Split birding

This morning I worked in Neot Hovav, south of Be'er Sheva. This is a lovely area of Loess plains. tree-less, dominated by a bush with an awkward English name - Shaggy Sparrow-Wort (Thymelaea hirsuta). 

This is the home for Lesser Short-toed Lark. They are not common breeders in Israel, in fact on our Red List (VU). They breed in patches of suitable habitat in the northern Negev, Nizzana region, Negev Mt., and more opportunistically in S Negev and Arava, when conditions are right. Neot Hovav is one of the best places to see them, certainly the most accessible and closest to the center of the country. In the early morning, the air is filled with their song. 

This sound recording is from the same site last year:

In the desert, breeding activity starts early, and this morning the larks were already busy displaying, courting and chasing each other. They are typically shy and not easy to photograph. This photo gives a nice impression of the habitat, but another meter forward and the bird was off.

I surveyed these plains and found quite a few Lesser Short-toes, all very busy with early stages of breeding activity. Few of them allowed me slightly closer views.

My interest in Lesser Short-toed Larks grew recently, with the looming split of the Lesser Short-toed Lark complex into three or four species. In their excellent study, Per Alström et al. used data on morphology, vocalisations and genetics to build a strong case for this split, already accepted by IOC, soon to be accepted by eBird/Clements. Relevant to Israel are two taxa - Mediterranean Short-toed Lark (Alaudala rufescens) and Turkestan Short-toed Lark (A. heinei). 

Lesser Short-toed Lark breeding range and taxa, from: Shirihai and Svensson (2018) Handbook of Western Palearctic Birds. Helm, London.

The breeding population in Israel belongs to rufescens group. This is demonstrated by their tiny bill and fine, rather faint breast streaking:

*Images from February 2020, Neot Hovav*

Moderately long primary projection:

Tail pattern fits rufescens, with apparently all-white R6 (outer tail feather) - photo from this morning:

heinei group are scarce or rare migrants and winter visitors in Israel. In my experience, they typically occur in October and November, often away from the breeding areas. I have not paid enough attention to them in the past - many records are of flyovers calling. I also cannot recall the differences in calls between the taxa. I will from now on. I have only one photo of two birds that were part of a flock of migrants in November 2011 in Nizzana - they could be heinei, with bolder breast streaking and perhaps longer primary projection:

Need to work harder on this armchair tick.

Back to this morning, other birds included a single Richard's Pipit in a flock of tawnys, Spectacled Warbler, and the regulars. eBird checklist here.

Arabian Great Grey Shrike

Isabelline Wheatear

Hameishar

Yesterday I surveyed different sections of Hameishar plains for the Atlas project, together with Rony and Leor. This sensitive military zone is off bounds on weekdays, so the safest day to visit without the risk of being kicked out is Saturday. Leaving home super early, we arrived at the first section, Wadi Trashim, shortly after dawn. Stepping out of the car, I was pleased to experience exactly what I was hoping for - air full of bird song, and bushes topped with perched birds. Brilliant. We started walking and picking up good birds in the exceptionally lush wadi - so subtly beautiful.

The soundscape was made up mainly by lark song - Lesser Short-toed, Crested, Temminck's and Bar-tailed, all busy in breeding activity, and also many Spectacled Warblers, giving their little display flights. Lesser Short-toed Lark is an opportunistic breeder here, only in years when rainfall is high and local productivity creates good breeding conditions, like this year:

Also breeding density of Spectacled Warbler seemed higher than average here:

There were lots of migrants too: a large flock of Greater Short-toed Larks, many common pipits, and goodies including Oriental Skylark, Richard's Pipit, Citrine Wagtail and Siberian Stonechat.

It was really great there (check eBird checklist here) but it was time to move on. We checked other sections in the south of the Plains, and experienced very different conditions compared to the northern section - extremely dry, with hardly any fresh germination, almost nothing, and perennials looking dry and dormant too. However this might change in the next week or two - large amounts of rain fell there in recent days, and may produce rapid germination of annuals and revival of perennials, hopefully followed by large-scale breeding events like last year (check here and here). Back to now and here, this recent rain event created some large puddles. When we drove up to one of the sites, we noticed that one of the puddles attracted massive numbers of Crowned and Spotted Sandgrouse - simply fantastic. They were actually very tame and confident, and some walked very close to our car. The whole vocal and visual commotion, of birds coming and going, was wonderful to experience. 

Birding southwest and southeast sections of Hameishar was rather quiet and dry, and it was getting hot; we still managed to document breeding of Temminck's and Bar-tailed Larks, Desert and Isabelline Wheatears and enjoy some migrants like this cooperative Woodchat Shrike perched on a Spiny Zilla bush:

Many thanks to Rony and Leor for company.

Lesser Short-toed Larks

This morning I went surveying/working/birding with Jonathan and Piki southwest of Be'er Sheva, in an area of Loess plains and low hills, called Neot Hovav. It's a unique bit of open semi-desert, in the backyard of the horrible petrochemical industrial estate, Ramat Hovav. This is one of the few places in Israel where Lesser Short-toed Lark breeds regularly, and now is the time for male song and display. We arrived there shortly after dawn. Stepping out of the car, the scenery first strikes as rather unimpressive:

After a quick coffee and couple of minutes of listening, we heard and then saw our first lessers, circling high up in the sky:

Then, with some patience, we found them on the ground, feeding, displaying and running around; rather difficult to photograph well.

Often flying up, giving their scratchy call:

The males were busy displaying an courting. When they chased one after another, they often briefly landed on bushes to sing, again not cooperating for photography:

And off again...

Perhaps not the most spectacular lark of Israel, I find them very attractive. Small, pallid, delicate, elegant and unique. In Israel it's regarded as Vulnerable, due to it's shrinking population as a result of habitat loss, especially in the Loess plains of the northern Negev.

Lesser Short-toed Lark was certainly the dominant species at this habitat. We counted 22 birds. Other than that not too many other birds (eBird checklist here), Spectacled Warblers, and this lilith Little Owl:

On the way back home we stopped briefly to greet the Lesser Kestrels back on their roadside cliff along the Be'er Sheva Bypass:

Champions of the Flyway day 2 - Turkestan Shrike!

Headed out early with Tom and Dan to Yotvata. Weather was quite pleasant to start with. Birding was pleasant too, with fair number of 'ground' birds (larks, pipits and wagtails), several harriers cruising over the fields, and relative highlights that didn't show well in the form of Richard's Pipit, Lesser Short-toed Lark and Sibe Stonechat. Then the weather started to deteriorate rapidly. Southerlies picked up quick, and a horrible sand storm began. Just as we were about to leave the area because it became unbearable, we bumped into a - 'Hey - Turkestan Shrike!' I exclaimed first... We were as surprised as the shrike with this encounter from 5 meters - by the time Tommy and I picked our cameras up it shot off. After a tense minute of searching we found it sheltering from the storm in a bush. We secured some shots and backed off; a minute later the shrike literally blew with the wind and we thought it was gone - luckily it was relocated not far away and twitched by many. In the afternoon it showed pretty well - see Shimon Shiff's awesome photos with SX50 on Facebook. Great stuff!

Blowing a hooley as they call it in Norfolk

Desert Finch

Spanish Sparrows

We escaped from the sand storm towards Eilat, and found shelter at IBRCE. We had a short and sweet walk there with 8 Red-necked Phals, 2 Citrine Wags and an interesting cormorant, that I can't see why it's not lucidus - more on it to follow.

Red-necked Phalaropes

Citrine Wagtail

It's spring, he shouts, it's spring!

Putative White-breasted Cormorant

In the afternoon I drove around with Jonathan. The wind switched to northerly but was still blowing like hell. To be honest, there were very few migrants around. A quick circuit of the southern KM20 pond didn't produce much. 3 Collared Pratincoles were almost exciting. Too many birders there so we left.

North Beach was better with Long-tailed Jaeger, and first Common Terns of the season.

In the evening another inspiring event - this time the official opening event at IBRCE (thanks for hosting!). Great spirit and enthusiasm - proud to be part of this global community.

Family holiday birding

Went down to Eilat with the family for a long weekend. It's holiday season in Israel, so lots of people on the road and everywhere practically, but we managed to have a very good time. During the three mornings I spent there I managed to squeeze in two hours of birding, before the family woke up and I got the terminating phone call from my wife: "good morning, we're up!". That means I was under a real pressure of time each morning to get something done before I had to go back, and most of the birding was done before sunrise. As a result, in this post the photographic quality is lower than I usually present here.

Friday morning started off at the IBRCE, said hello to the guys and enjoyed this sweet Scops Owl they had just caught:

Drove off with Re'a to KM20 saltpans that were packed full with shorebirds, mainly Little Stints and Ringed Plovers with many hundreds each. We scanned the large flocks very fast but the best we came up with was one Broad-billed Sandpiper. In this image the focus escaped to the Little Stint on the right, sorry, didn't have the time to check the images on the camera: 

Both at MK20 saltpans and later on at KM19 sewage farm lots of marsh terns present - mainly Whiskered Terns but fewer white-winged and one black.

Whiskered Tern

Saturday morning I went to check Yotvata. As I drove in I was happy to see a large flock of about 40 Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters thrashing a beehive near the cafe. Most were juveniles. 

The southern circular field was swarming with birds and I had a really good time there. While I was birding got a call from Re'a that they had just caught a Common Rosefinch but I decided to give it a miss and continued birding. In the field there were about 1000 Greater Short-toed Larks, among which I heard one Lesser Short-toed; many tens of Tree and Red-throated Pipits, with fewer Tawny and one Richard's Pipit; many wheatears (isabelline, nothern, desert and black-eared), many whinchats and Red-backed Shrikes, tons of hirundines; one Black-headed Bunting; Barbary Falcon and several harriers (marsh, pallid and montagu's) cruising over the field - great fun.

Black-headed Bunting

The sewage ponds were very birdy too but nothing special. This juv. Collared Pratincole appeared for a brief visit (still before sunrise): 

In the late afternoon I got another call from Re'a that they were watching both a Purple Swamp-hen and White-tailed Lapwing at KM19, but I was busy with the family so could not go for these good birds. Took a chance and hoped they'd wait for me till the next morning. 

So Sunday early morning I first had a quick look at north beach that had very little apart for the resident Brown Booby and 3-4 distant White-cheeked Terns. Then I headed off to KM19 sewage tanks. The tanks are full of fish and had loads of gulls and herons, but no sign of the chicken or the lapwing...

Armenian Gull - this must be 1cy but how on earth do they get so bleached and worn in such a short time?

A small flock of five Spoonbills was fresh in:

  

Only bird of note was one Citrine Wagtail.

So to conclude, not a bad family birding holiday. Eilat is always fun. This is not a classic period for birding in Eilat - still very hot and not too many common migrants hopping all over the place like in spring, but still some sites were good and some quality too.