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
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![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidpxh1DeZA3oZkxts24h1d2Jmy5cRKNlEQ-hqSmM0OuEHj2jI0OuyacY7w_EyMmV59keR9JhyAkJ6IKS9cAie3Hazm2UiQSnOa2Iofk6ETVv7-Xw2Bs_yjsnoKEjCR-A0GvmCaEmcW52Qq/s400/painted1.jpg)
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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
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Curlew Sandpiper
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Ruff
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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.
The Painted Snipe was a good one
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