Decade summary #5 - Best of 2014

In 2014 I relocated with my family to the UK, but before leaving in September I had a busy time indeed. In March the first Champions of the Flyway bird race took place in Eilat, and around it there was some great birding down south:

Eastern Subalpine Warbler

Monitoring projects took me to some of the remotest corners of the country, where I saw fantastic birds, such as this stunning White-throated Robin on Mt. Hermon:

2014 offered some serious rarities, including Hudsonian Whimbrel (1st national record of this taxon), and Pied Bushchat (9th).

In May I traveled to USA for my first spring visit, where I participated in the World Series of Birding with my team mates Tom, Jonathan and Dan (and returned with the Cape May Island trophy). Also, my/our long-term collaboration with Cornell Lab of Ornithology and eBird started then. Spring warblers were quite something. B&W, Canada, Chestnut-sided and Maggy Warblers were just few of the many species I saw:

Over to the UK, I hit the ground running and started birding en force, disregarding all of my family and PhD duties, trying to make the most of my time in the UK. I joined a fine community of Norwich birders, who took me birding, twitching, dipping and drinking. Some good birds I had before the year ended were Radde's Warbler and Blyth's Pipit.

Full summary of 2014 here.

Third time lucky

So after 900 km of driving I finally managed yesterday to get proper views of the Hudsonian Whimbrel at Nakhsholim. This fantastic 1st for Israel, found by Rei Segali and Tuvia Kahn last week, had been playing hide and seek with me during my two previous visits. Yesterday I returned with Meidad, Arad and Jonathan. Started off at the original site where it was found and of course we saw no curlews at all for the first couple of hours. Only later we discovered that in recent days most curlew actions took place a few kilometers up the coast (thanks Lior), so we headed up there and indeed found the Hudsonian among a mixed group of another 5 Eurasian Curlews and 2 Eurasian Whimbrels. Pheew... We got good scope views of the bird both on the deck, feeding on the coastal ridge, and in flight, but the whole group was too jumpy so I got only these record shots. On the deck it is not easy to separate from normal whimbrels - perhaps a tad smaller, rather brown on mantle and coverts, with a prominent supercilium, but not striking and really depends on light conditions. However already in this image the brown base tone to TF (between the dark bars) is apparent- different from the whitish or pale greyish of euro whimbrel.

In flight of course very distinctive - dark rump (and very prominent pintail-snipe-like pale wing panels?):

And gingery-brown, densely barred underwing:

In the fishponds and on the beach some additional stuff - flamingos, shorebirds, gulls, terns etc. - lots of birds there. This sweet juv. Little Gull was feeding off the water surface like a marsh tern:

In the evening I met up with Søren and Kenneth from Denmark for a very successfull night tour. Together we had a memorable night - it was one of those rare days when it rains in the desert. We experienced some powerful floods, heavy rain, and walked up a desert gorge, in full moon, with huge amounts of water running in the wadi. We had superb views of both Nubian Nightjar and Hume's Owl - super stuff.

Partial joy

After a morning meeting in Be'er Sheva I headed north to Nakhsholim to give the Hudsonian Whimbrel a second try. I was driving on the highway a few kilometers north of Beer Sheva when I saw this very pale, tawny-coloured eagle take off from beside the road. At 130 km/h it looked very plain and unstreaked, but I couldn't stop as there were some roadworks. I had to drive up the road a few more minutes until I found a place to U-turn (almost killing myself under a lorry), and headed back to where I first saw it. After a few nervous minutes relocated the bird and was slightly disappointed - 4th plumage Eastern Imperial Eagle. Very tricky plumage and an extremely bleached individual.

Anyway, back to the main story. Picked Arad up along the way and we arrived at Nakhasholim around noon, where we met up with a few others. We walked up and down the beach and for very long time saw nothing. At about 15:00 I spotted a distant whimbrel-type. After scoping it for several minutes feeding on the rocks, it jumped up (and out of view) and I could see it had a dark rump - It was the Hudsonian Whimbrel! After these very distant, far from satisfactory views (and no images at all), I started walking to get closer but couldn't relocate the bird. It is so mobile these days! About half the birders looking for it have missed it. I will have to return a third time for proper views - somebody needs to figure out what this bird is doing and where it hides when absent from the regular sites.

Apart for the whimbrel another two Eurasian Whimbrels and a Curlew, some Pallas's Gulls (with complete black hoods) etc.

Pallas's Gull

Slender-billed Gulls and Sandwich Terns

As a result of the extraordinary hot weather, some humans began their pre-breeding moult earlier than usual this year, and are already in summer plumage:

Nakhsholim beach