Down south

Yesterday I headed down south with Jonathan. We had some work to do, and combined that with kind of birding, or rather cherry-picking that largely went wrong. We started off at frozen Ovda Valley - 4⁰

 C is quite extreme in Israeli standards. As expected, bird activity was rather limited early on until the sun finally started heating the environment up. For the second time this winter I failed to find the Basalt Wheatear - what's its story? Sometimes it porns itself completely, on other occasions it's absent - I have no idea where it disappears to. Its chosen corner of the valley looks very dry and unproductive this year - last year it was crawling with beetles and stuff. The main section of the valley, near the 'Black Hills', was a bit better. Asian Desert Warbler, 12 Bar-tailed and 6 Temminck's Larks, wheatears and a distant herd of 15 Onager kept us entertained.

Busy Bar-tailed lark

Mourning Wheatear; one individual showed features of persica (dirty cap, dusky flanks, limited wing panel) but wouldn't pose for photos

Basalt wannabe - White-crowned Wheatear 

nana wannabe - super pallid young female Spectacled Warbler

Ovda eBird checklist is here.

On the way further down to Eilat we stopped briefly at Neot Smadar. No sign of the Hume's Leaf Warbler; Blue Pansy mini population somehow persists there:

In Eilat I had two photographic targets - Oriental Honey Buzzard and Lesser White-fronted Goose. Somewhat predictably, we failed to locate both species. We added some species to our growing year list, and clocked on local rarities - namely Pygmy Cormorant and Gull-billed Tern at IBRCE. 

Pygmy Cormorant - first documented record for Eilat?

We added Booted and Eastern Imperial Eagle, Citrine Wagtail, Dead Sea Sparrows while driving around, scanning the skies, ponds and plantations to no avail, but no other highlights. On the way back home, still on the theme of adding species to our year list, we stopped at Elifaz Reservoir for the Red-breasted Merganser, that was unimpressively sleeping distantly at the center of the huge reservoir (eBird checklist here):

Red-breasted Merganser, Pale Crag-Martin and Great Crested Grebe miles away

Last stop on the way back home was at Samar - fine views of a favourite species, Black Scrub-Robin. Superb way to end a long and overall enjoyable day.

Armageddon birding

Had a very long and pretty crazy day of birding yesterday. Left home at 02:00. Picked Meidad up at Sde Boker and together we headed south towards one of the remotest parts of Israel, in the southern Negev close to the Egyptian border. In this area there are some very good flat vegetated plains and wadis that are important for ground-breeding birds. In spring 2011 we surveyed the area with Shachar Alterman and NPA, and it was quite awesome there. In March this year, this same area experienced some exceptional rainfall, and as a result a productive 'green' patch evolved, that immediately attracted lots of fast-breeding birds. A couple of weeks ago Shachar was there again and had very good early breeding activity. Yesterday we returned there to try and find breeding evidence for some rare species.

Driving down the weather became worse and worse. Gale-force winds plus sandy desert means dust storms - at some points visibility was zero and I had to pull over. We almost u-turned and headed back home becuase in this wind birding is pointless, but we had driven so far already and made such an effort, so we decided to give it a go anyway. After a long hour of tough off-road driving we arrived on site right on time, at first light. Immediately we started hearing lark song up in the sky - first Greater Short-toed and Temminck's Larks, then more species joined in. 

We started working the five km-long wadi and flanking plains - luckily the wind dropped and birding conditions became rather pleasent. But it was tough for photography - very dark clouds. I am not used to shoot in such high iso in Israel...

Most impressive were Temminck's Lark - we had 13 singing males along this wadi - very good density of this scarce lark. In addition I had two feeding females - breeding confirmed...

Temminck's Lark - male

Bar-tailed Larks were present in good numbers - we had about 13-15 singing males, and again several feeding birds. No proper photos this time but I managed to get a reasonable sound-recording. It's the first Middle-Eastern sound recording uploaded to Xeno Canto as far as I know - very different from N African birds. 

Bar-tailed Lark

Other larks we had were several families of Crested Larks, and few singing male Greater and Lesser Short-toed Larks, but we couldn't find any further breeding indications of those. We couldn't relocate the Hoopoe Larks Shachar had here a couple of weeks ago, but by the time we got to the area where he had them, the weather deteriorated again, so they might still be there.

Another good find was a breeding female MacQueen's Bustard - she was walking and hiding in the way they do when they have young chicks with them. We left her alone not to disturb her too much but I am confiden she had chicks with her. In  addition we had another small group of seven males. They were either non-breeding or post-breeding males; in this time of year they are often seen in small groups. This group might have walked accross the border from Sinai - sadly they were very shy and jumpy, despite being safe in the only country on this planet where they aren't hunted to extinction.

The stronghold of MacQueen's Bustards in Israel is in the Nizzana region, with about 30-40 breeding pairs there. In the rest of the Negev they are present in very lower densities, so this concentration of eight birds at one site was quite impressive. 

MacQueen's Bustards

Other good local birds we had were several Cream-coloured Coursers, and some flyover Spotted Sandgrouse.

There were quite many migrants around - mainly pipits and wagtails, but in the few bushes there were some common warblers and shrikes of three species - Masked, woodchat and Red-backed.

Masked Shrike 

Probably because of the crazy winds there was virtually no raptor migration. We had quite many Lesser Kestrels feeding along the wadi, and this smart 2cy male Montagus Harrier cruising low:

Not too many other animals - a few Dorcas Gazelles and one impressive Spiny-tailed Lizard that jumped back into his den before I got my camera on him.

Dorcas Gazelle

Thanks to the cloud cover the temperatures remained reasonably pleasent the whole morning, but before we left the storm resumed, wind built up again, and an impressive thuder storm hit us - so we escaped back into the car, and back home.

Thanks Meidad for the great company!

Champions of the Flyway - my Big Day!

So yesterday during the race I spent the whole day out with the teams. Left very early and arrived at Uvda Valley early enough to enjoy dawn chorus of the rarer breeding larks - I had both Bar-tailed and Temminck's singing from the hills above the valley. Later on the theme of quality local birds continued with both Spotted and Crowned Sandgrouse flying around and feeding on the plains. But most impressive was the number and variety of migrants - on the plains plenty of wagtails, pipits, wheatears and larks (one Lesser Short-toed among the many greaters). The few bushes were exploding with warblers, Ortolans, Tree Pipits, Redstart, Nightingale etc. During the first couple of hours of daylight I must have had over 50 species there.

Wryneck

Isabelline Wheatear

This Yellow Wagtail looked like a standard thunbergi-type until it flew and called like an eastern birds - scary stuff...

Ortolan

Bluethroat

Rueppell's Warbler

It was very good to see lots of harriers - pre-ordered by the Batumi team. Saw at Uvda valley Hen, Pallid and Marsh, and later on at Yotvata also Monty's - great day.

Pallid Harrier - adult male

Pallid Harrier - 2cy

Steppe Buzzard 

Very good to meet some of the teams - they were all progressing very well and I was happy to share my info with them.

 What was that call?

Ah, Spanish Sparrow (BRC team)

The previous night I missed dinner and went to sleep hungry (!) so I was starved by the time I left Uvda and returned towards Eilat. Decided to quickly check the small pumping station near Shizafon junction - Striolated Buntings were seen there in winter coming in to drink. And sure enough, as I drove in, I flushed a male Striolated Bunting! 

Then I continued down into the valley. There was massive raptor take-off that evolved into a huge passage. Decided to spend some time scanning through the thousands of Steppe Buzzards for other species. Stopped at Ketura sewage that was full of migrants as well, and enjoyed both wetland species and overhead raptor migration. Had a good selection including Levant Sparrowhawk, Egyptian Vulture, Lesser Spotted and Steppe Eagles.

After breakfast headed over to the ditch behind KM 19 cowsheds. Best bird of the day for me was a Great Snipe I found on the deck too late - had too brief views on the deck before it took off and flew just infront of my car window into the sewage pond, never to be seen again. Also in the canal Little Crake, several Citrine Wags and some Dead sea Sparrows.

Then I moved on to KM20 saltpans. Again some teams were working there in the heat, and I joined them for a while. Lots of new birds had come in, including about 25 Collared Pratincoles. gotta love them!

At first look this pale yellowag resembles beema - rather pallid with prominent white patch on ear coverts and bright green mantle. It also gave an eastern taxa call. I would expect a broader supercilium though.

Woodchat Shrike besides the saltpans

Checked some desert habitats north of the saltpans that produced little during the hot hours. Just before returning to the main road I encountered this lovely family of Dorcas Gazelles.

And then I found this showy Cream-coloured Courser:

In the early afternoon headed up to Yotvata to try and connect with the Oriental Skylarks there. Still in the southern circular field, also more pratincoles and such.

Then the mandatory afternoon visit to north beach, that had nothing special but pretty birdy. Some gulls to keep the enthusiasts enthusiased. 

Western Reef Egret

Just for fun I counted my daily list - I did 145 species (!) - very satisfying. All of this without checking some key sites, and tweeting out nonstop all the news from the teams. I believe that a proper good day here could smash the WP record of 202. 

Tomorrow -  the winners!

Yellow-eyed beauties

This morning I returned with the A-Team to Hameishar Plains. Freezing cold in the morning - frost remained on the ground until about 9 am. Before 07:00 very few birds but when it warmed up a bit we started catching more. We smashed the record set in our previous visit in December, and caught 18 (!) Asian Desert Warblers - 14 new and 4 retraps. This means that on the same stretch of habitat along the road we ringed altogether 25 different individuals! Difficult to estimate how many actually are in this area - must be many tens. This is really phenomenal. Each one of them is such a beauty.

This little bird left a small present on Rony's head

Apart for the desert warblers, again we had great species variety. I most enjoyed three Hooded Wheatears - a ringing tick for me in fact. There was an exceptional concentration of 6 males in one corner of the valley. Also three more Mourning Wheatears, one Temminck's Lark and one Bar-tailed Lark - all quality species for all of us.

Hooded Wheatear - 2cy male (hatched 2012)

Hooded Wheatear - 3cy+ male

Temminck's Lark - female

Bar-tailed Lark

The habitat looks really good. Last week it rained more at Hameishar, and more germination and caterpillar production is expected in the coming weeks. Lots of larks around, all birds feeding like crazy on caterpillars. Again good lark show today - about 50 temminck's and 2 thick-bills.

On the way back home ringed a pair of White-crowned Wheatears. I normally hate photographing birds with my phone but in this case the image does show the amazing scenery that this wheatear views every day:

Many thanks to the team - Yosef, Ron, Ron, Rony, Meidad, Arad and Tom.

That's much better, thanks

Had a great morning with Meidad. We went to check Hameishar Plains, which is one of my favorite sites in southern Israel. We went to check for signs of breeding in territories found during last year's atlas work. There was no rain there this winter, so everything is very dry, but still lots of birds feeding on seeds remaining from previous years.

Of course the most dominant family was larks, represented by six Thick-billed Larks:

Three displaying pairs of Temminck's Larks:

Four displaying Bar-tailed Larks (they're so sweet):

And a flyover Lesser Short-toed Lark. Some Desert Wheatears were holding territories too:

On the plains themselves migrants were very few, but this cracking Ehrenberg's Redstart added a splash of colour to the general brown-ness of the morning:

We made some coffee in a lush wadi just north of the plains. The Ochradenus baccatus had lots of sylvias feeding in them, so we quickly erected a net up and enjoyed some nice birds while drinking our coffee.

Cyprus Warbler

Rueppel's Warbler

Thanks to Meidad for the company and help.