Cross-country

Since my recent post I have been out and about quite a bit. I have not seen anything too special, but a few photos and stories accumulated, qualifying for a new cross-country post.

Last week I visited the wonderful Gazelle Valley in Jerusalem with Piki. It really is a special wildlife haven in the middle of the city. The opportunities to photograph Ferruginous Duck are unparalleled. Their babies make the cutest bath ducks.

Little Grebe and Moorhen are trash common, but it's fun to get up close and intimate with them.

Note the dragonfly nymph skin on the left

There were some photo-opps for scarcer species too. This male Little Bittern paused in front of the hide for a few seconds:

Jerusalem is probably Olive-Tree Warbler capital of the world, and Gazelle Valley is an excellent place to see them. 

Gazelle Valley eBird checklist here.

Fast forward a few days, I visited Mt. Hermon for the first time this year. This year we're doing an elaborate breeding bird survey there, repeating an effort from 2013/14. When I worked there on Friday, again with Piki, it was very hot already early in the morning. The view looking down towards the Hula Valley is always breathtaking.

Birding was a bit hard going - bird activity was somewhat low, perhaps because of the heat. Yet, there were many family parties of Western Rock Nuthatch and Sombre Tit, Syrian Serins were active too, and we had a Finsch's Wheatear - the only site in Israel where they breed. In fact, Finsch's Wheatear may be the breeding bird in Israel with the smallest population size - 1-2 pairs... It was a tough day for photography too, and I don't have any good bird photos at all from that morning. Just this OK sound recording of an angry bird:

And a Wall Brown that posed momentarily:

eBird checklist here.

On Saturday, near home, I found an exceptional concentration of Black-winged Kites in a vole-infested field. I have never seen so many together before. At one point I counted 42 around me. Amazing!

16 in this photo - can you see them all?

Most were recently-fledged juveniles:

Some Lesser Kestrels were carrying food back to a nearby breeding colony:

Yesterday I had the rare opportunity to visit a remote oasis in the eastern Negev, made of two springs, Ein Aqrabim and Ein Tzin. This is a beautiful oasis, sadly contaminated by industry upstream.

 Yet, there is water running there, and wildlife responds to that. While bird activity wasn't amazing (eBird checklists here and here), there was evidence (mainly footprints) of intensive mammal activity, including Hyena, Wolf, Fox, Wildcat, Wild Ass, Dorcas Gazelle, Nubian Ibex and Porcupine. I am not sure why there were few birds there. By the swarms of mosquitoes that destroyed us it can be assumed that there's no food shortage. There were last few migrants present, including this exhausted Garden Warbler:

Spotted Flycatcher

Desert Bluetail (Ischnura evansi) - female and male in the background, thanks Re'a

Local stuff

In recent days I had no time for long-distance birding and stayed local. Saturday morning I checked the reservoirs and alfalfa fields of Tzor'a - Tal Shachar. That was OK, without highlights and very few migrants, but some local stuff was certainly on the move.

Black-winged Stilts flew through

European Bee-eaters congregate now post-breeding, before heading off on migration:

A flock of nine Ferruginous Ducks suddenly flew in and circled over the reservoir; some of them looking juvenile, locally produced

Tal Shachar eBird checklist here, and Tsor'a here.

Back to moffing... Something I haven't done for quite a while. All windows in our house are sealed off with mosquito nets, so few moths enter the house. However, today I was working from home, and my son well-spotted two moths inside the house:

Golden Twin-spot Moth

Vestal (thanks James)

In the late afternoon I got a surprising call that an Eagle owl was sat on a roof in my town and looks unwell. When I got there, the poor but stunning bird was indeed sat on a ledge about 7 m off the ground, being mobbed heavily by the local gang - crows and jays. It did look unwell, to my best judgement - it chose an unusual roost, it did not fly off when many people were standing right below it, one eye was shut, and it clutched its feet awkwardly. 

I decided to climb on top of the roof to catch it and take it into care, but a soon as I started climbing it took off and flew away strongly towards the fields. End of story.

Summer minimalism

While my head and hard-drive are still buzzing with sights and sounds of Central Asia, back here in Israel reality has been very different. Since I returned I have been absorbed into a super-intensive family situation, that limits my birding to almost zero.
I am still taking part in eBird's Checklist-a-day Challenge. Today is my 176th day in a row of submitting eBird checklists. I know that according to eBird's rules it doesn't need to be every day, a daily average of checklist-per-day is sufficient, but I am challenging myself to have a meaningful birding experience every day. Kind of Bird Therapy.

It is a real challenge to keep birding every day off season. Thankfully, my dog still takes me out for walks very early in the morning to my local patch. It is rather quiet there, and very static, so I need to focus on tiny diversions from the norm. And I appreciate the relative quality of daily average (check this morning's checklist here for example). One day I had an Alpine Swift mixed with my local Common Swifts. Another day a Great Spotted Cuckoo flew over. A late Sedge Warbler was present a few days ago. Little joys. I also invested some effort in finding breeding proof for all local breeding species. For example, nice to see young of the only pair of House Martin in my town now fledged. All in all, this is a tough challenge but early autumn migration is right around the corner - can't wait to see my first Common Kingfisher back!

Whenever I get the chance, I up my birding a bit to some very local sites, where I can bird first thing and return home early. Yesterday I checked Tzor'a - Tal Shahar. Weather was pleasant early on, and there were some birds to be seen. I searched very hard for Rufous-tailed Scrub Robins at a few sites that used to hold them and still look very good, but failed. This species has crashed quite dramatically as a breeding bird in central Israel, and is found in good densities mainly along the Rift valley and in the south. So I had to make do with other fine local breeding birds - Eastern Olivaceous and Clamorous Reed Warblers, large colony of Spanish Sparrows on a huge Ziziphus tree, locally-produced Black-winged Kite, fresh juvenile Woodchat Shrike, many Little Grebe families - not too bad I guess.

Woodchat Shrike

Asian Black-winged Kite made in 2019

Spanish Sparrows

 Little and tiny Grebes

The reservoirs also held a few herons, a couple of Ferruginous Ducks (including this wing-injured male) and a straggler Common Pochard. Here are my eBird checklists for Tal Shahar and Tsor'a Peli reservoir.

Eventually I turned down to look at what most birders do in summer - butterflies. This wee Lesser Fiery Copper was sweet though.

Birding Tel Aviv

Yesterday was my birthday, and I kept my tradition of not seeing any good birds. Only birding I did was while my son was in a club I checked a nearby park where Monk Parakeets breed - first, stunning photos I take of this recent invasive colonist. If I stayed in the UK I'd have a fantastic day with Brown Shrike and Stejneger's Stonechat, but I'm here in Israel, doing Monk Parakeets.

This morning I left early and birded Hatzuk beach, at the northern edge of Tel Aviv. It's a rather large patch of scrub-covered coastal sand-dunes. At the moment it's still attractive as a migrant hotspot; sadly in the future it will all get built up. In the early morning nice numbers of pipits and wagtails headed south, and few finches, including one Siskin. Huge numbers of Spanish Sparrows were moving through:

And large numbers were on the ground too, here with a Palestine Sunbird:

Some quality came in the form of 3 Richard's Pipits and a Citrine Wagtail moving south. A surprise Namaqua Dove headed south too, though it seems that recently they have started to colonise the greater Tel Aviv region too.

The most prominent migrants on the ground were Stonechats - I estimated 110 during my walk this morning. They were everywhere! Fighting on every thistle, chasing each other - quite lovely.

Among them there were a few Sibe Stonechats - 3 males that were Caspian, and a rather rich-toned female. Tried to turn it into a Stejneger's, without success.

Caspian Stonechat

Female Siberian Stonechat of some sort

I tried hard also to turn one of the Red-backed Shrikes into a brown, no luck there either.

There was a steady trickle of Eurasian Sparrowhawks heading south, I counted 12.

A Peregrine and a young Hobby were knocking about over the area.

Eurasian Hobby, 1cy

All in all it was an enjoyable morning. No rarities, and finch numbers need to increase towards November, but it was good to see so many birds in an urban setting. My full eBird checklist is here. This is my walking route, as recorded by eBird app:

On the way back home I checked Ayalon sewage treatment plant, which was packed with Shoveler and Teal, 42 Fudge Ducks and 2 White-headed Ducks. eBird checklist here.

Birding Barbara

Had a great day in N Norfolk with James, Terry and Marie. Our main focus was geese - the large pinkfeet flocks attracted some quality geese over the last few days. We set an aim to see 14 goose taxa today but ended up with only eight... We started early around Syderstone and Docking. Scanning our own flocks produced little more than a few Tundra Beans, some Euro Whitefronts, a wild-looking Greylag, and a couple of funny hybrids. But hey, we didn't get bogged which was an achievement. As normal in these conditions, birds are distant and the best one can expect is crap digiscoped record shots. 

After some time others relocated the Red-breasted and the Todd's Canada side by side, north of Docking (thanks Ben for gen). We headed over there and the birds were on show. A mile away but scope views were good. Photos were, ehmmm... But great to see these two quality birds in the same scope view. This is my first 'wild' Canada Goose in the WP, and only my second-ever Red-breast. By the attention it receives from local birders, it should be 'wild' too. 

The Beauty and the Beast: Red-breasted Goose and Todd's Canada Goose, with Pink-footed Geese

Digiscoped through Swarovski ATX95 with Samsung Galaxy S5 and Novagrade adapter

Non-plastic Greylag? Who knows

Funny pigment-challenged (thanks Dave!) Pink-footed Goose. When I first saw its head, I thought it was a Lesser Whitefront. It clearly isn't. Sorry about the quality - a very long way away.

According to part of our team, the day's highlight was a brilliant breakfast at a secret N Norfolk spot:

While we had a quiet and cosy breakfast, outside things were happening. We moved on to Titchwell for some quality seaducks. When we got there, Storm Barabara had hit the coast and the weather was quite horrible. We were greeted at the carpark by this friendliest Robin, demonstrating pure Christmas spirit. James didn't miss an opp to pap him, and got down and dirty. Hardcore wildlife photography.

Braving the storm, we headed down to the beach. We had a quick look on the freshmarsh, and amazingly James picked up this adult Yellow-legged Gull, despite his frequent declarations that he doesn't do large white-headed gulls. 

One Water Pipit was on the freshmarsh too. On the beach it was pretty awful. The wind was so strong we couldn't stand up. Hunched under the concrete blocks, trying to find some shelter, we scanned the large raft of seaducks bobbing up and down on the choppy sea. The crazy wind had pushed them away from shore so views were less than great. But still it was quite fun with quality. There were over 25 Long-tailed Ducks, 6-7 Velvet Scoters, 1 Slavonian Grebe, 1 probable Black-throated Diver. I just love long-tails - great birds:

On the way back we paid a visit to the Ferruginous Duck on Pat's Pool. I would not twitch this bird independently, but the others were keen so why not. When we got there we scanned hard through the distant tufted flock and couldn't find the bird! Then we were shamefully told by other birders it was right under our nose, mooching about with the dabbling ducks. The sky darkened then as a result of the fading light and intensifying storm. Another set of excuses for rubbish photos. It was time to head back home.

 Ferruginous Duck 

With Gadwall

'Merry Christmas boys and girls!' says Mr. Fudge