Thursday, March 3, 2022

Break the silence

Suddenly I noticed that it's been a month since I last posted here. Not that I haven't been birding, I certainly have. I felt like there weren't any blog-worthy highlights to report. I don't have very exciting stuff to share here, only some OK-minus photos from yesterday. I had work at Ma'ayan Zvi, just north of Ma'agan Michael. We are joining a large restoration project there, so I wanted to get to know better some spots . It was a great morning with enjoyable activity of migrants, winter visitors and resident birds. Breeding season is upon us! Clamorous Reed Warblers were very vocal, some males singing from tops of reeds:


Moustached Warbler is a winter visitor and migrant, not scarce but not common either. It is a very rare and sporadic breeder too. I had a singing male, that behaved very territorial. I will follow up to check if breeding takes place there.


In this sound recording a Clamorous Reed Warbler is audible in the background:

Reed Bunting is another scarce winter visitor, soon leaving Israel. At one spot I had a small group of six, very shy and mobile. The flock included a stonking male, even prettier than the one I managed to photograph:


All in all I had 92 species in a short session, including several new-for-year (no, I'm not doing another Big Year). eBird checklist here.

After birding I went to marvel at some wild flowers nearby, ahead of a meeting conveniently timed to start at 11:30... March is the wonderfulest month of the year, I must make the most out of it. 


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