Super day at Maagan Michael

I don't do these kind of things anymore, report on a single days' birding. However, today was really brilliant and report-worthy. Once a month I spend a morning monitoring birds at our restoration project in Ma'agan Michael. I start early, and do point counts for about two hours. Then I spend the rest of the morning counting birds in the general area of Ma'agan Michael fishponds and beach. Today, my first point count was interrupted by flocks of hundreds of Great White Pelicans cruise low over me:

It was evident that there were lots of birds around. Flocks of wagtails and pipits headed south. My second point count had so many birds I struggled to end it on time. It was nice to see this migrating flock of Flamingos at eye-level.

At my third point count I had two Striated Herons - hatched this year I think. They are becoming more regular in this area, but still scarce.

Towards the end of the point count I noticed a shrike on a fence, quite distant and in bad light conditions. A quick look through the bins and I said to myself - hey, this is an Isabelline Shrike. The shrike flew out of view. I went around a small pond to try and get better views. Then a Red-backed jumped up. Disappointed, I discounted my previous ID. Only when I got back home and checked the photos I noticed it was actually an Isabelline - nice one.

The fourth and final point count was uneventful though it had lots of migrants. Then I went down to the beach to check what's on there. I bumped into this fine adult male Desert Wheatear - pretty scarce in this region, and such a beautiful bird.

I spotted a large shorebird flying south high up - Bar-tailed Godwit! Another scarce bird. Sweet.

Later on Yuval found one a couple of kms north - is it the same bird that U-turned, or another bird? This one showed really well, feeding in a coastal lagoon.

In a large dried up fishponds there were over 100 Black Storks. I checked them for colour rings and found three. 718N is from Estonia, ringed in 2022, and seen since every winter in Ma'agan Michael.

I am awaiting information about the other two - U199 and 15U6.

By 10am it was getting hot and I had to leave. My total was pretty good - 116 species. eBird checklist here.

Mig mig

Migration is peaking now in Israel. The weather is still quite awful - midday temperatures soar into the mid 30's, but the early mornings offer some respite and are pleasant enough for birds and for birders. I keep going out birding every morning, even now during our second lockdown. I have fieldwork to do, and anti-poaching duties, which thankfully keep me outdoors. 

The fields and reservoirs near home are packed full with birds, offering some hope that we have not screwed the world up completely, yet. Often, early morning birding sessions end up with an impressive tally (check this representative checklist for example). Willow Warblers numbers are very low, but other species groups seem to be doing OK - shrikes, buntings, chats. Young Lesser Gray Shrikes are seen in numbers now - very neat birds:

Numbers of Cretzschmar's and Ortolans and even now - Cretzs still around in force:

Raptor migration is very prominent now. Luckily, I live on the main highway. Unlucky for me, I need to spend most hours of the day working indoors - wish I could sit outside all day with a cold beer and stare at the skies. However, every time I stick my head out of the air-conditioned house between 10:00 and 15:00 and look up there are convoys up in the sky, of Lesser Spotted Eagle, Levant Sparrowhawk, Honey Buzzard, Black Kite and many other species (check this checklist for example).

Lesser Spotted Eagle and two levants

Part of a flock of 800 Levant Sparrowhawks

It's a good time of year for shorebirds too. A visit to Ma'agan Michael offered good views of Bar-tailed Godwits - scarce in Israel:

Gan Shmuel fishponds hosted a Pectoral Sandpiper - I had to go and visit. 15th for Israel, I have seen a few before but always nice to connect with:

Pec Sand with friends

Best bird I found recently was yesterday - while birding with Piki in Tal Shachar (good fun!) we flushed a snipe from under our feet - it gave a familiar call, taking me back to November 1998 - Pin-tailed Snipe! In flight we noticed that there was no trailing edge, it was stocky with a short bill, but if flew away and out of sight. Sadly no photo but satisfying birding moment! We couldn't relocate it - hope it shows up again.

Sadly, not all of my work includes happy birding moments. On Friday I was called to retrieve a transmitter of a dead Bonelli's Eagle not far from home, and asses the cause of death. No need for detective work to make this assessment:

First Responder's dilemma

Today while getting some work done at home the familiar Rare Bird Alert went off - Long-billed Dowitcher at Ma'agan Michael! I was super keen to see this species in Israel after missing two during my years in the UK. To go or not to go? There was no 100% confirmation yet, but as a First Responder I had no time to hesitate. I hit the road almost instantly - it's just 1.5 hours up the road, and I have a list to keep! While driving up I talked to those who reported it and circulated a poor photo that didn't teach much. When I got there, the beach was actually surprisingly quiet with human activity, which was very welcome after my last visit. There were plenty of birds on the beach, but no dowitcher to be found. I walked up and down the beach checking all coastal lagoons, and all fishponds too, to no avail. I did my best to stay focused on dowitcher-searching but was distracted by an Eleonora's Falcon that zoomed past at great speed, two Bar-tailed Godwits, Heuglin's Gull, Citrine Wagtails and in general enjoyable birding (86 species; eBird checklist here).

Czech-ringed Black Stork in a lovely fishpond by the kibbutz

Sodom and Gomorrah

This morning I went with Piki to Ma'agan Michael. Over the last few days an accumulation of some quality shorebirds on the beach developed there, which required my attention. I don't know why, but there are no empty fishponds this year. As a result, all shorebirds are concentrated on the few beach lagoons. It's Jewish New Year holiday now, which means that the always busy beach is extra busy now. When we arrived early, there were already tens of people, dogs, cyclists, powered parachutes, boats - complete mayhem. Unfortunately, also a few photographers and birders were a bit too assertive approaching the shorebirds. And some beach-goers seemed to enjoy deliberately flushing the birds. The poor birds were up in the air constantly, first fleeing from lagoon to lagoon, then they gave up on foraging and went to rest on offshore rocks. Until they were flushed from there by fishermen too.

Typical scenes on the beach today - image courtesy of Piki Ish Shalom

It was a real pity because that fair concentration of shorebirds contained good species (locally): 3 Bar-tailed Godwits, Red Knot, Broad-billed Sandpiper, 6 Citrine Wagtails and a good potential to host a vagrant among the hundreds of calidrids and plovers. But viewing them was difficult because all birds took off repeatedly, offering mainly flight views.

Bar-tailed Godwits

Red Knot, Dunlin, Ringed Plover and Little Stints

Citrine Wagtail

Just as we decided to leave this hopeless scene, I spotted at a distance a young gull that looked promising for Audouin's Gull. Just too distant. Frustratingly, when we approached but it was still too far away, it disappeared before the ID was clinched. Hope it reappears.

It is a shame that this globally important bird area suffers from such disturbance. Personally, I can't roll my eyes and say passively 'something needs to be done'. That's my job; I need to do that something myself, with my colleagues. Fingers crossed some ideas there will work out in the future. At the moment, the birds and birders need to wait until the Jewish festival season is over, for some relief on the beach.

eBird checklist here. Thanks to Piki for the company.

Ma'agan Michael nostalgy

Left early this morning and met up with Barak to go birding together at Ma'agan Michael. A few minutes after I left home my cars' turbocharger stop working and I almost U-turned and headed back home, but decided to give it a try. Took me about 50% more time to get to Tel Aviv, and eventually we made it to MM in good time. Miraculously the turbocharger came back to life soon after we arrived at MM.

Last time I birded with Barak here was 20 years ago, in November 1993. Then we had two Kittlitz's Plovers. 20 years older and wiser, we tried to find something good today but had nothing out of the ordinary. Best bird of the morning was a nice summer-plumaged Bar-tailed Godwit found by Yochai Koren. We saw the bird briefly, then it walked out of view and was not seen again. 

Lots of shorebirds on the coastal lagoons, many Little Stints and Ringed Plovers, about 20 each of Sanderling and Greater Sand-plover, and two Gull-billed Terns. Over 100 Garganeys was pretty impressive. We also saw the long-staying Mediterranean Gull almost finished moulting into second-winter plumage:

Some Baltic Gulls among the many Armenians:

About 30 Turnstones:

5-6 Curlew Sandpipers:

Invisible Snipe

Very nice flowering Sea Daffodils (Pancratium maritimum) on the coastal sand-dunes:

Northern tour

Two days of tour leading up in the North produced some good birds but no images as I was too busy.
On October 3rd at Ma'agan Michael we had two Bar-tailed Godwits (one of them was ringed), two Citrine Wagtails, one Gull-billed Tern and many other birds. A sunset visit to the Agmon was stunning as always - 1200 pelicans came in to roost together with a few hundred cranes, and many thousands of Barn Swallows and Yellow Wagtails roosted together in a nearby reedbed.
October 4th: we started off early at the Agmon again for some pleasent pre-breakfast birding. Highlights were flyover Richard's Pipit and Black-winged Pratincole; other good birds were two Greater Spotted Eagles and a few Penduline Tits. Local specialities seen well were Black Francolins and Clamorous Reed Warbler. We had a light raptor take-off, with a few Short-toed, Lesser Spotted and Booted Eagles.
An afternoon visit to the Bet She'an Valley was very birdy with lots of stuff around. Highlights were about 100 Tawny Pipits in one field, among them were another two Richard's Pipits, and another Greater Spotted Eagle.

Barwit!

This morning I did one of these night-and-day adventures again, that began with frustration but ended as a pretty good day. I went ringing in my ponds at Ashdod with Shlomo; we arrived at 02:30 and started setting the nets up across a muddy and birdy pond. We caught no shorebirds at all during the night. There was quite serious cloud cover that reflected much ambient light, and the birds must have been able to see the nets. It was bizzare though to catch at 03:30 a Marsh Warbler and a Red-backed Shrike!
At first light I spotted a Bar-tailed Godwit very close to our nets. The bird was not there the previous afternoon and must have arrived during the night. It was a patch tick for me, so I was very happy with it. I waited for the sun to rise, and went to get some images of it before trying to catch it. The bird was completely fearless, and I could approach it to the close-focus distance of my lens.
It was feeding like crazy and hardly lifted its head up out of the water. Most of the time it looked like this:

After I was satisfied with my results, I flushed the bird into my nets quite easily. Bar-tailed Godwit is quite a rarity in Israel, with about 5 seen annualy. This autumn seems to be pretty good for this species, with about 5-6 seen already. I think it has never been ringed in Israel before, so this is potentially the first ever ringed in Israel. The bird was extremely light-weight, only 160 gr. I hope it feeds well and fast as it must be in a very bad physiological state at the moment, explaining its lack of fear (in 2008 I published a paper with Ido Tsurim showing that hungry Steppe Buzzards during stopover are fearless compared to healthy buzzards). But nevertheless it was a great bird to ring, very beautiful and special. It was a juvenile in immaculate fresh plumage.

Shlomo

After the lack of birds at night, the early morning catch was actually quite good, with many birds feeding in the tall grassy sections of our pond. We caught another 70 birds or so (didn't punch the data in yet), mainly Willow Warblers and Yellow Wagtails. We had a nice selection of wagtail forms. This adult male gave a 'western'-type call, and with this dark head and small supercilium I guess it's a thunbergi-type from Scandinavia.

Another nice addition to our catch was seven Bee-eaters. There were large numbers foraging on dragonflies over the ponds, and these seven were stupid enough to get caught.

Other birds of note seen during the morning were two Borad-billed Sandpipers and a flyover Water Pipit - my first for the season.