Falcon-fest

 Over the last few weeks, a spectacular concentration of Eleonora's Falcons and other falcons has been discovered on Mt. Meron. First noted by Ohad Binyamini on June 17th (during a butterfly walk), it was soon established that the falcons are there to stay (for the time being), and that their numbers are unprecedented in Israel. Eleonora's Falcon is rare in Israel, despite breeding so close in the Mediterranean, in Cyprus for example. In recent years, small numbers were recorded in the northern Golan Heights and Mt. Hermon, but never more than 3-4 together. This year something special was discovered.

At 1208 m asl, Mt. Meron is the second highest mountain in Israel, beautifully forested in thick, evergreen Mediterranean scrub. The unprecedented numbers of Eleonora's reported there in recent days, up to tens together, lured me to go there yesterday. I left early, met up with Jonathan, and we arrived to the mountain when it was still cool - 17 degrees! 31.5 less than what I had experienced in Eilat a few days earlier. The mountain was coated by a thick cloud, the cicadas were still inactive, and as a result early morning falcon activity was very low. However, when the sun finally came out, many falcons started zooming around us, feasting on flying cicadas. Quite fantastic. First ones and twos, then threes and fours, then wonderful sights of 15-20 together. Unfortunately, the most impressive views were distant and in harsh light, so my photos aren't the best, but I can't complain. They are such impressive falcons - powerful, fast, amazing aerobatics, so beautiful. Most birds I saw well were 2cy (hatched 2020). Only one or two dark morphs were seen, and not very well. Hard to estimate the total numbers, must be several tens.

Dive!

Catch that cicada!

Dark morph

Tricky individual (approaching Hobby), slim build, lightly-streaked underneath, but still dark trailing edge, buff cheeks and pale cap, some rufous on flanks.

So what's the story this year on Mt. Meron? Is it really something novel, new? Or is this an annual event, that went unnoticed up till now? I heard rumours that the cicada flight this year is unusual, but have not seen data. In Israel, major phenomena can still go under the radar, due to the lack of observers in some parts of the country. So let's wait until next year to figure this out.

With the Eleonora's there were at least six Hobby, a few Lesser Kestrels and many Eurasian Kestrels. No sign on the Sooty Falcon seen here in previous dats. 

3 European Honey-Buzzards were seen, also an interesting phenomenon this year. They do not spend the summer here! To my eyes, most surprising and impressive was a displaying male European Honey-Buzzard - never seen this before in Israel. Too distant for photos. So beautiful however, gliding with raised wings flapping rapidly. There are no known breeding records in Israel. Could they be breeding in the region?

General birding was not too exciting, quite many Eastern Bonelli's Warblers, one Chiffchaff (local breeder or dispersing from Mt. Hermon?), and a few other bits and bobs (eBird checklists here and here).

Mt. Meron is famous for its butterflies too. It was quite difficult for me to divide my attention between the falcons and the butterflies. Still I managed to find Levantine Silverline that I really wanted to see (thanks Nitay for the intel), and photographed a few others. Levantine Silverline is one of the rarest butterflies in Israel, found only on Mt. Meron and in another relict population near Hadera on the Med Coast. Like other Apharitis/Cigaritis butterflies, they have an extraordinary life history linking them with ants: Adults lay their eggs on ant trails. Ants carry the eggs into their underground nests, nurture the caterpillars and collect honeydew that the caterpillars secrete. When the caterpillars turn to cocoons, the ants carry them to the nest entrance. When the adults emerge, they crawl out of the ant nest and into the open. Fascinating.

Levantine Silverline

Tawny Silverline

Southern White Admiral

Small Copper

Holly Blue

Freyer's Grayling

Brown Argus

Wall Brown

Thanks to Jonathan, Nadav and Inbal for a great morning!

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

Quality timing

A few more days of birding produced some pretty good stuff. Yesterday, while I was heading towards our main offices in Tel Aviv for meetings, Yuval Dax alerted of a Great Snipe he had just ringed. Luckily, it was a short detour for me, so I was on site very quickly to see the bird before release. Top class bird - I have been trying to find one in recent weeks without success. Well done to Yuval and thanks for letting me and Jonathan join in and enjoy the bird.

This morning I did more fieldwork in batha habitat north of Jerusalem. Weather was unstable and overcast, and bird activity was pretty low - birds were very quiet and kept a low profile. Still I managed to find breeding proof of most priority breeding species (Long-billed Pipit, Spectacled Warbler, Cretzschmar's Bunting), saw both Rock Sparrows, and a mobile Upcher's Warbler that was clearly a migrant. I did not photograph a single bird this morning, did a bit better with common butterflies:

Levantine Marbled White - male, super abundant

Clouded Yellow

On the way out I was surprised by a large, dark falcon flying low over the road. I pulled over dangerously, got the bins and camera out - dark morph Eleonora's Falcon! I was really excited - not so rare in Israel, especially now, but this was the first individual I photographed. Light conditions were horrible, sadly...

3cy (?) dark morph Eleonora's Falcon

After a couple of flybys it headed north - unbelievably (for me) I managed to get a sharpish photo of it a mile away:

On the way home I made a quick midday stop at the JBO, which was actually whopping with birds (eBird checklist here), possibly due to the weather change. I was there just after the morning ringing session had ended, so unsurprisingly many of the birds present were ringed. Up till now it's been an awful season for Olive-tree Warbler in Israel. While an average early May visit to JBO should produce double figures, this year only two were ringed so far. Yet I managed to see one - an important year tick... Sadly I forgot to change camera settings after my Eleonora's encounter, so most images I took came out useless. Only few I managed to salvage.

Barred Warbler

Common Nightingale

Thrush Nightingale

Good to meet up with Avner and Shlomi.

Knot a bad day

What a lousy pun...
Anyway, spent the morning with Jon Olav Larsen, a Norwegian birder and reporter. We left Tel Aviv early and made our way directly to the Ma'agan Michael beach. Quite many birds on the beach, with the best bird being this 1cy Red Knot. This bird has been present since Friday at least. It was showing pretty well.

We met Liri on the beach and he joined us for the rest of the morning. Other quality species on the beach were one Oystercrapper, 1 Eurasian Curlew, and 1 Gull-billed Tern. There were good numbers of plovers roosting on the beach, including 13 Grey Plovers and about 40 Greater Sandplovers.

Greater Sandplover

About 30 Sanderlings were present, most were juveniles but some adults haven't completed their moult yet:

We had a nice take-off of about 1000 White Pelicans:

Pied Kingfishers are always photogenic:

Many Marsh Harriers kept spooking all the birds:

At one point during the morning I expressed my will to see an Eleonora's Falcon, and indeed 10 seconds later Liri spotted a falcon flying over the sea! It approached us while chasing after passerines migrating over the sea, and we identified it as a dark-morph Eleonora's! Cool bird!

Other good birds this morning included 7-8 Citrine Wagtails, 1 Spotted Redshank and 1 Eurasian Cuckoo.