Saturday, March 19, 2011

Masked Wagtail!

yesterday my dinner was interrupted by an RBA message followed by a flood of text messages and phone calls, informing me that earlier in the afternoon Amir Ben Dov had found (and semi-supressed (-; ) a male Masked Wagtail at Ma'agan Michael. This is the 2nd record for Israel (the first was seen by a single observer in 1989). As this is a very distinctive form that will probably become a species in the near future (and a very beautiful bird), I had no choice but to twitch it today. I made an early start and arrived with Amir Balaban and Ron Haran right on time. we relocated the bird within a few minutes, and were actually happy and ready to head back home within a few minutes... Disgusting twitchers...
The bird was showing very well - it was feeding very actively, and was very territorial against other wagtails and other birds. But photography was not easy - light was shit and the bird kept its distance from us. But eventually I got some decent shots. A few other guys arrived later and the bird kept showing very well for everyone. Hopefully it stays for another day or two - Barak and Shachar are doing Atlas boxes for me in the south this weekend, unable to twitch this bird...

Well done Amir!!!











During the short time spent there we had quite a few quality birds - about 10 Citrine Wagtails (daily total of five wagtails - not bad...), three Gannets feeding offshore, and a Whimbrel flying about.

Egyptian Mongoose

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