California part 3 - Stanford and Palo Alto

I am writing here while missiles are exploding over my head... What else is there to do other than reminisce about better days and hope for better days ahead.

After the first two full days of birding in California, I had to slow down a bit because of the Stanford conference I was taking part in. I had time only for quick pre-breakfast sessions on Stanford Uni campus and in nearby Palo Alto. My initial intention was to see enough birds to maintain my eBird checklist streak. However, urban birding in Palo Alto and Stanford was really enjoyable. I appreciated the common urban birds - good diversity, and several attractive species.

Acorn Woodpecker - this is a female (red rear crown), of ssp. bairdi I presume, with a broad pale forehead, solid black chest, and flank streaks.

American Robin is very common but always cool. This male singing by a main road has some skin infection on its legs (known as 'scaly legs'), likely caused by Cnemidocoptic mites or papillomavirus.

One morning I birded with Marty around Lake Lagunita, at the south side of campus, which was actually very nice. A Virginia Rail was calling from the little remaining wet vegetation, listen to it here, somewhat faint, at ''5 and ''14:

Lake Lagunita

Western Bluebird is a common urban feature too, but this male caught the early morning sun so beautifully that its photo had to be taken:

California Towhee - subtle, fairly range-restricted, but very common

Brown Creeper - superficially similar song to European trecreepers

Arizona Gardens in Stanford Campus - the tall palm hosted a Hooded Oriole

Warblers weren't easy to come by in Stanford and Palo Alto during my stay, so I was pretty pleased to stumble upon this singing Yellow Warbler. Listen to it here, at ''5, ''14 and towards the end (California Towhee in the foreground).

My final morning before heading back was spent at Bayfront Park in Millbrae, by the San Francisco airport. It wasn't easy to hear much with all the aircraft noise, but eventually I had good scope views of a Ridgway's Rail feeding along the saltmarsh edge - nice end to an excellent visit to California. 

Check my eBird trip report here - 163 species, 57 checklists (most of them done by Brian and Aaron - thanks again), it was fun and I can't wait to be back and finally catch up with two species I keep missing (because I arrive at the wrong time of year) - Surfbird and Black Turnstone. 

California day 2 - San Mateo county

My second day in California (May 27th) was another full dawn-till-dusk birding day. I had the pleasure of spending the day with Aaron Maizlish. It was spent in San Mateo county, birding from the Pacific coast to the San Francisco Bay area. We met up at Pigeon Point and started off at Gazos beach and Gazos road going inland. The riparian forest was excellent with lots of activity, visual and vocal, and some good stuff.

'Russet-backed' Swainson's Thrush - horrible photo of an insurance tick ahead of a proposed split

Often seen flying up in tree canopies, Band-tailed Pigeon is quite spectacular when seen at eye level. 

In more open, grassy areas a few stunning Lazuli Buntings were seen:

As well as equally-stunning Grasshopper Sparrows ;-)

And a tatty-looking Savannah Sparrow

At Pigeon point we had two Wandering Tattlers. We then headed up the coast towards Half Moon Bay, that produced some nice stuff as well. At sea we had lots of alcids including many Pigeon Guillemots:

At Devil's Slide we had one Rock Wren, but it didn't stick around for photos

Across the ridge, we arrived in San Francisco Bay. At Coyote Point the long-staying Harlequin Duck was located resting on distant rocks:

Nob Hill pond in Belmont provided nice urban birding, with Black Skimmers - that bill:

Cinnamon Teal - what it says on the tin:

We were in desperate need for lingering migratory shorebirds for the day list. We checked different mudflats and wetlands - nothing left behind. Finally, while driving on Dumbarton bridge at full speed, we spotted a group of 'brown' shorebirds in Don Edwards NWR saltpans. We pulled over and enjoyed a medium-sized group of Greater Yellowlegs that also contained a marvelous Wilson's Phalarope (my third ever, after two winter-plumaged vagrants, in Israel and in UK):

'Western' Willet

And a beautiful summer-plumaged Long-billed Dowitcher

We ran out of daylight at Coyote Hills Regional Park. Our daily total of 113 species was quite good, I think. Thanks again to Aaron for another great day out. Aaron worked hard all day, including keeping all the eBird lists.

California part 1 - Monterey

I recently returned from a short visit to California. The main reason to travel there was to take part in a conference that was held in Stanford University. Before the conference I spent two full days of birding in California. The first day, May 26th, was spent in Monterey County with Brian Sullivan. During the day we met up with Paul Fenwick and Brooke Keeney. It was an almost Big Day. Originally Brian had offered me to leave at 2 am and search for owls but I opted for a slightly more 'relaxed' option because I arrived in Carmel Valley close to midnight. It was a fantastic, action-packed day, birding from dawn till dusk non-stop. That's one way to get over a jetlag. We saw so many birds, too many to mention in full here. These were my personal highlights.

We started our day birding along the Tassajara road up the Chews Ridge. The sunrise over the Sierra mountains was breathtaking. 

Early in the morning we saw several Mountain Quails running along the road. The light was bad still, so the photos aren't great, but they are super birds.

Later on in the morning we didn't see them anymore but they remained vocal.

Up the top of the ridge it was very beautiful. So lush and green. Flowers in all their glory. According to Brian, the early part of the spring was exceptionally cold and wet, so breeding bird activity was at its peak when we visited. 

BTW I uploaded this photo and other habitat photos to eBird - I really like this new feature available. I hope I got the plant names right - California Wild Lilac, Foothill Yuca, Sticky Monkey, Scarlet Bugler:

It was very birdy up the mountain, so much bird song, pretty overwhelming for me with all those unfamiliar calls and songs. We searched and found two very cool Black-chinned Sparrows in open habitat:

Lazuli Buntings were singing up there too - stunning birds aren't they:

Around some conifer stands we had the lovely Lawrence's Goldfinch:

Wrentit is such a cool babbler-thing

So is California Scrub-Jay

We bumped into two California Striped Racers up there. So cool how this individual performed the cobra-like the hooding motion:

When we descended into the foothills, we searched and found California's only true endemic bird, Yellow-billed Magpie. We were on a main road without an option to pull over, so the only photos I took are rubbish, through the window. Sorry for the poor quality.

We then met up with Brooke and headed to Moss Landing and vicinity, including Elkhorn Slough and Zmudowski SB. It was packed with birds, lots of waterbirds and coastal stuff, I enjoyed it.

We spent most of the afternoon on Point Pinos, where we met up with Paul. The wind was blowing properly, complete with snow caps, shaky tripods and tons of seabirds. I was hugely impressed by the constant passage of Sooty Shearwaters, 50-60 per minute, an endless stream. There were fair numbers of Pink-footed Shearwaters as well, we counted 76. I was especially pleased to watch Black-footed Albatrosses from land. What a delight. 

Cetacean activity offshore was impressive, with several Humpbacks doing their stuff throughout the session, and a playful pod of Risso's Dolphins entertained us. Getting digiscoped footage of the whales was challenging (for me). It took me many attempts until I eventually got something.

Other cool birds that went through were a single 'Manx' Shearwater (is it actually a Manx Shearwater?), nice numbers of Pacific Loons and Rhinoceros Auklets, Heerman's Gulls - I enjoyed this session very much.

Heerman's Gull

Rhinoceros Auklets

Thanks to Brian, Brooke and Paul for an amazing day. Brian did almost all of the eBirding - hard work! You can check the checklists from May 26th in the Trip Report here.

Global Big Day May 2025

On Saturday May 10th it was Global Big Day, organized by eBird, happening alongside World Migratory Bird Day. Our core team, Jonathan Meyrav, Re'a Shaish and me have been doing these Big Days since 2018. This time, sadly, Jonathan couldn't join us for personal reasons. So we sought for an alternative Jonathan, and came up with the young gun Yonatan Gordon, one of Israel's finest young birders. At the tender age of 16, Yonatan is already proving to be one of the best rarity finders in Israel and is a great guy.

Traditionally, we do the same Big Day route in northern Israel almost every year, with some variations. Overall, it was a great day of birding, though the weather wasn't on our side - it was terribly hot and quite unpleasant around midday.

I picked up Re'a at 03:30 where we had a singing Thrush Nightingale by the bus stop. Our first proper birding stop was at the entrance to the Hula Reserve, where Tawny Owls threw a party.

Driving around pre dawn in the Hula Valley fields produced several Eurasian Nightjars. Early morning birding around Agamon Hula wasn't too busy but actually really enjoyable. Jonathan wasn't there to do the traditional 'early morning wake-up coffee' story, but the photo had to be taken.

The lake itself held stuff including Marbled Ducks. Early on we started seeing small groups of Rosy Starlings flying around. Eventually we located one group on nearby trees - such wonderful birds. 

There were several Golden Orioles around - this is how we typically see them in Israel, flying away.

While taking in all the pinks and yellows, we noticed several large acros in a Mulberry tree. Great Reed, Clamorous, but hey what's this one? It's medium sized, it has a long, slender bill (not great reed), long primary projections and short tail (not clamorous), it's olive-grey above with a fine supercilium - Basra Reed Warbler!!! We watched the bird for about a minute jumping in a tree, trying to pick up all the key ID features. We tried to obtain photos but it was very active in the tree and then flew out and away before we succeeded. We searched for it for some time, without seeing it again. We were in Big Day mode so we didn't stay for very long and had to leave. It was seen again in the afternoon at the same spot by others. We left Agamon Hula quite elated with the Basra find - it's a good rarity in Israel, just about annual. It was probably our best ever find on a Big Day.

Fields north of the Agamon held a healthy population of Calandra Larks. It seems that feldegg Western Yellow Wagtails also breed in these fields.

We then climbed up the Golan Heights and birded the excellent habitat along the Petroleum Road. Despite the intensifying heat and wind, there were so many birds around and so much quality. Highlight was of course the now-regular Yellow-throated Sparrows, now back for their fourth breeding season. We had two pairs in breeding action, but they didn't pose for photos. Shrikes were plentiful, we found two pairs of Upcher's Warblers, and Rufous-tailed Scrub Robins are never boring.

Good job to the branch in perfect focus

Distant photo of Red-backed Shrike and Upcher's Warbler - typical Big Day (awful) photo quality

Then we climbed up Mt. Hermon. In 2024, because of the war, Mt. Hermon was closed off and we couldn't visit it. Now it's reopened , and we enjoyed birding there very much, as you can judge by our stupid smiles in this photo: 

We 'cleaned up' all expected Hermon specialties rather quickly, and really appreciated the relatively cool weather at 1500 m asl. Syrian Serin, Western Rock Nuthatch, Sombre Tit, Eastern Bonelli's Warbler, Rock Bunting, Rock Sparrow, Eastern Black Redstart were some of the great birds we saw up there and made our time on Mt. Hermon extremely worth our while.

From Mt. Hermon we descended back to the Golan Heights. In the Valley of Tears, Black-headed Buntings were singing in force despite the heat.

We picked up a few more species driving south across the Golan Heights, and arrived at Kfar Ruppin when the heat peaked.

Luckily, shorebirds aren't as affected by the heat as passerines (and humans), so we added an important number of species at the fishponds, in fact at our restoration site: Broad-billed and Curlew Sandpipers, Collared Pratincoles and more. Our final birding stop was in our restored Amud Reservoir near Kfar Ruppin. It was sooooo hot that the local Common Nightingales did not sing.

I had some commitments in the evening so we ended our Big Day in Kfar Ruppin and headed back, adding a couple more species along the way. 

Wow, that was intensive and fun. 143 species in total (eBird trip report here), which isn't an enormous list but certainly represents an enjoyable day out. We saw good stuff (Basra Reed Warbler, Rosy Starling), braved the heat, and had a great time. Thanks to Re'a and Yonatan for their partnership - you guys rock. Thanks to Nadav for gen in the Hula Valley. Thanks to Swarovski Optik for their ongoing support. 

 

My favourite mistake

 On Wednesday evening news broke of a first for Israel - Sharp-tailed Sandpiper found by Shachar Shalev at KM20 saltpans in Eilat. Excellent find by Shachar - well done! Shachar sent me breaking news from the field at 18:22, over three hours drive to Eilat, too late...

Few hours later I made my way down south to Eilat with a car full of hopeful twitchers. We arrived in Eilat at dawn, and started working the saltpans. The conditions were harsh, with very strong wind making all the shorebirds very flighty and viewing through telescope challenging. We did our very best, together with few other twitchers (less than 10...). We circled the saltpans for many hours, again and again and again. We kept finding new birds, coming in and shifting between sections, which gave us hope that the sharpie might be hiding somewhere. We also checked other wetlands in the area, but sadly, after half a day of intensive searching we had to give up and admit a dip. There was no sign of the bird - it may have departed overnight. 

Thankfully, it was not all gloomy. The KM20 saltpans were full of birds to the brim. They were moving around constantly, and it was clear that new birds were arriving through the morning. Scenes like a tight flock of Wood Sandpipers dropping out of the sky, or a graceful flock of Gull-billed Terns arriving low over the saltpans and resting on the track, are always thrilling.

Gull-billed Terns with lazy Slender-billed Gulls

Closer

A little closer

Not too close (big crop)

Wood Sandpipers fresh in - who knows how many miles they flew nonstop before landing here, seemingly exhausted

In central and northern Israel, Glossy Ibis is a trash bird, resident and often frolicking in horrible sewage ponds and other ugly sites. Down in Eilat I receive a good reminder that in fact part of the population are proper migrants, like this quartet (presumingly) arriving fresh in from Africa.

There were several goodies mixed in with the common species. Terek Sandpiper is always a treat to watch, I love their upcurved bill:

A few Broad-billed Sandpipers were present, some of them with more rufous plumage that this rather monochromatic individual, still very beautiful to my eyes:

Great Sand-Plover, likely a female

Ruddy Turnstone is a bit of a novelty down in Eilat, especially when in such bright breeding plumage

We also had a White-tailed Lapwing at IBRCE, and a Lichtenstein's Sandgrouse at their regular site, KM20 entrance grove. Then it was the long way back home, on the one hand disappointed by the dip, on the other hand quite satisfied after an excellent birding session (eBird checklist here). Philosophical thoughts about the meaning of twitching become even darker after a dip.

A few words about conservation:

KM20 saltpans are a world-famous and globally important stopover site and birding site. This site is well familiar to so many birders who have visited Eilat in recent decades. This fantastic migration hotspot is primarily a commercial salt production facility. Worryingly, the saltpans will go through serious changes in the next few years. We are working together with the salt company and other partners to find sustainable solutions that will maintain the importance of this site for migratory birds, as well as development of alternative solutions for migratory birds near IBRCE. More on this to come.