Spring bliss

This morning was one of those mornings that demonstrate best (to me at least) why I am a birder and how rewarding being a birder can be. I visited Mt. Amasa, at the southern tip of the Judean Mts. This is one of my favourite birding sites in March - the habitat is beautiful, the landscape is stunning, and birding is magnificent. The open, rocky slopes, now covered with flowers, attract juicy migrants, and support healthy populations of quality breeding species. For me, a mid-March visit to Mt. Amasa is really one of the highlights of my birding year in Israel. I know the sites there very well, and I could predict almost precisely what and where I would see. It made no difference - it was a beautiful morning, albeit a bit short (family stuff...).

I met up early with Barak (in the photo above), Avi & Ron. At first we checked around the ruins of Tel Krayot, then descended to the adjacent Wadi Tov. It was a bit cold early on but soon the sweet warm sun lit up some beautiful birds for us. Check out this handsome 2cy male Woodchat Shrike, likely a migrant (not quite in breeding habitat), glowing in the soft early morning light:

There were really nice numbers of Cretzschmar's Buntings, several flocks moving through and quite many hopping on the rocks. They do breed here but despite some males bursting into their sweet 'Si-si-seee' song, I think they were mostly migrants.

Male

Female

Using the ruins and boulders as breeding sites, there were good numbers of Rock Sparrow, Blue Rock-Thrush and Eastern Black-eared Wheatear, all seen in advanced breeding activity. Wait for it and turn your volume up:

Down by the wadi there were more Sylvia warblers in the scattered bushes, including Rueppell's, Eastern Orphean and Eastern Subalpine. I have seen brighter subalps before - still a very neat bird.

There were many redstarts about - lots of wintering Western Blacks still here, one cracking male Eastern Black (likely semirufa), and several Commons, including three male Ehrenberg's. Barak talking in the background:

Twas also fun watching several Wrynecks rockhopping. Always fascinating birds.

There were many common migrants around. I enjoyed that immensely. A few scarcities weren't seen this morning (Cinereous Bunting, Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrush) - next time hopefully. More images and videos in the eBird checklist here.

Mt. Hermon take 2

On Monday we (BirdLife Israel team) returned to Mt. Hermon to complete our fieldwork for the breeding bird atlas project. This time we worked in the higher elevations of the mountain. For this, we were granted special access from the military, but in the last moment we were stalled at the checkpoint for a precious hour. In the meanwhile, I didn't waste time and counted birds by the checkpoint (eBird checklist here). I played around a bit with some local breeding semirufus Black Redstarts by the lower cable station.

This is perhaps the first publicly available sound recording of semirufus:

Eventually we got the green light to climb up to the upper platform. As always, the scenery from up there is breathtaking.

I worked a route along the highest peaks, above 2200 m, together with Yuval Dax. The wind was blowing very hard, which reduced bird activity considerably. However, with joint hard work, we managed to see and document breeding activity of a lovely variety of Mt. Hermon specialties: Asian Crimson-winged Finch, White-throated Robin, Upcher's Warbler, Horned Lark, Syrian Serin, Spectacled Warbler, many Pale Rockfinches, not bad at all... No photos though - the birds kept very low and it was difficult to photograph hardly anything with the strong wind. eBird checklist here. A dark Eleonora's Falcon that flew over catching dragonflies (?) was very cool:

Yuval worked more slowly behind me, and found and confirmed breeding of Mourning Wheatear - first time we find them breeding on Mt. Hermon. Bugger. I first saw one bird zoom across my path, but it disappeared behind the ridge and I couldn't confirm it. Luckily Yuval was there.

It is impossible to ignore butterflies on Mt. Hermon, especially when the dominant species are found nowhere else in Israel. I didn't carry the appropriate camera gear for butterfly photography, so forgive me for these shit photos.

Hercules Hairstreak is common in mid-elevations:

Flowering Onocbrychis cornuta bushes attracted many butterflies despite the wind. Thanks Avner for the photo: 

Nicholl Blue was the commonest butterfly:

The only Clouded Apollo I managed to photograph was lying on its back... Interestingly, when I tried to pick it up it flew off strongly:

Out of several fritillary species flying up there I managed somehow to photograph only Niobe Fritillary:

A TV crew from Kan11 (national TV) joined us for part of the morning. Their piece is online, but I think it is not available outside of Israel.

Jonathan

Yuval

Me

Mourning Wheatear by Yuval

Conservation birding

Today I went south to spend the day with our NPA partners. We met to discuss the promotion of four new protected areas in the Arava and southern Negev, that are extremely important and sensitive for ground-breeding birds. Data from the big atlas projects I coordinated in the Arava and Negev provided the infrastructure for this process. Hopefully after today we will be able to move things forward through the national planning system a bit faster.

So the day included mainly driving from hotspot to hotspot. All hotspots were in fact very cold (low temperatures and few birds) and we really didn't have any time for proper birding, but along the way we did collect some species. 

Early in the morning near wadi Hayun we had an outstanding number of Spotted Sandgrouse - 310! They were in several flocks all flying east. Here are 40 out of them:

Bumped into quite many Hooded Wheatears today, singles almost in every site we stopped at. 

Hooded Wheatear, female

We had also 25 Temminck's Larks, and one Asian Desert Warbler at KM76: 

On the way back stopped to have a look at the lovely 'Turkish' Black Redstart I had ringed last year at Mitzpe Ramon. Looks pretty similar, with the same white feathers on left cheek:

Thanks to Roy, Ohad, Shay, Ella and Yaeli for a great day out.

Super nana-tural

Haha I'm so funny. Had a fantastic day at Hameishar Plains in the S Negev. This site is really one of my favorites in Israel. Rainfall a month ago led to nice germination of annuals - lots of birds there. Unbelievably, the commonest species was Asian Desert Warbler. We set some nets up and ringed no less than 11 individuals!!! In the field I estimated about 20 birds. This is by far the highest number in Israel ever, and the densest concentration. It's a scarce but regular winter visitor, and Hameishar is probably the best place in Israel to see them, but I have never seen anything like this before. The interaction between Desert Wheatear and Desert Warbler is well known, but this morning every wheatear was followed by a group of three warblers...

They are such great little birds. Those yellow eyes are hypnotizing. And the tail pattern - ahhh... We had two adults and the rest were 1cy's - took us a few birds to sync their ageing out. Note the difference in tertials, rectrices and PC.

Asian Desert Warbler - 2cy+

Asian Desert Warbler - 1cy

We also had three Spectacled Warblers - all males, including this stonking adult:

Spectacled Warbler - 2cy+ male

We did quite well with wheatears - three species:

Desert Wheatear - 1cy male

Mourning Wheatear - 2cy+

Northern Wheatears are very rare in Israel in winter. We had two birds, one of which we ringed:

Northern Wheatear - 1cy female

Scrub Warblers are real sweeties. Surely the Middle-Eastern birds must be split from the NW African population?

'Arabian' Scrub Warbler (Scotocerca i. inquieata)

I was pretty busy ringing all morning, but had a chance to lift my head up from the table and see some birds in the field too. Lots of Spotted and Crowned Sandgrouse flying around. Larks showed well - Temminck's, Bar-tailed, Lesser Short-toed and one Oriental Skylark. Some Tawny Pipits. I even managed to get some half-decent field images of Asian Desert Warbler:

On the way back home we paid the Turkish Black Redstart at Mitzpe Ramon a visit. Now it has a shiny ring on, so we can know if it returns next year. What a superb bird.

'Turkish' Black Redstart (Phoenicurus o. ochruros)

Many thanks to Yosef, Rafi and Meidad for this morning to remember.

Yosef

Pre-Festival weekend

Spent yesterday and today with two of our VIP guests at the Hula Festival - Martin garner and Trsitan Reid. We had a great time together (at least I did). Yesterday we checked some potential vagrant sites in the Negev Mts. - Mitzpe Ramon, Nafha, Nizzana ponds, but the potential never materialized. Migrants were very thin on the ground, and we found almost nothing unusual. The only good bird was this ochrorus Black Redstart, (probably) back to its wintering site for the third consecutive year, at the carpark near the Mitzpe Ramon roundabout. This bird has quite a bit of white on the wing. Good looking bird.

So to keep ourselves entertained we searched for some desert birds and Tris had lots of fun with these species.

Inked Naturalist and Frontier Birder getting excited

all about common species like this Mourning Wheatear:

Today we did some gulling at Ashdod early in the morning. It was very good and educting. Light was shit so didn't take any images. Saw the usual suspects - fuscus, heuglini, armenicus, cachinnans, michahelis and barabensis. I had to take off early for some family stuff, so left The Guys in the good hands of Amir Ben Dov. Thanks Amir.

Tomorrow we're off to the Hula Festival. I am really looking forward to this week. I have a full program, that will take me to the best birding sites of northern Israel. Hope to see a crane or two. Stay tuned for daily updates here.

Some images from Festival 2011:

Moustached Warbler

Dark-morph Marsh Harrier

A crane or two