pacific Golden Plover. Migration is very visible with lots of birds up in the skies and in the bushes and trees.

I need to sign off as I'm waking up in a few hours for ringing. Good night.

No fame today

2011-10-02T22:25:00.004+02:00

This morning I returned to the field where I had the Blyth's Pipit yesterday. I set up lots of nets in the general area where it spent most of its time yesterday, but the bird was not present this morning. It did not end up in the net nor was it seen in the field. Ringing was quite OK with lots of Red-throated Pipits and Willow Warblers. This juv. Corncrake was caught before first light - unusual to see a healthy bird. Most I have seen in recent years were injured / dead /dying.

Red-throated Pipit

The Oriental Skylark was seen briefly early in the morning, and a Bimaculated Lark flew over.

October fest

2011-10-01T16:31:00.005+03:00

This morning I checked the alfalfa field of Bet Kama, near my house. At first I spent some time with a small group of Red-footed Falcons hunting over a nearby dry field. They were not very cooperative, so I started walking through the field.

Red-footed Falcon - 1cy

The alfalfa field was quite good with lots of Yellow Wags, Red-throated Pipits and Short-toed Larks. After a while I flushed a largish pipit. It flew up and gave this diagnostic 'pseu' call that I know so well from Central Asia, and instantly I knew I had found a Blyth's Pipit. I tried for about an hour to get better views of it but I kept losing it in the overgrown field. In total I managed to locate it three or four times; each time I saw it quite well in flight but only once it landed in a dry field where I had brief frontal views. It kept calling very nicely each time I flushed it. I managed to see a few good ID features, including short and pointed bill, strong malar stripe and fine breast streaks (hence not tawny), short tail and medium size and structure, not so massive like richard's.

If accepted this is the fourth Israeli record, and an Israeli tick for me. Unfortunately it was not relocated later on by a few birders who tried for it, but I will give it another try tomorrow morning.

While searching for the pipit I found also an Oriental Skylark, and up to 10 Zitting Cisticolas, that are good local birds.

Non-stop birding

2011-09-27T14:39:00.008+03:00

Yesterday and the day before I had about 30 hours of non-stop birding (thanks Pete for the inspiration). I began on Sunday noon with twitching the Painted Snipe that had been found the day before at HaMa'apil fishponds in the Hefer Valley. I have already seen them a few times in Israel, but it's an excellent bird nevertheless. The bird (a male I guess, I know nothing about their moult so age unknown) favoured the grassy fringes of a muddy fishpond, and I searched for it for a long time before it finally gave itself up and showed very well. Great bird!

Greater Painted Snipe

The snipe was in a fantastic pond packed with shorebirds. There were some more good birds there, including this unhappy-looking 1cy Black-winged Pratincole:

And a couple of Citrine Wagtails - this is an adult female:

While waiting for the Painted Snipe to show up, I scanned through the 50+ Common Snipes in the same corner of the pond. I found one very odd snipe on the deck that made me think it was a pin-tailed, but after closer inspection of the images on my computer screen, and consulting with some more people, I will leave it in peace as an odd Common Snipe.

My next stop was Ma'agan Michael. A large team of ringers (including Yosef, Francis, Gidon, Nadav, Ron and Yotam among others) gathered for a mega shorebird ringing session. We set the nets in the afternnon and worked through the night. We had an excellent session, with about 270 shorebirds ringed plus a few other bits and pieces. During the night we had a great selection of the regular species, but nothing really good. Avocet was a ringing tick for me. Yosef will post the totals in his blog soon. I had to leave at dawn to make it on time to my next stop, and early in the morning the tough guys who stayed till the bitter end had a Red-necked Phalarope.

Temminck's Stint

Curlew Sandpiper

Ruff

My next stop was the IOC - IAF Northern Valleys Raptor Count. Liron who normally coordinates the count had a day off so I replaced him for the day. Personally I had a good day with about 3000 Lesser Spotted Eagles, 1500 Levant Sparrowhawks and 2000 Honey Buzzards. Among the commoner species I had some goodies too - an adult male Crested Honey Buzzard and an adult Eastern Imperial Eagle. The honey buzzard was en extremely massive and brightly-pattern individual, like a bloody Crested Serpent Eagle, but unfortunatel it glided fast into the sun before I had time to grab my camera.

I was very happy to see the eagles going down to roost in the evening, becuase that meant I could finally pack my binoculars and drive back home.

Levant Sparrowhawks and juv. Honey Buzzard

Quality without quantity

2011-09-22T14:29:00.003+03:00

After last weeks' excellent ringing, we returned to the alfalfa field near Bet Kama this morning with high expectations. Weather was good too with fresh autumn temperatures and good cloud cover to knock some birds down. After good practice in erecting long lines of nets in darkness, day broke and we found the field wagtail-less. Compared to last week when we had about 600 wagtails in the small field, today we had maybe 50. The Short-toed Lark flock was larger with about 150 birds, but they are very hard to catch. The reason to the absence of wagtails might be the absence of Spodoptera exigua caterpillars that were abundant last week and must have atrracted lots of birds to the field. This week they were gone, possibly eaten up by the wagtails and migrated to Africe inside their stomachs...

Eventually we had a rather small catch. Compared to last week species composition was very similar (GST Larks, Isabelline Wheaters and a few other bits and pieces) but we lacked the bulk of wagtails that made last week so much fun.

Like last week, a juv. Pallid Harrier chased a bird into the net, but unlike last weeks' sparrowhawk it managed to bounce out of the net before we reached it. We had two Hoopoes that are always nice birds to ring:

The Red-eyed Show

2011-09-20T21:34:00.013+03:00

Yesterday and today i participated in an international workshop on vulture conservation in Israel and the Middle East, that took place at Kfar Blum hotel in the Hula Valley. This workshop was organized as part of 'Porsim Kanaf' - a joint project of the Society for the Protection of Nature in ISrael, Nature and Parks Authority and Israel Electric Company to protect Israel's raptors. Some of the worlds' leading expert on vulture biology and conservation were invited to take part in the workshop, in order to assist the local experts in finding solutions to the steady decrease in vulture populations in Israel. I learned a lot during these two intensive days, but on top of that it was great to meet al the guys, both international and Israelis. This is Munir Virani from the Kenyan chapter of the Peregrine Fund:

But, as you know me, I couldn't sit on my bottom for too long so close to the Agmon. So I sneaked away with Amir both yesterday afternoon and this morning for some birding and photography. We focused on a Black-winged Kite that had been hanging around in the valley for the last few weeks. It is such a charismatic bird, full of character, and those red eyes, wow! Even though it's common like shit in Africa and southern Asia, in Israel it's still a top quality bird. Not as rare as it was just ten years ago, but still great to see, and of course to photograph:

Caught a large vole:

And flew very close to us to continue feeding on it:

And a good shake before flying off (missed the take-off of course):

Here it was mobbing a 1cy Bonelli's Eagle flying by:

Bonelli's Eagle - 1cy

There were thousands of Plain Tigers (Danaus chrysippus) on every tree and bush:

Quality ringing

2011-09-14T21:19:00.009+03:00

This morning I had a very productive and enjoyable ringing session in the alfalfa field not far away from my house. A large team assembled early in the morning and we had the field well-covered with nets. Of course most birds caught were Yellow Wagtails (big numbers, most flava and feldegg but a couple of thunbergi and beema too), but the variety of birds caught was extraordinary. Often, yellowag sessions produce only yellowags with maybe one or two other birds. This time we had such a varied catch, of species that don't get ringed so often in Israel. Below is a selection of those:

Tawny Pipit - 1cy (one of two caught)

Tree Pipit

Greater Short-toed Lark (we had 11 of those)

Northern Wheatear

Isabelline Wheatear (left) and Northern Wheatear (right)

This juv Eurasian Sparrowhawk flew after a wagtail into the net. It was very fresh, possibly from a local population:

Many thanks to Eyal, Jonathan, Yoram, Eilon and Stav for the hard work.

Grateful dead

2011-09-13T22:17:00.004+03:00

I began today with a productive ringing session at Ashdod. Lots of migrants and very good variety, most warblers of course: willow, reed, marsh (2), great reed, savi's, Blackcap, Lesser White, E Olivaceous. In addition still large numbers of Kingfishers. This Sprosser was my first for the season:

Thrush Nightingale

Good early morning migration included many Yellow Wags, Tree and Tawny Pipits, and Ortolans. Thanks to Shlomo and Liad for their help.

A visit to the ponds was rather quiet. Hardly any shorebirds around, but it was nice to see a significant increase in Baltic Gulls (about 50), with a couple of Siberians and one Yellow-legged in between. No rings though.

Baltic Gull - 1cy and adult

Later on when I got back home I was surprised to find this female Golden Oriole dead under one of my windows. I find it hard to believe that it just decided to visit the inside of my house; more probabale that it had been chased by a sparrowhark or kestrel and then hit the window. Fine bird nevertheless. During the last week I have 6-7 birds feeding high in some large fig trees near my house, but this is the first one I saw on the ground...

More local stuff

2011-09-11T20:47:00.006+03:00

I continue to explore my new surroundings. My new surroundings are the northern fringes of the Negev, a region with pretty heavy agriculture but some good habitats here and there. My house is in a small community called Nir Moshe. Yesterday I had two good birds near my house - Collared Flyctahcer (in the garden) and Rueppel's Warbler. Both are rather common in spring but pretty rare in autumn.

This morning I drove around a bit, enjoying the fresh autumn breeze. There are a couple of small alfalfa fields not too far away. Alfalfa is by far the most productive crop in Isreal. The fields were indeed packed with Yellow Wagtails, and had lots of Willow Warblers too. Earlier in autumn most wagtails were feldegg's. Now they are already outnumbered by flava-types. This is an adult male flava-type, note the adult pattern on all GC: off-white tips, merging into the dark centers.

I found a dry onion field near my house that attracted a large flock of Alpine Swifts mixed with some hirundines. They were hawking very low over the field at great speed. I tried for some time to photograph them but I was with the wrong lens (500 mm, too heavy and bulky for such high-speed photography). It was a great challenge, especially with the very cluttered background, and I ended up with aching muscles and very little reward. These two are the only almost-publishable images I got out of the hundreds I had fired:

Alpine Swift

I had some numbers of Eurasian Rollers today, probably migrants, including some small flocks, reminding me of the merry days in Tsavo West.

Good migration

2011-09-09T22:14:00.003+03:00

I am getting to know the migration dynamics in my new turf.

There are more migrants than I'd expected. Some short walks near my house today produced nice stuff. Most impressive was Red-rumped Swallow migration, with many hundreds hanging around hawking over the lawns, and on active migration, mixed with Alpine Swifts. Lots of Yellow Wagtails and Issy Wheatears in the fields, with Lesser Grey and Red-backed Shrikes on every wire. A flyover Golden Oriole was a nice addition to my garden list this evening.

Strange night out

2011-09-06T14:41:00.003+03:00

Last night I met up with Eyal, Ron, MeiDarren and some others for a shorebird ringing session at the Nizzana sewage ponds. These small and smelly sewage ponds in the middle of the desert are very attractive and hold large numbers of birds during migration. We arrived there and found the ponds packed with birds. While setting the nets up in broad daylight we started catching very well - mainly Littler Stints but also a couple of Curlew Sands and a LRP. We were very optimistic before doing the first net round after dusk and took lots of bird bags. However, the birds simply vanished from the ponds after dusk and we caught nothing at all for the rest of the evening. Where the birds went is a mystery (no other muddy options within a radius of 30 km). But that was it for the night.

While setting the nets up we had some good birds - Citrine Wagtail, Gull-billed Tern, Broad-billed Sandpiper among the commoner species.

Curlew Sandpiper - adult

One of those gulls

2011-08-31T21:23:00.005+03:00

Yesterday I had some time for birding. Started off at Ashdod. Shorebirds were rather few. First gulls have arrived. I had this very interesting grey-backed gull. Relevant possibilities are Siberian Gull and intermedius Lesser Black-backed. It was a small and delicate gull, similar in size to a female Baltic Gull it sat next to. Very different from typical bull-sized siberians. Moult stage is possible for both - P1 and P2 moulted, rest of moult suspended. Very deep grey tongues on P7 and P6 are better for siberian. To my eyes head shape and bill structure are better for intermedius.

Siberian Gull is a common migrant and winter visitor at Ashdod. There are only two positive Israeli records of intermedius, both were identified by their read-rings. I am sure it is possible to get them in Israel, or at least mixed fuscus-intermedius individuals (we get some birds from mixed colonies in N Norway).

When KMO visited Israel in March 2010 we had a good day of gulling at Ashdod. When we saw similar birds to this he identified them as 'extremely small heuglini'. I find it hard to believe that pure heuglini could be so tiny (blasphemy!). I still don't know of a positive way to separte heuglini and intermedius. Any opinions on this bird are most welcome.

Later I visited some reservoirs in the Judean Plains. Good selection of shorebirds, including 16 Collared Pratincoles and many marsh terns.

Back to black

2011-08-28T12:00:00.003+03:00

Finished my move to the new house. Nice to see some migrants in the garden - Eastern Orpheans, Masked Shrike, Spotted Fly, Yellow Wags etc.

Yesterday went ringing at Ashdod after a long time. This meant lots of vegetation cutting for the net rides. While setting the nets up in the dark we heard some Red-rumped Swallows calling from the reeds, and we caught a few as they left the roost. It was a fine morning with good migration. Most impressive were 20 (!) Common Kingfishers, my best ever catch at this site. A good represntation of warblers included Marsh, Savi's, Great Reed, Sedge among the commoner species. Four species of shrike were present (Masked, Lesser Grey, red-backed and Woodchat) but none got caught.

Savi's Warbler

Red-rumped Swallow - 1cy

Common Kingfisher - suspended primary moult of adult

Wading in the mud

2011-08-18T22:11:00.015+03:00

This morning I spent a few hours lying in the mud at Ashdod with Danny Laredo. There is no intimacy as powerful as that of two men lying together on their bellies under a camo net.

Danny was a few minutes late so I had a quick look around the ponds at first light and couldn't resist these semi-artistic photo opps:

Black-winged Stilt

And in normal light:
We positioned ourselves quite poorly so almost nothing got close enough in decent light. There were quite a few Little Stints but they are little indeed:

Little Stint - adult

This Temminck's Stint approached from the wrong side and I was lying too low, so I didn't manage to get a complete shot of it:

Temminck's Stint - adult

Most action came from the tringids. Most were quite along way off though.

Redshank

Wood Sandpiper

The only one that was close enough:

Green Sandpiper

Busy times

2011-08-15T14:37:00.002+03:00

I am moving into a new house these days, in fact I'm moving to a new region - the northern fringes of the Negev. No birders live there so interesting to see what happens there. Plus the kids are on holiday plus lots of office work means that I have little if any time for birding. Hope to get back into business in the next couple of weeks, when migration picks up here.

A brief visit to Ashdod yesterday was rather quiet, but the long-staying Audouin's Gull is still present on the buoys off the beach.

Good bird at last

2011-08-10T10:25:00.008+03:00

This morning I checked some reservoirs in the Judean Lowlands near my house. There were very good shorebird numbers in the first resrvoir, with 137 Ruff and lots of other stuff. The second reservoir was pretty good too with some Collared Pratincoles (possibly bred there), Spotted Redshanks, White-winged Terns and quite a few Black-headed Wagtails. Then I spotted a very distant phalarope. Already from this great distance I could see that it's very pale, so I moved nearer as much as I could. I was very happy to discover it's a Red Phalarope. How could anyone call this specific bird 'red' I don't know.

Anyway, it's a very good bird in Israel. Since the 2000's it's not as rare as it used to be, with about 2-3 annually, but this record is very unusual. First, it's the earliest autumn record ever, plus it's one of the very few inland records.

This reservoir is half empty, so the bird was very distant, and into the sun, hence the poor record shots.

I have a few more similar images but I don't think they will contribute anything to the scientific community, so I will keep them to myself.

Some more birds from this morning:

Green Sandpiper

Quite a few White Storks hanging around:

Do bustards count?

2011-08-09T20:47:00.007+03:00

This morning I joined the annual MacQueen's Bustard count organized by the NPA. Six teams of us surveyed the last remaining steppes of the northern Negev, mainly inside Hazerim Airbase, west of Be'er Sheva. As in many other parts of the world, this large military facility is closed off and holds impressive habitats, protected from the uncontrolled overgrazing outside. Most of Israel and Sinai's bustards migrate after the breeding season into the base (walking all the way there, as discovered in a research carried out by my colleague Asaf Mayrose).

My team had 19 bustards, while the grand total was over 100. I wasn't able to get any images of them - they were all distant, and the light was bad. This image is from last year:

This is a general impression of the steppe habitat inside the base:

Other birds I had in the quality habitats were several families of Cream-coloured Coursers, and a few Black-bellied and Pin-tailed Sandgrouse. The only migant of note was one Eurasian Cuckoo. On the way out I had a flock of 30 Red-rumped Swallows perched on wires - they are clearly on the move:

Routine

2011-08-07T22:33:00.002+03:00

Another day, another visit to Ashdod ponds. Numbers increasing but still nothing better than 2 Temminck's Stints. Four Cretzschmar's Buntings represented first signs of passerine migration on site.

Temminck's Stint - adult

Eilat Bird Festival in Birdwatch

2011-08-03T14:21:00.002+03:00

Mike Alibone was our guest in the fifth Eilat Bird Festival. Apart for having a very good time, he wrote a fine article for Birdwatch. Well done Mike! See you at the next Festival?

I don't care about spots on my sandpiper, leave me the semi-p's - please

2011-08-02T14:17:00.014+03:00

This is so frustrating. Europe is just exploding with semipalmations, white rumps and red necks, but here in Israel things are very very quiet. Haven't had a proper RBA for ages. And this morning was not different. Went to check my ponds at Ashdod. In fact there were relatively good numbers of shorebirds (100 Little Stints, many tringids), but nothing even semi-interesting. I had this ringed Little Stint, but was unable to get anything from the ring. Probably a bird I ringed last year.

This is an early Osprey that flew over the ponds and spooked everything:
Glossy Ibis is a weird bird. They often have these bizzare interactions or movements. This morning I saw several birds opening one wing at a time after bathing and preening, possibly to get rid of parasites?
Hope to get some action coming in our direction soon. It's good timing because Oz the twitcher is in Brazil.

Salt and pepper

2011-07-27T09:52:00.014+03:00

Yesterday I joined Yosef for his ongoing project of colour-ringing terns at Atlit Saltpans. These saltpans hold Israel's largest tern colony, and are an excellent birding site altogether.

We arrived in time to have a quick look at the colony before setting the nets up. We had this interesting tern - it's very dark both above and below, with a narrow white cheek stripe. The bill is long and red. The bird was large and powerful, like a normal Common Tern. It incubated non-stop, so unfortunately we couldn't see the legs at all. I waited for half an hour for the bird to stand up or fly off, but had to give up and let it be; the nets were waiting.

This bird reminds me very much of this amazing bird ringed by Yosef last year. Whether our bird had rings or not I do not know. The plumage colours are superficially similar to White-cheeked Tern, but size, structure and bill are wrong.

There is a very interesting article by Sean Nixon in Birding World 24: 211-215 illustrating the identification of eastern Common Terns. It describes in detail longipensis, and more briefly tibetana. But to my eyes this bird is far too dark for any longipensis (which should show a dark bill) or tibetana. I have no idea what the dodgy form sinunensis looks like, but I assume it should be paler anyway.

However, one thing I learned last night is that the amount of variation in Common Tersn in huge, and it occurs in all aspects: size, plumage tones, bare parts. So whether this bird is an extremely extreme Common Tern, an 'eastern' Common Tern (breeding in Israel?!), or a hybrid Common X White-cheeked Tern we will probably never know. I will certainly try to return and have better views of this fascinating bird. Of course, any comments on this bird are most welcome.

This is the bird incubating:

And here in comparison to a 'normal' Common Tern:

Anyway, as night fell we started catching terns. We were joined by the Hula team, Rony and Michael. Even though the wind was strong all night long, we had a decent catch of 30 Common Terns, 15 Little Terns (including an ancient retrap from the mid-1990's!) and for a late bonus a beautiful adult White-winged Tern.

Common Tern - adult (4cy+)

Rony the magician

Common Tern - 2cy. Note the very worn unmoulted primaries, PC, alula and GC, and dark lesser-coverts bar. Bill is almost completely dark, and crown mixed with brown. Most Common Terns spend their first year and a half somewhere in the southern oceans or offshore Africa, and only few return north in their first summer.

Little Tern - adult

Little Tern - juvenile

White-winged Tern - adult

Gems on the beach

2011-07-25T10:03:00.026+03:00

Yesterday morning I had some time before meetings to visit Ma'agan Michael. I decided to sit quietly on the beach for a couple of hours and wait for something to show up instead of driving around. Nothing exciting showed up but there was a good selection of birds on the beach and small lagoons. The light was very special in the early morning - soft but very contrasting, enhancing the coral-red legs and bills of the many Common Terns. I swear, this is natural light, no photoshop tricks!

Bathing:
And taking off:

There is a large breeding colony at Ma'agan Michael, and another at Atlit about 15 km north. Most chicks have already fledged, and many were being fed by their parents on the beach:

Nice reflections:
I had smaller numbers of Little Terns:

I had a few terns ringed by Yosef at Atlit, this is a juvenile Little Tern:

And a juvenile Common Tern:

In the ponds I had about 15 White-winged Terns but none joined the terns on the beach:

Lots of Black-winged Stilts all over the place. They have nice red legs too:

In the ponds I had several hundred Armenian and Slender-billed Gulls, but only this slender-bill joined the terns:

Two rings in one frame - this Little Tern had an old aluminium ring which I was notable to read. Eventually I managed to read the number of the Redshank - it was ringed during the night of 30/9/10. This is actaully my ring - it was a ringing session organized by myself but I caught a flu and missed it.

Juvenile Redshank:

And another unfortunate Redshank:

Some Pied Kingfishers were fishing in the lagoons:
I had about 15 Turnstones but, stupid me, I erased all their images...

Another vagrant on the beach:

Hermon images at last

2011-07-21T20:24:00.018+03:00

At last, after a week without photoshop, I was able to edit my images from the Mt. Hermon ringing session last weekend. Mt. Hermon is the highest mountain in Israel, peaking at 2272 m ASL. Due to its height, it sustains a unique ecosystem. Many bird species breed in Israel only on Mt. Hermon, while others have their largest populations on the mountain. We've been monitoring bird populations (mainly seed-eating passerines) at drinking sites on the mountain since the late 1970's (see my posts from last year here and here).

This year We had rather low figures, below average, but species composition was normal. 'Big Three' were Syrian Serin, Linnet and Goldfinch. Rock Buntings showed in good numbers, but Black-heads were fewer than normal. They migrate very early, so perhaps they've already moved on?

Rock Bunting - male

Unfortunately all adults are just before their post-breeding moult at this time of year, so they are very worn and bleached. This guy is heavily worn:

Syrian Serin - male

We had no real suprises, but it was nice to have some of the scarcer Hermon birds, such as Hill Sparrow (two juvs). This is the only place in Israel where they breed regularly, while they are nomadic and irrutpive in our desert regions - see here. We also had three Ortolans - there's a tiny population breeding on Mt. Hermon.

Hill Sparrow - juvenile

Rock Sparrows showed in larger numbers. This is a juvenile:

Western Rock Nuthatch is one of the most sought-after Hermon specialties. We had several noisy families on the slopes around our ringing site. Only this juvenile got caught:

Western Rock Nuthatch

Re'a having a go at the nuthatch:

Sombre Tit is another good bird:

Sombre Tit - juvenile

We caught several of the local breeding race of Black Redstart - semirufus. Most were ugly juveniles; only this female was somewhat distinctive.

'semirufus' Black Redstart - female

Common but pretty:

Linnet - male

The pond we were ringing at had huge numbers of tiny Green Toads (Bufo viridis) - about 2 cm long. Many of them ventured away from the pond:

Mt. Hermon

Our ringing site

Part of the ringing team:

Many thanks to Nadav and Dotan of the Hula team for organizing the session so well.

Mt. Hermon - preview...

2011-07-17T13:56:00.002+03:00

Our ringing weekend on Mt. Hermon was great. Got lots of mouthwatering images, but today I replaced my old computer, which means I need to dowonload all of my software again, which means I have no photoshop, which means I cannot show any of these stunning images. I hope to get back in business tomorrow, so stay tuned!

In the meanwhile - an image from last year - Western Rock Nuthatch:

Ashdod rarities and minorities

2011-07-13T08:19:00.006+03:00

Shorebird migration hasn't really picked up at Ashdod, as my visit yesterday demonstrated. Also there was very little water in the ponds, but this will surely change soon. I had however a fair number of the common sandpipers (green, wood and common), plus this adult Marsh Sand moulting out of summer plumage:

Many Turtle Doves came in to drink:

After the ponds I drove down to the beach, where I saw Amir's adult Audouin's Gull that he had found on Saturday. It was very distant, sat on a buoy, but still a good bird (2-3 annualy in Israel).

Tomorrow I'm going up to Mt. Hermon for our annual ringing session. Looking forward to some great birding, ringing and weather!

Eilat pelagic part 3

2011-07-07T20:07:00.008+03:00

Last batch of images from the successful mini-pelagic last week. From now on no recycling!

Fighting over chum, shearwaters often sit on the water and spread their wings, possibly to keep other birds off their meal. They are impressive indeed! I saw no real fighting between birds though.

Cory's Shearwater

And again many thanks to Avi Meir for organizing this amazing trip!

Summer fun

2011-07-04T23:17:00.005+03:00

Yesterday I met up with Mats from Sweden, and together we drove towards the Dead Sea region. Our first stop was for Sooty falcons - and indeed we found a pair showing interest in a nset site. They've just returned from God-knows-where, and will soon start breeding. This record shot of the male is from about 300 m, across the canyon.

Then we wento down to Neot Hakikar. Daytime birding was productive with Namaqua Doves, Clamorous Reed Warblers, Rufous Bush Robins etc. This Purple Heron was a bit of a surprise:

After dusk we checked a few of my Nubian Nightjar territories, and had very good activity, including some juveniles.

Eilat pelagic part 2 - cory's

2011-07-01T11:34:00.016+03:00

After the previous appetizers, here's the main course...

The taxonomy of 'Cory's' Shearwaters in Israel is somewhat puzzling. When I started birding in the 1980's we had just 'cory's'. Then Hadoram Shirihai in his book from 1996 stated that all Israeli birds are in fact Scopoli's Shearwaters (Calonectris (d.) diomedea), both in the Mediterranean and in the Gulf of Aqaba. He did give a statement though that there are some funny-looking birds at Eilat and more research on them is needed.

However, data from recent years shows that most if not all birds in the Gulf of Aqaba are Cory's Shearwaters (Calonectris (d.) borealis), and probably also a considerable proportion of birds occurring along our Med coast. See this bird for instance, from Ashdod (I have it labelled incorrectly). I don't think anything changed, it's just a matter of better understanding of these forms and better photography.

All the birds we had in Eilat showed solid dark primaries. It is impossible to see the feather bases in the field, but as far as I'm concerned they have dark primaries, and a thick frame with limited white. Their bill are powerful and dark tipped.

I know little about sex and age-related variation in both taxa (do those dark tips to GC mean anything?), but I'm convinced that these birds here are borealis. One bird did show some white on the primaries and seemed a bit smaller, but it was distant and I was unable to get images of it. It might have been a diomedea.

Anyway, we had extraordinary conditions for photography that morning. Their habit to take off by running on the water offers great opportunities for photography - strings of pearl-like drops and rich reflections from the water:

Photographing them in flight is amazing and challenging too. Lots of images with sliced wings but those I succeeded to get the whole bird in came out quite good I think:

More to come tomorrow...

Eilat pelagic part 1

2011-06-30T11:26:00.021+03:00

Continuing yesterdays' taster, here is a small selection of images I got from the 'pelagic' trip with Avi Meir. I know that going out into a tiny gulf in a small dingy is not quite a pelagic, but this is the best we can get here in Israel.

Anyway, the conditions were great - soft wind, calm sea, comfortable temperatures, and as soon as the chum went into the water we got response very fast. The most active and attractive birds were Cory's Shearwaters - we had six or seven birds in total. They are such fantastic birds, and it was great fun for me to be in such proximity to them.

When I started seawatching in Eilat in the 1980's, days with 40-50 cory's were not uncommon, but their numbers have gone down dramatically in Eilat since the early 1990's. In fact between 2003 and 2010 hardly any were seen at Eilat. This decline corresponds with global population decreases, and with the ever-increasing pollution of the Gulf and crashing fish populations. This seems to be a relatively good summer for them.

I have hundreds of cory's images to go through, and I hope to get some on the blog during the next few days. This is just one more appetizer:

But apart for cory's, we had lots of other good birds. There were a few White-eyed Gulls flying around, but only this one showed interest in the breakfast provided by Avi.

This must be a 2cy, but I am not completely sure. As they're semi-tropical birds I don't know whether their moult cycles correspond to the Northern Hemisphere moult cycles we 'gullers' use when dealing with our gulls. This bird is going through its first wing moult, with P1 to P3 fully grown, and P4 growing. T1 to T3 also moulted (see 2 images below), and the new T2 and T3 have black tips. Leg colour is in fact pretty bright compared to juveniles that have dull grey legs.

I strongly recommend to have a look at the new page dedicated to White-eyed Gull in gullresearch.org, with images mostly by Avi and Amir Ben Dov.

White-eyed Gull (Larus leucophthalmus)

We had only one skua, this 2cy Arctic Skua. It made two brief fly-by's but never showed real interest in the feeding frenzy near our boat. It has not started moulting yet.

Arctic Skua (Stercorarius parasiticus)

Towards the end of our morning session quite a few terns arrived. Most were Common Terns (about 25), and among them we had one or two Bridled Terns. This bird never got quite close enough, so I have only these record shots. BTW don't panic, the tern above is just a Common Tern in strong light.

Bridled Tern (Sterna anaethetus)

Common Terns did get close indeed:

This 2cy Common Tern got me excited at first when seen from a distance - it was very pale and at first I thought it's an arctic, but after seeing it well it was safely identified as common. We don't get this plumage often in Israel; most of the 2cy's stay for their first summer somewhere in the southern oceans.

I had some trouble with my gear and screwed up its flight shots, so many thanks to Avi for this super image:
I really need a faster set of camera and lens, so if anyone out there wishes to donate me about 10000$ I will be very grateful.

Anyway, one Little Tern was among the larger species:

We had two Sooty Shearwaters. One of them came in to feed (pretty late when light was very contrasting already). This individual is rather scruffy and not very attractive, but they behave really nice compared to cory's - they just sit there and feed.

Sooty Shearwater (Puffinus griseus)

So stay posted for another batch of cory's images tomorrow.

Gulf of dreams

2011-06-29T20:51:00.003+03:00

This morning I drove down to Eilat (Morning? Left home at 02:00...). I met up with Avi Meir and Tzadok (from the IBRCE), and together we went out on a boat to do some seabird photography in the gulf. Avi is a real expert, and thanks to his expertise we had a fantastic morning. I have a card-full of images to download, sort and edit - it will have to wait for tomorrow, I'm totally knackered.

This is just an appetizer, I will have many more images on the blog tomorrow so stay tuned.

Cory's Shearwater Calonectris (diomedea) borealis

Wings of change

2011-06-28T14:02:00.002+03:00

Nice weather today with fresh winds and bearable temperatures. Had some time to visit Ashdod. The sea produced 30 Sandwich Terns and quite many gulls: 20 baltics, 2 yellow legs and 1 slender billed. At the ponds already good numbers of shorebirds, moving south I guess: 19 Green, 2 Wood, 1 Marsh, 1 Common Sandpiper, 5 Redshank, 1 Temmick's Stint.

Things are certainly happening...

Mountain gems

2011-06-23T23:18:00.015+03:00

This morning I climbed up with Re'a to a small spring deep in a canyon above the Dead Sea. It's a key site for two of Israel's most sought-after species: Mountain Bunting (AKA Striolated Bunting) and Sinai Rosefinch. Good numbers of both species breed in the area, and come in to drink mainly during the summer mornings. Water sources are few and far between in this tough desert region, so birds must travel long distances to drink every day.

Largest numbers this morning were of Mountain Bunting, about 90 birds until I stopped counting. Adults are very worn now,being in the middle of their complete post-breeding moult, and look much drabber compared to spring, but the males are still handsome birds.

Mountain Bunting - male

The females are duller to start with, and really aren't very attractive at this time of the year.

Mountain Bunting - female

Most buntings were juveniles, most of them still very fresh.

Mountain Bunting - juvenile

This bird has already started its partial post-juvenile moult, replacing some coverts and tertials:

Not too many Sinai Rosefinches came in to drink, maybe 10. Most went down in a part of the spring I couldn't see. Only this cracking male went down in the correct spot, but it was very shy - one click (not sharp, sorry) and it took off.

Sinai Rosefinch - male

Desert Larks came in to drink in good numbers too:

This spring is not the ideal spot for photography unfortunately. Light conditions are very challenging (shade with very strong yellow reflection from the rocks), and crouching down on the cliff face is very uncomfortable. Climbing up was not easy either. The birds are also too close (about 3.2 m away) and many get startled by the shutter release, so I didn't capture many images but rather did quite a few HD video clips. Hope to get them edited soon. But after all of these excuse, it's a fantastic spot, one of my favourites.

We stayed there for very little not to disturb the birds too much, and after a good, strong coffee we headed back down.

Thanks to Rony for letting me use his precious 300 mm/f2.8, and to Re'a for the help and company.

Dawn over the Dead Sea

Nightjars and bats during eclipse

2011-06-16T22:37:00.015+03:00

Last night I went down to Neot Hakikar - it was a full moon and I was hoping to have good nightjar activity. I'd organized a good team (Ron, Re'a, Eli and Shachar) - I wanted to ring some nightjars as part of my monitoring project there. We arrived early enough to experience the beautiful weather, and the nets were up in time before dark. There were lots of Namaqua Doves in the area but none got caught.

Namaqua Dove - male

When I planned this excursion a few weeks ago I didn't know about the lunar eclipse that happened last night. When I learned about this, I got very excited - it was really interesting for me to see the response of my nightjars to the eclipse, as their ecology is so strongly connected to moon cycles.

During the first part of the evening, when the moon was up and the eclipse hadn't started yet, nightjar activity was very good indeed, with lots of birds foraging and calling, including a good numbers of juveniles as far as I could tell. During the evening we managed to ring two birds - a juvenile and an adult (male I suppose - look at these huge wing patches and tail corners). Later on as the eclipse commenced, nightjar activity dropped seriously, and resumed only after the eclipse faded and moonlight was strong again. I wish I had a bat detector with me - they must have had an interesting response too.

Nubian Nightjar

However during the night we caught three bats of three species. First was this Trident Leaf-nosed Bat. This son of a bitch bit me while I was changing my camera settings, and sent me to get rabies shots today...

Trident Leaf-nosed Bat (Asellia trident)

Then came a Desert Long-eared Bat - much larger but much calmer:

Desert Long-eared Bat (Otonycteris hemprichii)

Last was this tiny Bodenheimer's Pipistrelle - Israel smallest bat. This one was 3.5 gr only!

Bodenheimer's Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus Bodenheimeri)

And about the eclipse, it was bizarre and beautiful and special. First the moon rose over the Edom mountains of Jordan:

At first it was shining through a layer of dust giving it a yellow hue:

Here the eclipse is growing:

This is the full eclipse:

Surprising seawatch

2011-06-13T14:27:00.003+03:00

Had some time this morning to check the Ashdod ponds. Arrived there only to discover that I had lost my key to the gate. As a fresh westerly was blowing, I went for plan B and drove down to the beach. It was actually quite a productive hour. There was a good passage (in local standards) of Common Terns, felt almost like Spurn... Among them I spotted one adult White-cheeked Tern, which is a pretty good record for the Med coast. Apart for that some gulls (Yellow-legs and Baltics), and one distant shearwater that must have been a scopoli's.

Some more gulls at TAU

2011-06-12T20:52:00.005+03:00

Finished my ringing for this season of the Yellow-legged Gulls breeding in Tel Aviv. Today two birds I wanted to ring were already flying too well for me to catch them.

This year I managed to ring more birds than last year, a total of 17 birds: 15 in the Tel Aviv Uni Zoological Gardens, and another two in a residential part of N Tel Aviv. All birds received red read-rings, all beginning with U.

It will be very interesting to follow these birds as they disperse (around the Mediterranean? E Africa?). It will also be very interesting to follow the offspring of the mixed pairs.

Many thanks to Amir Ben Dov for all his hard work on this population, to Odelia for the help, and to the Zoo staff Ron & Rony.

Cucumber season

2011-06-10T10:19:00.002+03:00

Nothing is happening here in Israel. Israeli birders take June off on most years, only tough Re'a is doing some useless seawatching down at Eilat. That's Ok for me because I have so much writing work to do - reports to produce etc. Will probably get some more gull chicks ringed and Mt. Hermon ringing session is in mid July, but apart for that I don't expect too much for the next month.

Green Warbler at Ashdod!

2011-06-04T11:52:00.015+03:00

This morning I went ringing at Ashdod with Eli. the morning began rather busy but standard with good numbers of lingering migrants and a selection of our local birds. I was thinking to myself what will I be able to show in the blog, perhaps a fledgling tit? Or yet another Garden Warbler? Then Eli gets back from the nets with a big smile: "I think you need to have a look at this Phylloscopus...". I got it out of the bag and was shocked by its' huge supercilium and two wingbars. The GC bar was very strong and prominent. The MC bar was fainter and was made by only 3-4 feathers with pale tips. The bill was long, strong and very pale below. I must confess that I quickly called the news out as a Two-barred Warbler Phylloscopus plumbeitarsus. Only later when I had time to sit down with the bird and compare it to the literature I had, I suspected it to be in fact a Green Warbler P. nitidus.

To my defense I can say that it is always interesting to note how different a bird can look in these close-ups compared to how it looked like in real life. The MC wingbar was there, I swear! You can actually see it very similar to the real impression in the second image from the bottom (with Oz). Also it's left side is much more dramatic than it's right side.

Anyway, the initial report as two-barred got a few guys out of their beds and I bagged the bird for a short time for the twitchers to see it. By the time they reached I had already changed my opinion to nitidus. The main reason why this bird isn't plumbei is that it's basically a green bird - pretty bright green above, with yellow or yellowish underparts, cheek, throat, supercilium and wingbars; plumbei should be much whiter below and duller above.

Green Warbler (Phylloscopus nitidus)

Happy twitchers - Rami, Oz and Shachar

Oz:

After everyone had enough and the bird had enough too, we released it. It stayed in a big tree for some time after release, and we had nice field views of it. It did not call.

This is the 6th record in Israel. The previous one was seen by Re'a in the Eilat Mts. in November 2010. I have seen two of the previous birds. This is an exceptionally late record. Not a first for Israel as I first hoped, but still a very good bird. Thanks to Eli and Lior for all their help this morning, and it was good to see all the guys at my ringing site. Rami - I promise to keep trying...

There's nothing worse than bored ringers

2011-06-02T21:58:00.010+03:00

A few days ago I got a report about tons of birds coming in to drink at a small waterhole in the hight Negev Mts. This reminded me of the fantastic drinking spot I monitored last summer, so I assembled a quality team and headed south early this morning (left home at 2 am!).

We did a beautiful job setting the nets up. Then it was light. Then the sun went up. Then we were standing around and waiting. It was very cold, so we said to each other: " It's too cold; as soon as it warms up millions of birds will come in to drink". And then it warmed up, and nothing came. So we had plenty of time to enjoy the breathtaking scenery, drink coffee and photograph each other.

Meidad

Meidad and Rony

Nadav

Rony

Why the birds didn't come I have no idea. I think that the report I received was a bit exaggerated, and my interpretation was overoptimistic too. Eventually we caught very few birds. The only bird of note was this 1cy Spectacled Warbler:

Great thanks to the patient and hardworking team: Nadav (from the Hula, who did about 60 km of driving per bird we ringed this morning), Eli, Rony, Meidad, Darren, Mark, Noa and Anat.

Local birding - great colours!

2011-05-29T15:15:00.010+03:00

Back after a long absence, I had a free morning for the first time after such a long time. After dispatching the kids at their respective kindergartens I went to search for a pair of Black-headed Buntings not far away from my house. I found them a few weeks ago while doing my Barn Owl nestbox monitoring. This beautiful bunting breeds in rather good numbers in northern Israel (i.e. Golan, Upper Galilee) but it is rare and declining in central Israel. In fact they were absent in my area (Judean Foothills) for a few decades and returned to breed only in recent years.

This male was holding territory and was very vocal, but I couldn't see the Mrs. - it must be on the nest at the moment. The male kept a distance of at least 30 m at all times, so the images are of rather poor quality. However it's a fantastic bird and I am happy to have them near my house.

This individual has some pigmentation problems - some white secondaries:

And funny ear coverts:

This late Booted Eagle was harassed by the local crows:

On the way out I encountered a pair of Stone Curlews - with chicks I assume by the feather stuck to its bill:

Thanks to Yonatan for his help with this today!

Yellow-legged Gulls colony, Tel Aviv University

2011-05-19T20:32:00.010+03:00

Israel has a small breeding population of Yellow-legged Gulls, something around 20-30 pairs. In recent years they began colonizing the Tel Aviv Metropolis, and like in many other places around the Mediterranean are becoming an urban species. Amir Ben Dov has been studying the colony in the Zoological Gardens of the Tel Aviv University for several years. Last year we ringed the chicks for the first time, and the first results about their dispersal are very interesting. Yesterday we returned to ring all the large chicks. We had 10 chicks, but there are still a few chicks too small and some eggs as well. This is me trying to fish one chick out of the bush:

Processing the birds:

The Zoo-Garden team - Ron and Ronny:

Back to mommy:

This year Amir had a fascinating discovery - he found two mixed pairs of Armenian X Yellow-legged. This is the first time Armenians breed in Israel. This is one of the mixed nests - the first chick just started hatching:

Many thanks to the garden team for their ongoing help and cooperation, and to Amir for his fantastic images.

Stars over Nizzana

2011-05-17T22:14:00.005+03:00

This morning I did my final atlas box for this season. I was joined by Meidad and a TV crew documenting my atlas project, which was quite fun. Meidad is a natural born TV star, isn't he?

Light conditions were quite awful with heavy clouds and no sun at all; this made photography almost impossible. I had some good birds and managed to confirm breeding of several key species - Trumpeter finch, Lesser Short-toed Lark, Black-bellied Sandgrouse and Spectacled Warbler. None of them were close enough for photography. Mourning Wheatears were ubiquitous with lots of families around. This is an adult male:

And a recently-fledged juvenile:

After we were done we paid a quick visit to the sewage ponds. As it was unusually cold sandgrouse were still coming in to drink so late, and we had some of both Black-bellied and Crowned. I met up with Barak who had found a diluta-type Sand Martin, interesting bird. Other birds included Citrine Wagtail, a couple of Namaqua Doves and Kentish Plover (a local rarity).

Namaqua Dove - female

Kentish Plover

Hoopoe Lark success

2011-05-15T22:43:00.002+03:00

Today I returned together with Galshon for the ultimate visit to my Arava atlas box. It was actually a rather quiet morning - I am used to hear many more birds in the early morning. In fact before 07:00 we hardly heard or saw anything. I had great expectations as two weeks ago that region experienced huge rainfall and an impressive flash flood, but this late water supply was probably of no good and no annuals germinated. I was completely out of energy this morning and didn't get my camera out of the bag even once.

But eventually we managed to get pretty good results. First, we confirmed breeding of one of my Hoopoe Lark pairs - we had a male moving around with a fully-grown juvenile. Just like last year, I saw the male 'training' his son: he displayed and sang, and then his son followed him. This image is from last year but it looked very similar this morning. This represents very good news for this critically endangered species in Israel.

During the morning I thought I heard Dunn's Lark singing in the distance several times, and probably saw it once, but only in the late morning I managed to clinch the ID. But the bird was soon lost and I couldn't confirm it's breeding.

On the way back we found a road-killed Wild Ass at Hameishar - possibly one of the animals I had last week. Sad.

Hameishar

2011-05-09T11:46:00.005+03:00

Some images from yesterday at Hameishar Plains, S Negev, in golden early morning light:

Temminck's Lark

Asian Wild Ass

Good shorebirding at Ashdod

2011-05-05T22:47:00.004+03:00

Had some time this morning before a meeting at Ashdod for a quick visit to the Ashdod ponds. Only one pond was muddy, so all the birds were concentrated in that pond. There were lots of birds there (250 Little Stints, 100 Ringed Plovers and other bits and pieces); I worked very hard but could not find anything more exciting than a summer-plumaged Curlew Sand, and several Temminck's Stints.

Curlew Sandpiper

Temminck's Stint

Great Spotted Cuckoos are very active and noisy now. I suppose the first youngs should be out in a week or two. This adult was pretty close but in terrible light conditions and on this ugly fence - pity.

Spring has finally arrived

2011-05-03T20:58:00.004+03:00

Had a terrific morning in the Nizzana region. I did an atlas box south of Ezuz, and birding was just great. First, I managed to confirm breeding of most of my target species in the box - MacQueen's Bustard (female with two chicks), Temminck's Lark (family), Black-bellied Sandgrouse (found a nest) etc. I was happy to find two singing Hill Sparrows - I wonder whether they are the vanguard of a large arrival like last year.

But even more impressive was a huge migrant fall, something I haven't seen this spring yet. Numbers and species composition were similar to what Barak reported yesterday in the Arava doing his box in KM76. I walked a few small and lush wadis that were just packed with migrants. Some figures for example - 60 Tree Pipit, 70 Masked Shrike, 30 Whinchat, 14 Pied Flycatcher, 8 Wood Warbler, hundreds of Blackcaps and other Sylvias. Also tens of Steppe Buzzards on the ground. 3 Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters overhead. This was very impressive, especially after the dead spring we had in the south up till now.

After I finished my atlas work I had time for a small ringing session near Ezuz. In addition to a selection of migrants I had four Spectacled Warblers - a bird I haven't ringed for a long long time.

Spectacled Warbler - male

On the way out I paid a quick visit to the smelly Kmehin sewage ponds that produced this bright male Citrine Wagtail among lots of common waders.

Driving back I heard that Amir Balaban and Avner Rinot ringed a Red-breasted-type Flycatcher at the JBO earlier this morning. I asked them on the phone to describe it to me and my antennae were raised immediately. It sounded to me like a perfect Taiga Flycatcher. As soon as I got back home to my computer I received images of the bird and clinched the ID while consulting with Barak. I am very happy for Amir and Avner - it's the 1st accepted record for Israel, almost exactly four years after I ringed the first also at the JBO (29 April 2007) which is still under review by the IRDC; well done guys! The bird was not relocated in the afternoon, but I will give it a try tomorrow morning anyway.