Bogey bird down

Amidst the Corona craziness, this morning I managed to get myself to Arsuf. My target was a Blyth's Pipit that had been found a few days ago by Eyal Shochat - possibly a returning bird. I couldn't go until this morning, which made me quite restless over the weekend. I had a bitter history with this species in Israel, having been out of the country for all twitchable ones, and being unable to nail two birds I am sure I found myself (while leading a tour in 2010, and in my magic field in 2011). Till this morning. I met up with Rony early, and we stared working a lovely grassy field buzzing with birds, not dissimilar to a Mongolian steppe:

After few minutes of walking through wet grass we flushed the bird, it gave a nice call (I was unprepared with my sound recording gear) and showed well in flight:

Showing diagnostic pattern on T5, with limited white, wedge-shaped:

It joined its two Richard's friends, and the trio offered good comparative views of size and structure. Also, check the pattern of T5 on this Richard's - all white:

We were joined by a few more birders, and we spent some time with the birds and eventually were treated to good views of the Blyth's perched out in the open:

There were seven pipit species present - not bad; with an Olive-backed a few days ago and Long-billed at a few sites, it has been a good pipit week.
There were lots of birds and some good ones around (eBird checklist here) - three Sibe Stonechats, Oriental Skylark, Rueppell's Warbler etc.

Glad to put this one to rest - now I'm worried about birding and twitching in this Corona crisis. Stay safe.

Decade summary #5 - Best of 2014

In 2014 I relocated with my family to the UK, but before leaving in September I had a busy time indeed. In March the first Champions of the Flyway bird race took place in Eilat, and around it there was some great birding down south:

Eastern Subalpine Warbler

Monitoring projects took me to some of the remotest corners of the country, where I saw fantastic birds, such as this stunning White-throated Robin on Mt. Hermon:

2014 offered some serious rarities, including Hudsonian Whimbrel (1st national record of this taxon), and Pied Bushchat (9th).

In May I traveled to USA for my first spring visit, where I participated in the World Series of Birding with my team mates Tom, Jonathan and Dan (and returned with the Cape May Island trophy). Also, my/our long-term collaboration with Cornell Lab of Ornithology and eBird started then. Spring warblers were quite something. B&W, Canada, Chestnut-sided and Maggy Warblers were just few of the many species I saw:

Over to the UK, I hit the ground running and started birding en force, disregarding all of my family and PhD duties, trying to make the most of my time in the UK. I joined a fine community of Norwich birders, who took me birding, twitching, dipping and drinking. Some good birds I had before the year ended were Radde's Warbler and Blyth's Pipit.

Full summary of 2014 here.

Double Trouble

Met up very early this morning with Graham, James and Nick and drove to West Yorkshire for a double-twitch. What I expected to be an easy day turned out to be rather challenging.

We arrived at Calder Trading Estate 5 minutes after a sparrowhawk had spooked the Blyth's Pipit and it flew far north and was lost in the distance. Sounded very bad. We searched for the bird in neighbouring fields for a while but nothing. 

I have a long history with Blyth's Pipit. I saw tons in E Asia (even found the first for Thailand), but in the WP I had bad luck. I missed two in Israel while I was out of the country, dipped another in 2008, and I am sure I found another two but couldn't clinch - in October 2011 and March 2010. So today my name was already referenced as a potential jynx for Blyth's Pipit.

We decided to go and try for the Thayer's Gull at the landfill site at Ravensthorpe where it was found feeding yesterday. There were quite many gulls about but viewing conditions were bad and it was hard to see anything at all. I did manage to pick up an Iceland Gull - lifer for me in fact. Only rather brief flight views but I was pleased with it. But no sign of the thayer's. While we were there we got the news that the pipit had returned to its field. So we left the gull site and returned to Calder, where we quickly connected with the pipit, to our relief. It showed pretty well though it was pretty mobile today. A large crowd assembled today to see this long-stayer, numbers of visitors boosted by the nearby gull, and by some good photos that were taken yesterday of the pipit. I must admit that like in previous twitches, I felt uneasy about the behaviour of some twitchers. There was a lot of elbowing and shoving and pushing going on to try and get a bit closer to the bird that was not close enough for photography. As a result the bird kept being flushed time after time, and of course nobody got any decent photos (apart for Graham :-) ).

Nevertheless, it was good to study the bird, and especially to hear the calls. 

Blyth's Pipit 

In the early afternoon we positioned ourselves at Pugney's Country Park hoping that the thayer's would return to roost there as it had done yesterday. But it did not show. Just before it was too dark to see anything an Iceland Gull appeared, probably the same bird from the morning. 

This was my first top-class twitch in the UK, and it was good to connect some FB friendships with faces, and nice to meet some old friends.

Then it was the long way back home. Despite dipping on the thayer's, it was a very good day out with a lifer and a WP tick, and as usual loads of fun. Thanks to Graham for the driving etc.

October fest

This morning I checked the alfalfa field of Bet Kama, near my house. At first I spent some time with a small group of Red-footed Falcons hunting over a nearby dry field. They were not very cooperative, so I started walking through the field.

Red-footed Falcon - 1cy

The alfalfa field was quite good with lots of Yellow Wags, Red-throated Pipits and Short-toed Larks. After a while I flushed a largish pipit. It flew up and gave this diagnostic 'pseu' call that I know so well from Central Asia, and instantly I knew I had found a Blyth's Pipit. I tried for about an hour to get better views of it but I kept losing it in the overgrown field. In total I managed to locate it three or four times; each time I saw it quite well in flight but only once it landed in a dry field where I had brief frontal views. It kept calling very nicely each time I flushed it. I managed to see a few good ID features, including short and pointed bill, strong malar stripe and fine breast streaks (hence not tawny), short tail and medium size and structure, not so massive like richard's.

If accepted this is the fourth Israeli record, and an Israeli tick for me. Unfortunately it was not relocated later on by a few birders who tried for it, but I will give it another try tomorrow morning.

While searching for the pipit I found also an Oriental Skylark, and up to 10 Zitting Cisticolas, that are good local birds.

Festival update - day 5 - Blyth's Pipit!

Yesterday I led the very-full-day Nizzana tour. We left Eilat very early and arrived at Nizzana in the early morning. We scored both MacQueen's Bustard and Cream-coloured Courser very easily, with terrific scope views for everyone at the 'theatre' - quite a few groups of birders were watching the same birds on the raised platform along the Nizzana -Ezuz road.
We continued to bird the area and saw much good stuff. We had a pretty hard time with sandgrouse though, as the birds don't come to the traditional drinking spots due to the heavy winter rains leaving puddles all over the desert. We saw a few tens of pin-tails, and heard spotted.
On the way out we had good views of 'lilith' Little Owl and this cracking male Rock Thrush:

We made several stops on our way south, and added some good species to our festival lists. A late afternoon stop at Hameishar hit the jackpot though. The place was very birdy, with huge numbers of wheatears and larks present. Just as we walked out of the car we flushed a Thick-billed Lark that flew north and never stopped. We had many good migrants there, including Quail, Bluethroats, Water Pipits, Bimaculated Larks and a single Lesser Short-toed Lark.
A small flock of wagtails included this pretty male Citrine Wagtail - a funny place to see it.


As you can see, I like this take-off shots:

On our way back to the vehicles we came across an interesting pipit. A first glance showed that it was either a Blyth's or Richard's. We had very close but very brief views of this skulker, side-on and front, and everything I could see fit well - small bill, pale lores, neatly streaked cap and mantle, shortish tail. When the bird flew it a perfect blyth's call: a yellow-wagtail like call, higher pitched and clearer than richard's, followed by two soft 'chup-chup's. The shortish tail was obvious in flight. We lost the bird as it crossed the road and out of site, and we had to leave to Eilat.

This is a mega in Israel, with three accepted records. I have to be cautious and call it a probable, as I did not photograph it, did not have perfect views and did not see all the fine details, such as median-coverts pattern, hind claw length, but I feel pretty good about this bird. I hope other birders manage to relocate it.