Recent stuff

It's peak spring migration here in Israel now. With unstable weather, birds are blown in different directions and it is exciting just to be out there and witness migration. I have nothing too major to report, but over the last few days some decent stuff accumulated on my hard drive that is worth sharing here.

Last Wednesday (April 5th) I had time only for a quick early-morning birding session. So I opted for a circuit of Hulda Reservoir with Piki - our regular shared session few minutes away from home. Piki always complains that I start too early, I always complain that he's lazy, eventually we meet halfway. That morning I had time to listen out for active migrants and cook coffee by the time Piki arrived. Birding expectations weren't huge because water levels at the reservoir are very high currently, meaning there's little space for mud-loving waterbirds. We were pleasantly surprised when two minutes after we started walking a small passerine jumped up from the path in front of us, gave a thin 'tick' call and perched on the fence. We both exclaimed simultaneously (more or less 😉) - Little Bunting! We rattled off a few quick photos:

Then the petite bunting flew past us and landed to forage on the path again for a couple of minutes before being chased off by a badass territorial Eastern Olivaceous Warbler (you can hear it singing in the background of the video below). The poor bunting flew up and away and we lost it far in the distance to the south, never to be seen again. Sweet.

Nice to have Turtle Doves back, already in display flight over their territories:

Eventually it was quite a productive morning - eBird checklist here.

A weekend in Tel Aviv to celebrate my wife's birthday meant a couple of early-morning sessions in local Tel Aviv sites. Hatzuk beach was fairly quiet (eBird checklist here) but there's always interest in watching migrants on the edge of the big smoke. 

European Bee-eater cuteness and top-class wildlife narration, this morning in Tel Aviv. pic.twitter.com/wwrx1YEijh

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) April 8, 2023

Next day I checked Hayarkon Park that runs through the city center, including Rosh Tzipor and the adjacent Rock Park. Rosh Tzipor held a Little Crake and a Little Bittern:

Common Kingfisher is the most cliché bird in the world, yet it is irresistible when posed nicely:

Golden Jackals are a prominent feature of Hayarkon Park. They are abundant there, and very accustomed to humans and their dogs - a somewhat surreal coexistence in the middle of the city.

This one is called 'Sexy Ear'

Oh yes, oh yes, right there... Ooohhh so gooood...

On Monday I joined a large public event SPNI held up in the Golan Heights, promoting public action to halt disastrous plans that threaten the wild beauty of the Golan Heights. I picked up Nadav from his home in the Hula Valley. What can I do that the shortest way up to the Golan Heights drives through the fields north of the Agamon, where a Demoiselle Crane has been hanging around?

Back to life, back to reality

Yesterday was my last day in Eilat as part of our three back-to-back international events (Eilat Bird Festival, COTF and IBOC). I spent the final morning at IBRCE, that at last was in proper form after admittedly slow days. The trees were dripping with Lesser Whites, reedbed exploding with Reed Warblers, hirundines, pipits, wagtails, nightingales, shrikes, another Oriental Honey Buzzard - cool stuff (eBird checklist here). A most obliging female Little Crake in front one of the hides was the photographic highlight of the morning - I think I nailed it OK... I love those ripple reflections. Note the dirty forehead - result of walking through dense vegetation.

On the way home we just had to stop again at the unbelievably lush Hameishar Plains. It was pretty cold, overcast and windy, but bird activity was at full power. Huge flocks of Pale Rock Sparrows and Short-toed Larks, bushes exploding with Sylvias, pipits, buntings, chats - spring migration at its best. Nice to see some displaying Lesser short-toed Larks - will they breed? One Temminck's Lark was pretty sweet.

Pale Hill Rockfinchsparrow

That tail pattern...

Temminck's Lark

One of two female Sibe Stonechats present - wonder which subspecies:

This blurry photo of a huge Spiny-tailed Lizard is not great but gives a good idea of the productivity of the Plains this spring:

Great to have an eBird checklist (here) without a single invasive or urban species. All quality.

Sad to leave Eilat, but glad to return to my routine duties, that will include lots of fieldwork in the next few weeks.

Huge thanks to the team leading these events, especially Jonathan, Dan, Noam, Jessi and Mark, IBRCE team, my colleagues from IOC, and all the participants who made these events so awesome. Over and out.

WE ARE FAMILY! Thank you to all our sisters and brothers for coming to Eilat for an epic #IBOC2019 - four days of inspiration, community and sharing. Here's to #IBOC2020! #birdobsunited pic.twitter.com/r1ckbBvGn1

— International Bird Observatory Conference (@IBOC2019) April 1, 2019

Eilat Day 2 - local quality

Today I led for the Eilat Bird Festival. We stayed local on both morning and afternoon tours, and enjoyed some excellent birding. In the morning we headed down to IBRCE. Quality birds at the ringing table included Savi's and Balkan Warblers, and Nightingale, and had a sentimental moment when a Turtle Dove was ringed - what a fabulous bird and conservation tragedy. We walked around the park which was brilliant. Little Crake showed stupidly well from one of the hides, Red-necked Phalaropes in the lake, Namaqua Dove, big raptor migration overhead with a few Steppe Eagles - great fun.

Little Crake

Little Ringed Plover

Purple Heron

Steppe Eagle

As always, the IBRCE staff made us feel most welcome and made our visit a success. Thanks! IBRCE eBird checklist here.

In the afternoon we started off at KM20 saltpans. Lots of shorebirds, gulls, herons and ducks. Highlight was this White-tailed Lapwing - we kept our distance from it to allow other birders to see it too. Cool bird.

Watching a White-tailed Lapwing with Eilat Bird Festival#COTF19 #IBOC19 @flywaychampions @JMeyrav pic.twitter.com/LTXSacJzFT

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) March 23, 2019

KM20 saltpans checklist here.  

We ended the day at North Beach. M personal highlight was a huge flock of Garganey. Weather was unstable, and there was heavy passage of Black Kites at water-level over the gulf; then there were White-eyed Gulls and several other large gull taxa. eBird checklist here. 

In the evening we heldp the Champions of the Flyway opening event, Future of the Flyway, sponsored by Leica. Inspiring talks and great to meet the assembled teams.

61 birds, 21 species!

Had great fun ringing at my CES site in Ashdod this morning. Relatively low numbers but fantastic number of species - 21! Commonest was Common Kingfisher with 12 birds. Along the main stream there were many tens flying around. Acros were well represented with Sedge, Reed, 2 Marsh and four Great Reeds. Other nice species included Little Crake, 3 feldegg Yellow Wagtails, Thrush Nightingale, some Savi's and Willow Warblers and lots more.

Little Crake - 1cy 

feldegg Yellow Wagtail, 2cy+ male

Marsh Warbler - 1cy

White-breasted Kingfisher 

Thrush Nightingale

Equalet Skimmer (Orthetrum chrysostigma)

My swamp - the water is green because it's covered with a thick carpet of Common Duckweed (Lemna minor)

Many thanks to Arad for his admirable help in sauna conditions after a sleepless night.

Eilat Festival day 2 - difficult morning, good afternoon

This morning I led a tour for the festival. We started off at the IBRCE. On the lagoons we had some gulls and shorebirds, and a Caspian Tern. At the ringing station it was very very slow, but still we had a nice selection of migrants, including one Balkan Warbler. Thanks to the ringing team for their efforts and for not wearing pink T-shirts today.

Then went up to the mountains. We had unstable weather today which meant we had zero raptor migration. From the mountains I looked back down into the valley and the weather looked awful down there with so much dust in the air, so I decided to stay up in the mountains for some desert birding. We arrived at Uvda Valley when it was pretty hot already. A nice green patch produced some migrants, and two breeding pairs of Spectacled Warbler. But most fascinating was a large flock of locusts that settled on this green patch. They have already transformed into the adult, yellow form, and indeed we saw many locusts mating. This is pretty bad news for farmers but good news for migrants that will have many caterpillars to feed on in a couple of weeks... 

Then we walked across the desert a bit to look for some larks, but saw few birds. I had distant flight views of two Bimaculated Larks, and heard a Lesser Short-toed Lark, but my clients weren't able to connect with any of these. We say quite many Water and Tawny Pipits, and eventually we had some low-migrating Steppe Eagles and Steppe Buzzards but in very small numbers. For me as a leader it was a pretty tough morning but if I read the description above it seems like a pretty good morning.

Adult Desert Locust

In the afternoon checked the very productive canal north of the cowsheds. I had a pretty good time with three Citrine Wagtails, including a cracking male, two Little Crakes, White-tailed Lapwing (I briefly saw the other one south of IBRCE so there are two for sure), Caspian Stonechat, some Savi's Warblers and quite many common migrants such as Bluethroats, Lesser Whites and Chiffchaffs.

Citrine Wagtail

 Caspian Stonechat

Bluethroat

First, almost

Yesterday I did some work on Yellow-legged Gulls with Amir at the Zoological Gardens of the Tel Aviv University. After the gull stuff we went to have a quick look at the skin collection there. I had a very quick browse over some of the mounted skins, and was amazed to find this vittata Pied Wheatear - it's never been recorded in Israel yet! We were excited for a few minutes but then were disappointed to hear from Daniel, the collection manager, that this bird was taken in Ethiopia...  Forgive amir - the image was taken with his iPhone. Image courtesy of the Zoological Museum, Tel Aviv University.

Later on in the evening I met up with Santtu and his team from Finland at Neot Hakikar. We had a nice afternoon's birding with Clamorous Reed Warbler, Little Crake, Penduline Tit and lots of migrants around. After dusk we had cracking views of four Nubian Nightjars. The Finns were happy of course.

Back again

Soory for disappearing again, a mixture of good and not-so-good events kept ma away from the field and from computers as well, but life is back to normal now. I moved to a new house and started working on my garden list. Best birds till now were overhead Green Sandpiper and Red-footed Falcon.
Anyway, yesterday I had a ringing session at my site in Ashdod. It was bloody hot and humid like bloody Bangkok but ringing was OK. Surprisingly Willow Warblers were almost absent but were compensated by Lesser whitehtroats that were caught in good numbers while coming to feed on the flowering Apple-ring Acacia Faidherbia albida - an indigenous and endangered tree of which I have a nice stand in my site. Some good birds included two Sprossers, Tree Pipit and several Kingfishers which are always crowd-pleasers. Quite good visible passerine migration in the early morning, a trickle of juv. Honey Buzzards overhead and a juv Little Crake along the creek.

Thrush Nightingale (Sprosser)

Kingfisher

Apple-ring Acacia (Faidherbia albida)

Great Snipe

Early this morning I had some time for birding at the Hula lake together with my younger son Noam (six months old). We spent some time at the southern watchpoint and drove around a bit. Highlight was a Great Snipe observed feeding on the waters' edge. There should be several birds around - this was the right place and time for them. Since the spring of 2008, when several were ringed, this skulker was found to be rather regular at the lake in April - May.
Other good birds at the watchpoint were three Little and two Spotted Crakes, 20 Garganey, several Purple Herons and huge numbers of swallows and Sand Martins. The drive produced a Peregrine and 15 Collared Pratincoles - the local birds beginning their breeding activity.

Ashdod ringing

Nice ringing this morning, migration is picking up. Lots of Lesser Whitethroats and good numbers of Bluethroats and Chiffchaffs. Reed Warblers are back with some old recoveries. Had my first Savi's Warbler of the season.

Other good birds in the field included Little Crake, Reed Bunting and several Balkan Warblers.