Akaziengrasmuecke

This morning I surveyed a beautiful acacia wadi in the Arava Valley, together with Meidad. Weather was lovely, trees in blossom, happy birds and birders.

The wadi held a typical species assemblage for this habitat. Nice numbers of common desert species - Blackstart, Arabian Green Bee-eater, Streaked Scrub-Warbler, Desert Lark etc. Due to eBird 48-hrs shutdown I cannot share my checklist.

Early on a majestic Golden Eagle flew past:

Then we enjoyed great activity of this habitat's specialty - Arabian Warbler. In Hebrew, and in German, it's called 'Acacia Warbler'. We had three birds, including a very vocal male already apparently holding territory. Such excellent birds. Certainly one of my best encounters with this species.

With a Palestinian friend

Even came down to the ground to feed on grubs, tossing leaves and acacia fruit up in the air like a Blackbird...

Other quality birds included quite many Spectacled Warblers (winter visitors here), and a Namaqua Dove.

Decade summary #3 - Best of 2012

The countdown until the special annual summary continues. In this chapter, I will pay homage to the amazing year of 2012. The spring of 2012 will be remembered for years. In this spring, it suddenly felt like we're back in the 1980's again. Numbers of all migrants exploded, and I experienced extreme migration spectacles. On one special day, May 1st, I saw more migrants that I had ever seen before, and likely will never again experience such intensity of migration. I also photographed this flock of exhausted European Bee-eaters that became my most popular photo online.

In 2012 I visited Turkey for the first time, and enjoyed some fantastic birding, including this stonking Western Fish Owl:

2012 wasn't an exceptional year for rarities, yet it produced quality in the form of Basalt Wheatear (6th record), Dusky Warbler (5th) and Pied Bushchat (9th):

However, my personal highlight of the year was a rare resident that gave me a once-in-a-lifetime performance:

Arabian Warbler

Avi-blitz

This weekend I took part in an avi-blitz organised by (in no particular order) Israel Ornithological Center, IBRCE, Eilot Regional Council and Nature and Parks Authority. Over 30 teams took part in this effort. We surveyed remote corners of the southern Negev and Arava, seldom visited by birders. Many of these areas are deep within military firing zones, so access is restricted only to weekends. It was great fun, though my polygons were less productive. On both days I worked deep in the desert west of Neot Smadar. Yesterday was rather quiet (eBird checklist here), though I managed to find an uncooperative pair of Arabian Warblers at a new site in the far west of their predicted range, possibly the westernmost territory in the world?

Otherwise, away from the acacia wadi, birds were very few. The desert is extremely dry here, and the few birds concentrate where some productivity may be found. Good to absorb some desert serenity.

Somehow I managed to hear a distant singing Temminck's Lark; Spotted Sandgrouse flew by somewhere and that's it. I was really impressed by the huge numbers of Dorcas Gazelles on both days - we had over 100 yesterday and 60 today. They were generally tame and confident, implying that there is little poaching in this region if any.

As horny as they get

Check those huge rear toes on this Bosc's fringed-toed Lizard

Almost qualifies as a good bird - Poekilocerus bufonius

**This fascinating insect is venomous - it spits poison at predators, the poison is produced from the poisinous bush Pergularia tomentosa on which it is perched in this photo - thanks Avner for the info** 

After we were done we headed down to Eilat for some recreational birding. Again I failed locating both personal photography targets - Oriental Honey Buzzard and Lesser White-fronted Goose. No show. We checked the traditional sites, KM19 sewage and IBRCE. Nothing special, just the regular wintering birds plus local rarities and scarcities:

The now resident, funny Pygmy Cormorant at IBRCE

Rare in winter, this Gull-billed Tern spends the winter at IBRCE

One of four LEOs roosting at IBRCE

Caspian Stonechat just north of the park

Banana posture

Today I worked a polygon in the same general area. As we entered the area we had an Adrenalin-pumping early morning encounter with a pack of 9 Wolves - such fantastic animals.

Again there were rather few birds around (eBird checklist here). Only bird of interest was a fine male Cyprus Warbler that didn't pose well enough.

Those undertail coverts...

Huge thanks to the organisers Noam, Itai, Libby and Eran, to Eli who helped design the fieldwork. Hai Bar staff hosted us wonderfully - thanks! Kudos to all the hard-working skilled teams who did a stellar job. Till next year!

Eilat Festival update - what a day!

Yesterday was a bird-packed day. Hadn't done the day list yet, but I hope the bird racers next week will have such a good time!

My tour began in the late morning, so I started birding solo early. First north beach - lots of Finns and some birds too. The Brown Booby was patrolling along the Jordanian border, one Arctic Skua flew over, Barbary Falcon was after the Garganeys, two Heuglin's Gulls etc.

Brown Booby

Then I quickly checked KM20 saltpans - lots of shorebirds but nothing more exciting than Greater Sand-plover and Marsh Sandpipers. Outside the saltpans had this lovely flock of European Bee-eaters - added much-needed colour to migration: 

Before breakfast quickly checked Ofira Park which was surprisingly good with Semicollared Flycatcher, a few Wrynecks, several Tree Pipits etc.

Semicollared Flycatcher

Wryneck

After breakfast our long-distance tour began. Our first stop was at Yotvata - a Caspian Plover had been fund earlier on by British birders. We got to ths site and all the clients were on the bird quickly. It was a fine male, but it crouched down in the middle of a dry field, and viewing it through heavy heat haze was, well, you know... Here is a poor record shot of him:

While watching the plover good raptor migartion was happening overhead - Steppe and Booted Eagles, Several Lesser Kestrels plus lots of the commoner species.

Steppe Eagle

After Yotvata we drove to Hazeva where we met up with Ayla and Andrew who work there on the babblers. They took us to see a habituated group, which was great. But the main attraction was a pair of Arabian Warblers that showed very well - not the best images I have of them but the views were very good, and again - satisfied clients.

Arabian Warbler

Supporting cast was several desert Finches, Eastern Orphean Warblers, and raptors included two Eastern Imperial Eagles and a stunning male Pallid Harrier.

Desert Finch 

Eastern Imperial Eagle - into the sun - this one had jesses on his legs, must have escaped from trappers

On the way out bumped into this obliging female Namaqua Dove:

Then we drove up to the Judean Desert. We first went into a beautiful wadi. We climbed down before dusk and did some general birding in the wadi, that was fun with typical desert species and tons of raptors coming down to roost on the tall cliffs. After dusk we had a pair of Hume's Owl calling and communicating with each other. Rather early the male flew over our heads and we all had great flight views, and later on we all saw him very well, holding a rodent in his mouth. I was holding the torch (as always) so here is a great phonescoped shot by IBRCE volunteer Bas Kok  - thanks Bas for letting me to use your image here:

Very statisfied we left the wadi, and after dinner we headed down to Neot Hakikar. We arrived there when it was already too cold and dark, so there were no nightjars foraging whatsoever. After a couple of hours of intensive searching we had to give up but just before leaving we enjoyed several singing Nubian Nightjars around us - nice experience (though I'd rather see one than hear three...). However a major bonus was a Pharaoh Eagle Owl that gave several brief views.

The tour ended very late and the clients got back to Eilat very late at night, after a long but satisfying 'Rambo Tour'.

Many thanks to my co-leaders - Naom, Meidad and Paul, and to the IBRCE volunteers for the good company in the car.

Arabian birds, friendly birds

Yesterday I went down to Hazeva in the northern Arava. I met up with Ayla Rimon who's leading the new birding center launched there. I worked with her on her monitoring goals for this year - we checked some optional monitoring sites etc. First of all good luck to Ayla with the new position! 

At Hazeva in winter, birds are few and far between, so you need to make the best out of each bird there. The study group working there on Arabian Babblers for several decades now, led by Prof. Amotz Zahavi,  has accustomed babblers and other birds. This gives incredible opportunities to study them from very close, almost like ringing. Many of them are colour-ringed for individual identification.

Arabian Babbler 

Ayla the Babbler Princess

Blackstart

Note the fine spiderwebs on the thorns...

Arabian Warblers, the rarest and one of the most important species of the region, managed to evade us all morning. Only just before noon we bumped into a couple - but they were very mobile and moved on quickly before I managed to properly photograph them:

Arabian Warbler