Tuesday, July 2, 2024
Why I am not going to Global Birdfair this year
Saturday, June 8, 2024
Poland - Aquatic Warblers and more
I recently returned from a short work visit to Poland, with Amir Balaban. This trip was organised with OTOP, to learn about their excellent conservation work, focused on restoration, and develop collaborations. Despite all the photos, videos and sound recordings that appear below, it really was a work trip, honest! Luckily our work includes field visits, so when a group of birders meet up, and excellent birds are plentiful, sometimes meetings get a little shorter...
Our trip started on Sunday, June 2nd. After picking up the rental car in Warsaw we headed straight to Biebrza marshes. Our first stop was at Dluga Lake, the classic spot for Aquatic Warbler.
Such a great habitat, lots of birds singing - I especially enjoyed the snipes in display flight. Despite the less-than-ideal time of day, quickly we heard our first singing male, and soon spotted it singing from the top of a tall grass blade - fantastic!
My bimbo Aquatic Warbler
— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) June 2, 2024
Thanks to @OTOP_tweets for hosting us pic.twitter.com/CepkB58wJW
Clarification: Bimbo is a term used by Spanish birders for lifer. Indeed, Aquatic Warbler was a global lifer for me.
We then continued to the OTOP reserve of Mscichy that is carefully managed specially to create optimal conditions for Aquatic Warbler. Superb example of habitat restoration. It was raining most of the time, and the tall grass was very wet. We finished our session there soaked to the bone, but it was certainly worth it. More encounters with Aquatic Warblers, still not best photos but lovely views and I love their song.
Sunday, May 12, 2024
Global Big Day, 11 May 2024
Yesterday was Global Big Day and World Migratory Bird Day. Global Big Day is organised by the Cornell Lab, in association with Swarovski Optik and Global Birding. My team, Champions of the Flyway, included the original trio - Jonathan, Re'a and me. It was good to be back in the game with this team. In Global Big Days we normally take the northern route. This year, because of the war, the northern route is more challenging. For example, Mt. Hermon is off limits currently. Also the northern sections of the Hula Valley and the Upper Galilee are not safe now. We planned our route for yesterday staying away from trouble, hoping that it will be a relatively quiet day on the non-avian flying object front...
We left early and arrived at the entrance to the Hula NR to try for owls. Nothing. A pre-dawn drive through Agamon Hula was quiet, Barn Owl was the only decent bird or mammal. Disappointing start. At dawn we were positioned by the lake and started our daytime birding. The lake itself was quiet because the water level is very high. Still, there was a small flock of terns that flew over the water including Gull-billed, Little and Common, and our first Marbled Ducks.
Global Big Day under fire! We're in the Hula Valley, enjoying great birds but keeping an eye open for other flying objects too...#globalbirding #birdsuniteourworld pic.twitter.com/859aGiHgue
— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) May 11, 2024
The big trees west of the lake were actually quite good with many Golden Orioles and other migrants in the mulberry trees - Great Reed (in the pic below), Barred and Garden Warblers etc.
The most surprising observation however happened shortly after Jonathan mused over the possibility of finding an African vagrant. We spotted a large bird flying low towards us over the reedbed - what's this!? Bloody hell - a turaco! One of the smaller species, schalow's-style flew quickly over us and disappeared. Obviously an escape but totally crazy to see this bird flying around here.
We continued birding through the open fields picking up some stuff including Lesser Gray Shrike. Nice to see large flocks of migrant Turtle Doves in the fields. More Marbled Ducks were spotted in the canals - I love them.
Because Re'a is an Odonata expert, on top of being a top birder, we did pay a little bit of attention to critters. Re'a recommended that I take a photo of this Levant Clubtail because it is endemic to our region, and because it is so pretty:
Overall birding was slightly quieter than we had hoped for but at least the weather was OK (the day before it was awfully hot) and there were no sirens. We left Agamon Hula at 07:30 with 74 species, semi-pleased with a half-decent list to start the day.
Our next destination was the Petroleum Road running along the western slopes of the Golan Heights. I became more familiar with this region after the discovery of breeding Yellow-throated Sparrows there in 2022. It was so excellent up there. Many quality species, lots of migrants - especially raptors. Highlight was a pair of Yellow-throated Sparrows that eventually gave themselves up after quite a long search.
Kfar Ruppin and other fishponds in the area provided us with some species of shorebirds and other waterbirds. It was a bit frustrating - there were very large numbers of Ruff, Wood Sandpiper, Little Stint and Ringed Plover, but the variety mixed in among them was minimal. Still we had hundreds of Collared Pratincoles, Temminck's Stints, Whiskered Terns and more. Dead Sea Sparrow is a local specialty and was well appreciated. I love those blackish hind-trousers the males have:Global Big Day update!#GlobalBigDay #globalbirding #birdsuniteourworld pic.twitter.com/jf3mKYkqyv
— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) May 11, 2024