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Today was one of those days in which I consider myself lucky. Ahead of a late morning meeting in Kfar Ruppin, I had time to go birding with my boss Dan. We left very early and arrived to the lower reservoirs at dawn. In a similar experience to our Global Big Day, the sensation of huge numbers of big birds going in all directions was fantastic. Pelicans, Black Storks, herons and egrets, Black Kites, eagles, Spoonbills, gulls and terns, shorebirds, ducks - hundreds of birds up in the air at any moment.

Black Storks and Great White Pelicans

Black Storks

Great White Pelican

Greater Spotted Eagle - 1cy

We stayed there for just under two hours, that were super productive. We managed to see 99 species (eBird checklist here) - not bad I reckon. To have so many species just at that one site is outstanding. There were some highlights to be had too. A young Daurian Shrike showed very well, though it didn't pose perfectly. We birded on foot, which means that photo opps were lesser.

Common Wood-Pigeon is rather scarce on migration, so it was nice to have one perched early on:

Many Dead Sea Sparrows foraged in the bushes, but were typically skittish:

I still remember the days when Citrine Wagtail was a proper rarity. This morning we had 12 just in one small pond.

Other goodies included two early Pallas's Gulls, Moustached Warbler, Caspian Stonechat and Jack Snipe.

Back in the kibbutz, a late Levant Sparrowhawk flew over, and three Hawfinch too.

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.

Champions of the Flyway day 2 - Turkestan Shrike!

Headed out early with Tom and Dan to Yotvata. Weather was quite pleasant to start with. Birding was pleasant too, with fair number of 'ground' birds (larks, pipits and wagtails), several harriers cruising over the fields, and relative highlights that didn't show well in the form of Richard's Pipit, Lesser Short-toed Lark and Sibe Stonechat. Then the weather started to deteriorate rapidly. Southerlies picked up quick, and a horrible sand storm began. Just as we were about to leave the area because it became unbearable, we bumped into a - 'Hey - Turkestan Shrike!' I exclaimed first... We were as surprised as the shrike with this encounter from 5 meters - by the time Tommy and I picked our cameras up it shot off. After a tense minute of searching we found it sheltering from the storm in a bush. We secured some shots and backed off; a minute later the shrike literally blew with the wind and we thought it was gone - luckily it was relocated not far away and twitched by many. In the afternoon it showed pretty well - see Shimon Shiff's awesome photos with SX50 on Facebook. Great stuff!

Blowing a hooley as they call it in Norfolk

Desert Finch

Spanish Sparrows

We escaped from the sand storm towards Eilat, and found shelter at IBRCE. We had a short and sweet walk there with 8 Red-necked Phals, 2 Citrine Wags and an interesting cormorant, that I can't see why it's not lucidus - more on it to follow.

Red-necked Phalaropes

Citrine Wagtail

It's spring, he shouts, it's spring!

Putative White-breasted Cormorant

In the afternoon I drove around with Jonathan. The wind switched to northerly but was still blowing like hell. To be honest, there were very few migrants around. A quick circuit of the southern KM20 pond didn't produce much. 3 Collared Pratincoles were almost exciting. Too many birders there so we left.

North Beach was better with Long-tailed Jaeger, and first Common Terns of the season.

In the evening another inspiring event - this time the official opening event at IBRCE (thanks for hosting!). Great spirit and enthusiasm - proud to be part of this global community.

Two days too late

I arrived for a short family visit in Israel yesterday afternoon. This morning, completely knackered after yesterday exhausting day of travel, I did the obvious thing - I went in the early morning to Ma'agan Michael to see the putative Asian House Martin - potentially the first for WP. Since it was found by Barak, it remained extremely faithful to a very small area. I met up there with some friends and together we spent several hours searching for the martin amongst the thousand or so Barn Swallows. The only white-rumped birds we saw were two Little Swifts. The martin must have made a move - it was not seen yesterday either; last seen on December 27th.
Luckily for me, I enjoyed birding so much this morning. It is so great to be in Israel. Sooooooooo many birds. And the weather was lovely. I shot today using 3-digit ISO today! I have almost forgotten how to shoot in sunlight. And company was great too. I birded in a small area for about 2.5 hours, not really hard - we were mainly looking at hirundines, so all other stuff was picked up randomly. I had 82 species (and 1 additional taxa...). Highlights were 8 Ruddy Shelducks, some Citrine Wagtails, what I think is possibly a Steppe Gull (need to do some more homework on it) and some Pallas's Gulls, and on the way back home had two Black-winged Kites along route 6. How I missed this kind of birding.

Black Storks - just because they're so pretty

Super-tame Black-necked Grebe

This is the possible Steppe Gull. Almost cachinnans-like in structure. This neck streaking is typical. Dark bluish mantle. Medium sized bill with good gonys.

This flight shot is overexposed. P10 and P9 black all the way to PC. Black on P4, but pattern on P5 excludes YLG.

6 Pallas's Gulls and one Armenian

Marsh Sandpipers and Spotted Redshank

Thistle Mantis (Blepharopsis mendica) 

This is probably my last post of 2016. I had hoped to end the year with a bang, but hey - all part of the game. If the martin reappears while I'm here in the next week I will give it another try.

Goodbye Israel

Today was my last full day in Israel before leaving to the UK tomorrow. Left early and went for a sentimental farewell birding session at Ashdod. Short seawatch was quite unproductive - only some Garganey migrating over the sea and some gulls, so I moved on to the ponds, that were pretty birdy. Good autumn variety in the scrub around the ponds. Lots of shrikes of four species (Red-backed, Woodchat, Masked and Lesser Grey):

Lesser Grey Shrike

Red-backed Shrikes 

My 500 mm lens is waiting for me in the UK, so I am shooting with my old 400 mm, feels so 80's. I miss my 500 baby.

Big numbers of shorebirds (mainly Ringed Plovers and Little Stints) but low diversity. Only birds worth noting were two Temminck's Stints.

Many Yellow Wags and Willow Warblers in the grass-covered ponds. A couple of Citrine Wagtails were nice, and some Marsh Warblers too.

Citrine Wagtail, 1cy female - too close - 3.6 m.

Flused by Common Snipe 

Black-headed Yellow Wagtail, 1cy female

Only two Yellow-legged Gulls present. This bird is quite unfortunate:

Goodbye my ponds

Champions of the Flyway - scouting day

Today was a really great day. Met up with all the teams who came over for the Champions of the Flyway bird race next week. Lots of old friends and lots of new ones - we had much fun and enjoyed good birding. For us leaders (Jonathan and myself) it was a tough day because our main target for today was scouting - showing the sites, talking about key species and best startegies. We had planned to make it up to Sde Boker but never made it up there because at every site we stopped there were so many good birds that the teams refused to return to the bus.

We started off at North Beach with Brown Booby, Striated Heron and Western Reef Egret. Then we checked KM20 saltpans that were packed with birds - many shorebrds including five Red-necked Phals, Citrine Wagtail, Namaqua Dove, Blue-cheeked Bee-eater etc. After breakfast we headed up to Yotvata fields. The Caspian Plover didn't show but lots of other stuff. Then up to Neot Smadar - the Pied Bushcaht was still there, plus we had a Richard's Pipit.

Pied Bushchat

Then a midday visit to Uvda Valley was more productive than I expected with six Crowned Sandgrouse, and many wheatears and some Tawny Pipits.  Lunch stop at Yahel - lots of migrants in the garden there including Wryneck. 

Spur-winged Lapwing - a bird I rarely photograph

An afternoon visit to Wadi Ya'alon was great fun - it was hopping with migrants: six Sylvia species including about six rueppells, Masked Shrikes, bluethroat atc. 

On the way back stopped quickly at Yotvata sewage that was packed with migrants as well. Lots of pipits and wagtails (including at least four citrines), shorebirds, Little Crake and just before leaving I found what was for me bird of the day - this very striking looking White Wagtail: very striking wing pattern with extensive white GC, MC and tertials, darker grey mantle than other albas, and grey flanks and breast sides. I don't know much about White Wagtail taxa, but from what I could find on the web this bird might fit eastern forms persica and dukhunensis. More on this to come.

Putative Siberian / Persian Wagtail Motacilla alba dukhunensis / persica

Watching the wagtail at Yotvata