Global Big Day May 2025

On Saturday May 10th it was Global Big Day, organized by eBird, happening alongside World Migratory Bird Day. Our core team, Jonathan Meyrav, Re'a Shaish and me have been doing these Big Days since 2018. This time, sadly, Jonathan couldn't join us for personal reasons. So we sought for an alternative Jonathan, and came up with the young gun Yonatan Gordon, one of Israel's finest young birders. At the tender age of 16, Yonatan is already proving to be one of the best rarity finders in Israel and is a great guy.

Traditionally, we do the same Big Day route in northern Israel almost every year, with some variations. Overall, it was a great day of birding, though the weather wasn't on our side - it was terribly hot and quite unpleasant around midday.

I picked up Re'a at 03:30 where we had a singing Thrush Nightingale by the bus stop. Our first proper birding stop was at the entrance to the Hula Reserve, where Tawny Owls threw a party.

Driving around pre dawn in the Hula Valley fields produced several Eurasian Nightjars. Early morning birding around Agamon Hula wasn't too busy but actually really enjoyable. Jonathan wasn't there to do the traditional 'early morning wake-up coffee' story, but the photo had to be taken.

The lake itself held stuff including Marbled Ducks. Early on we started seeing small groups of Rosy Starlings flying around. Eventually we located one group on nearby trees - such wonderful birds. 

There were several Golden Orioles around - this is how we typically see them in Israel, flying away.

While taking in all the pinks and yellows, we noticed several large acros in a Mulberry tree. Great Reed, Clamorous, but hey what's this one? It's medium sized, it has a long, slender bill (not great reed), long primary projections and short tail (not clamorous), it's olive-grey above with a fine supercilium - Basra Reed Warbler!!! We watched the bird for about a minute jumping in a tree, trying to pick up all the key ID features. We tried to obtain photos but it was very active in the tree and then flew out and away before we succeeded. We searched for it for some time, without seeing it again. We were in Big Day mode so we didn't stay for very long and had to leave. It was seen again in the afternoon at the same spot by others. We left Agamon Hula quite elated with the Basra find - it's a good rarity in Israel, just about annual. It was probably our best ever find on a Big Day.

Fields north of the Agamon held a healthy population of Calandra Larks. It seems that feldegg Western Yellow Wagtails also breed in these fields.

We then climbed up the Golan Heights and birded the excellent habitat along the Petroleum Road. Despite the intensifying heat and wind, there were so many birds around and so much quality. Highlight was of course the now-regular Yellow-throated Sparrows, now back for their fourth breeding season. We had two pairs in breeding action, but they didn't pose for photos. Shrikes were plentiful, we found two pairs of Upcher's Warblers, and Rufous-tailed Scrub Robins are never boring.

Good job to the branch in perfect focus

Distant photo of Red-backed Shrike and Upcher's Warbler - typical Big Day (awful) photo quality

Then we climbed up Mt. Hermon. In 2024, because of the war, Mt. Hermon was closed off and we couldn't visit it. Now it's reopened , and we enjoyed birding there very much, as you can judge by our stupid smiles in this photo: 

We 'cleaned up' all expected Hermon specialties rather quickly, and really appreciated the relatively cool weather at 1500 m asl. Syrian Serin, Western Rock Nuthatch, Sombre Tit, Eastern Bonelli's Warbler, Rock Bunting, Rock Sparrow, Eastern Black Redstart were some of the great birds we saw up there and made our time on Mt. Hermon extremely worth our while.

From Mt. Hermon we descended back to the Golan Heights. In the Valley of Tears, Black-headed Buntings were singing in force despite the heat.

We picked up a few more species driving south across the Golan Heights, and arrived at Kfar Ruppin when the heat peaked.

Luckily, shorebirds aren't as affected by the heat as passerines (and humans), so we added an important number of species at the fishponds, in fact at our restoration site: Broad-billed and Curlew Sandpipers, Collared Pratincoles and more. Our final birding stop was in our restored Amud Reservoir near Kfar Ruppin. It was sooooo hot that the local Common Nightingales did not sing.

I had some commitments in the evening so we ended our Big Day in Kfar Ruppin and headed back, adding a couple more species along the way. 

Wow, that was intensive and fun. 143 species in total (eBird trip report here), which isn't an enormous list but certainly represents an enjoyable day out. We saw good stuff (Basra Reed Warbler, Rosy Starling), braved the heat, and had a great time. Thanks to Re'a and Yonatan for their partnership - you guys rock. Thanks to Nadav for gen in the Hula Valley. Thanks to Swarovski Optik for their ongoing support. 

 

Local Basra!

This summer keeps giving. Early morning streak-continuation birding, schoolrun, coffee in the garden with my wife, phone beeps: Rony Livne and his team had just caught a Basra Reed-Warbler at his site, Kfar Menachem!!! Conveniently it's a short drive away. I jumped in to the car and enjoyed this excellent bird just before it was released. Thanks Rony and the team!

I have a bit of history with this bird in Israel. In 2006, the late Amit Geffen and I worked together in Agamon Hula Ringing Station. When our accommodation shifted to kibbutz Lehavot Habashan, we looked for local afternoon ringing options. On our first afternoon session at the kibbutz's fishponds we caught three Basra Reed-Warblers (!), a recently-fledged young and two adults, a male and a female, both with physiological evidence for breeding (brood patch and swollen cloaca). This is a photo from July 4, 2006 - adult Basra Reed-Warbler on left, recently-fledged juvenile on right:

Over the next days we caught a couple more. This was the first breeding record in Israel of a bird that back then was a mega rarity in Israel, globally threatened and declining, and at that time unknown to breed away from the marshes of southern Iraq. Understandably, this breeding record generated some interest. Next year, in 2007, a few Basra Reeds returned to the site, but there were no signs of breeding. In 2008 only one individual was found, again without signs of breeding. This photo is from May 24, 2008:

Since then, Basra Reed-Warbler has returned to its former rarity status in Israel, as a rare late-spring/summer migrant, just about annual. Almost all records involve birds trapped by ringers, in Eilat and northern valleys. Today's record is the first in central Israel.

Basra Reed-Warbler is globally Endangered. Though its global population trend may have stabilized during the 2000's, it seems to be undergoing population declines again as a result of habitat loss and the effects of climate change. Its core breeding area is in southern Iraq, and in recent years it was found breeding also in adjacent parts of Iran, and in Kuwait. Additionally, there were indications that it may be breeding along the Euphrates north into Syria and even Turkey. I would assume that birds migrating through Israel are heading to or from more northerly breeding grounds than S Iraq.

This photo is from the stunning Ngulia, Tsavo West NP, Kenya, December 7, 2010:

No Basras for me today

This morning I joined the Hula ringing team (Nadav & Dotan) to try for the Basra Reed Warblers at Lehavot Habashan in the E Hula Valley. I first discovered a small population breeding at this site in summer 2006 together with the late Amit Geffen - see the link to BirdLife announcment. The birds were found again in 2007 and 2008, but were not found during several ringing attempts at this site in 2009. Today was the first attempt for 2010, so I was very optimistic, but unfortunately no Basras showed up. I will have to settle for those at Ngulia this coming December, poor me.
I really hope that these rare birds are still lurking somewhere in the Hula Valley, and that their appearence in 2006 to 2008 wasn't just a passing episode. After all, these acros are real skulkers, and it's a tiny population to start with, so the chances of missing them even though they are present is quite big.
But anyway it was a productive morning with many birds and some good stuff. Little Bitterns were present in good numbers but only this newly-fledged juvenile got caught. They are always fun birds to handle!



Other birds of note ringed were two Great Reed Warblers and several Common Whitethroats already migrating somewhere after breeding, god knows where to.

Pygmy Cormorants were present in large numbers, and I managed some rather poor shots of them.