A mega-lek and my daily lifer

This morning I worked with the huge lek near La Albuera in W Badajoz. It was really impressive with over 83 males and 117 females in one area. Very active display today, due to the warm sunny wether. Breeding is speeding up and I saw first copulations today.

The landscape is very aesthetic but very intensively cultivated, and there is a risk for the future of this sub-population with increasing intensification.

More Little Bustards this morning, including some nice display flights. Still don't have a good photo on the deck, but my flight shots are improving...

These two males chased each other for about an hour, often flying very high up. Both whizzed and whistled with their unique wingtip structure (see P7), very interesting behaviour (for me).

This is how it sounds like:

A good number of monties were around - a loose colony is breeding there:

FF - we were both surprised by each other:

Then I drove to Portugal via Villanueva del Fresno. Found this road-killed Beech Marten (Martes foina) close to the border:

Arrived in Castro Verde in the afternoon and had time for a first look around. Driving in I saw a pair of Spanish Imperial Eagles but again they were too distant. More Great and Little Bustards, Black-bellied Sandgrouse, Montagu's Harriers, Lesser Kestrels... I must admit that non-diverse steppe community is almost starting to bore...  Especially as there are virtually no migrants present on the steppes.

I walked a round in a nice patch of wet Montado (Dehesa) with good riparian habitat, and it actually held a few migrants. Highlights were a Western Bonelli's Warbler (lifer...), Nightingale, Redstart, a few Blackcaps and a Kingfisher.

Crag Martin

  

Great Spotted Cuckoo 

Eagle food (Red-legged Partridge)

Hermon breeding survey - so here all the migrants are

Long distance driving, cross country birding - two ways to describe my life lately. On Saturday evening I returned from Eilat, and Sunday 02:00 left home towards Mt. Hermon.

Yesterday was day one of the first session of the breeding atlas of Mt. Hermon. We're repeating last years' efforts - I'm sure we will find many differences, mainly because there was virtually no winter snow on the mountain, and plant productivity began very early this year. It seems that birds responded the same and started breeding early as well.

So yesterday I worked with Roei on the steep slope above Majdal Shams, that was very productive last year. Immediately after walking out of the pickup we started hearing tons of migrants - this was really overwhelming, especially after the migrant-less days I had at Eilat. Every tree was dripping with Blackcaps, and there are many trees there. Out of every bush several Thrush Nightingales were calling - I must have had about 150 during the whole morning - almost Ngulia standards! Other species seen in good numbers were about 20 Barred and 30 Willow Warblers.

Not only migrants, also breeding birds performed well - we found almost everything we had expected, and there was good breeding activity of most species. Roei refound the Finsch's Wheatear we had found breeding last year which is great. We had two singing Upcher's Warblers, six breeding pairs of Western Rock Nuthatch, several breeding Creztschmar's Buntings, many breeding Eastern Black-eared Wheatears, some families of Sombre Tit, many next-building Syrian Serins, incuding some inside the village, a pair of Crag Martins - really good and typical Mt. Hermon variety.

Western Rock Nuthatch

 Thrish Nightingale - one of many

Eremostachys laciniata - impressive 1 m tall flower - couldn't find out what the English name is

Hermon day 1 - boom - Mountain Chiffchaffs!?!?

Day 1 of Hermon breeding survey began with quite a mess. Early in the morning I dropped off Noam and his fantastic kids at their box, and continued to my adjacent box. I descended a steep mountain with my 4X4 down a horrible track, that just became worse and worse, until it eventually disappeared. I had to reverse back up over some very challenging obstacles, until I could U-turn, which took me about 15 minutes. Then another 15 minutes to climp a steep step, and in the process ripped a tire, that we had to change in tough conditions. So the first hour was from hell. Eventually managed to drive towards my box, when it was already very late - hot and windy. We met up with Noam, and he told me "I've just heard a funny chiffchaff...". I stopped and quickly heard the bird too, and immediately my alarm bells went off - sounds like a Mountain Chiffchaff, a song I remembered from xeno-canto! We all started obtaining some views, then photos and recordings. The bird was very mobile and elusive. It was very hard to see but eventually we got very brief but OK views. The bird was striking brown, with no apparent green fringes to secondaries; nice whitish supercilium; whitish throat with some buff wash on breast sides. In the image below the sun was direct but in the field the bill and legs looked solid black. The mantle and rump were rather rich brown. Also the cap.

the song was to my ears different from typical collybita, with a more energetic tempo and winding quality:

The bird responded well to Mountain Chiffchaff playback, and didn't respond to 'normal' Chiffchaff playback.

Thanks to Zohar, Noam's son for this great image - much better than I managed to get: 

After spending about an hour trying to photograph the bird without success, I left Noam and continued to my box. Amazingly, Noam had another three singing bird nearby, and later on I had another about a kilometer away. All birds singing males; at least the male we were able to see performed territorial behavious, including chasing away other (much larger) birds. Incredible.

I am sure that these birds will stir a good ID discussion. Mountain (AKA caucasian) Chiffchaff is extremely rare in Israel, with only two previous records. Which is quite surprising given how close to Israel they breed. Anyway, if these birds are confirmed as Mountain Chiffchaff, this is quite sensational. So guys, bring your comments on! Learning time.

When I eventually began working my box with Dudu, we saw quite many birds. The scenery was quite spectacular, everything still flowering and fresh, so different from around my house where it really feels like summer already. Most dominant were Lesser Whitehtorats and Sombre Tits. Other quality birds were Upcher's Warbler,  a breeding pair of Steppe Buzzards, and a pair of Crag Martins.  Some raptors went overhead, including some levants.

Levante Fan-fingered Gecko Ptyodactylus puiseuxi

 Red-backed Shrike - they breed here

 Levant Sparrowhawk

Looking forward to tomorrow!

Not Alaemon, Irania!

This morning I surveyed with Meidad my favorite wadi of the central Arava. This site was very productive during previous years when I did my atlas survey there - see some examples here and here. We left home rediculously early and arrived on site at first light. First it was pretty cold and we saw nothing. Then it warmed up a bit and we still saw nothing. Then it got pretty hot and we still saw nothing. Eventually I heard a distant Hoopoe Lark singing, and had a pair of Bar-tailed Larks, plus some migrants, but that was it more or less. Very disappointing. I don't know exactly what the reason was for this poor show. Again it was a very dry winter there, with no germination of annuals at all in spring, thus this breeding season must have been very poor. However I was expecting a bit more. Maybe it was just one of these days that birds don't want to play.

We left the remote wadi in mid morning and started heading back home, both of us totally knackered both physically and mentally. We phoned Barak & Oz who were birding nearby at Neot Smadar. In an amazing act of prophecy, I asked Barak to find an Irania within the next few minutes before we reached a junction leading us away from Neot Smadar. Six minutes later - text from Barak: "Irania. too late?". I made a U-turn and we headed south to Neot Smadar. We got onto the bird quite quickly - it was a lifer for Meidad and a good bird neverthless. Perhaps not as exciting as in Hartlepool but still a great bird to see - large and charismatic with that big black tail. This species breeds in very small numbers on Mt. Hermon, but is always more exciting to watch as a rare migrant in the south. Many thanks to Barak & Oz for the quick info and directions.

White-throated Robin - female

The place was packed full with birds: during the ten minutes we were there we saw many B&W flycatchers, nightingales, buntings, shrikes, pipits and of course millions of Blackcaps. Several Crag Martins worth noting. Good passage of Honey Buzzards and levants overhead. But I was dead tired so we gave up on birding and made the long way back home.

More larks in the Arava

This more I checked an atlas box adjacent to the Dunn's Lark site from Saturday. I dropped Hadoram Shirihai at first light at that site for some sound recording of their amazing song, and I went off to my box.
My box was pretty good too, with three singing Dunn's Larks, one singing Hoopoe Lark, and three singing Bar-tailed Larks. All females were absent - I guess they are on eggs at the moment.

Bar-tailed Lark

There were quite a few Spotted Sandgrouse feeding on the stony plains there:

Also one Crowned Sandgrouse flew over, and I had three displaying CCC's. Of the migrants the only bird of note was a group of three Crag Martins.