Pistachio magnet

I spent this morning at the Jerusalem Bird Observatory. At this time of year, the best of autumn there, the large pistachio trees (Turpentine Tree, Pistachia palestina) are packed with sweet, fatty fruit that attract large numbers of migrants, mainly warblers. It was heartwarming to watch the trees dripping with Lesser Whitethroats and Blackcaps, despite all the damage we cause to our planet. Alongside the commoner species, the rich habitat hosted lots of fine migrants. There were several Common Redstarts around, at least two were Ehrenberg's while another was probably European. Not too easy to do when they're young and silent.

Ehrenberg's Common Redstart, 1cy male

Probable European Common Redstart, 1cy male

Spotted Flycatchers were very prominent - such neat birds:

A few Willow Warblers were hopping around, mainly feeding on mites off Common Fennel bushes

Among the Sylvias,  there were also a few Eastern Orpheans (towards the end of their migration), Garden and Common Whitethroats.

Common Whitethroat

There were a few acros jumping around the pond. At least two were Marsh, one of them eventually ended up in the nets;

Marsh Warbler, 1cy 

Turtle Dove - has become really scarce in Jerusalem

Full eBird checklist here.

Many thanks to Yishay who ran the ringing this morning, Klil, Gidon and Amir.

Solo ringing close-ups and sound recordings

Today I was planning to ring at Bet Kama alfalfa fields. Last night, just before midnight, I recieved calls from both my helpers for today - both appologized for cancelling... Even though setting long lines of nets up in the dark on my own is not great fun, I decided to try and do my best. I arrived very early. Driving in saw two Nightjars hawking over the field, and several Barn Owls were perched on the sprinklers. I set a medium-length line of nets on my own, and started catching at first light. At first some bits and bobs got caught but then the wagtails returned from their roost - a huge flock of about 1500-2000 that went down into the field. Quite an amazing sight. Only late in the morning Hila arrived to help with scribing, so basically it was me and the birds this morning - sometimes nice to be on my own.

About half of the 73 birds I caught were Yellow Wagtails (I caught really a small fraction of the huge flock) - almost all were feldegg but few flava, one beema and one dombrowski-type. 6 Isabelline Wheatears and 11 Zitting Cisticolas were impressive. Other nice species included two Marsh Warblers, one Thrush Nightingale and two Whinchats.

Isabelline Wheatear

Whinchat

Zitting Cisticola

Yellow Wagtail - feldegg, 2cy+ male

And this is how it sounded like when I released it:

Yellow Wagtail - flava, 1cy male

And it gave these calls when released

Lots of good birds in the field. I estimated about 40 Isabelline Wheatears and 50 cisticolas. Two Lesser Grey Shrikes, at least one Citrine Wagtail among the yellows, Montagu's Harrier, Tree and Red-throated Pipits, etc. 

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.

Olis

Ringing this morning again at my CES site in Ashdod. Hard work there this year. Water level was slightly lower than previously but still we all got very wet. Arrived in the midddle of the night with Arad - we hoped to catch a Great Snipe but that never happened of course. Morning ringing session was very good, about 155 birds (haven't done the totals yet). Migration doesn't seem to end. Nearby Mulberry trees attract hundreds of Sylvias, and some of them flew into my ringing site to feed and drink, purple-faced. Sylvias this morning included mainly Blackcap of course but good numbers of Garden and Barred Warblers as well. Especially impressive were 29 Eastern Olivaceous Warblers. Ageing them is very easy - almost all of them do a complete moult in Africa so impossible to say anything about them. Quite many long-winged birds today.

Another good birds was Marsh Warbler.

Eastern Olivaceous Warbler

Wing-length distribution of Eastern Olivaceous Warblers I ringed today (n=29)

After ringing checked the gull pools; very few birds but one Baltic and two Yellow-legs. One Yellow-leg had my ring on - ringed it in Tel Aviv exactly a year ago.

Yellow-legged Gull 2cy

Many thanks to Arad and Roei for their help.

Guns N' Roses

This mornign I went ringing at Ashdod. There was a bit of a weather change at night (from disgustingly hot to very hot) so I was hoping to have a good catch but in fact it was a rather quiet morning with few migrants on the ground. Quite many retraps from last week so it seems that few birds have arrived since then. The only bird worth mentioning was this adult Marsh Warbler:

Early in the morning I received a bombshell text from Yotam that he had just caught Israel's 8th Gropper (I still need it for my Israeli list). Good stuff! Hope we ALL have a good autumn (not only at Eilat).

Later in the morning I had a flyover 1cy Rose-coloured Starling. It flew out of sight with a myna; I went to search for it in the near area but no sign. Not bad (but not good enough).

Thanks to Arad for his help.

Nizzana

This morning I went to Nizzana area with Ron (BTW yesterday Ron found a fine Rufous Turtle Dove at the JBO - well done Ron!). We began with a short ringing session which was pretty standard and rather slow. 1 yekutensis Willow Warbler, Marsh and Savi's Warblers being the only birds of note. A 1cy Rosy Starling flew over - a very good bird!
So we closed pretty early and went birding in the area. While closing the nets down many sandgrouse came in to drink in the nearby ponds. We stayed there for just a few minutes in order not to disturb the birds drinking. An adult Barbary Falcon flying around caused them much more panic. There were about 40 Crowned Sandgrouse, this group landed right next to us:

The adults are in active moult, with 4 to 6 replaced primaries:

There were about 30 Black-bellied Sandgrouse:

And about 50 Pin-tailed Sandgrouse, many of them were juveniles, typical for these late breeders:

The long-staying Black-winged Kite is still around; it has already moulted 3 primaries:

Namaqua Doves are spreading fast in Israel. Once restricted to the Eilat region, this sweet dove is colonizing much of the Negev and Judean Plains, and is now quite easy to see in Nizzana. This female was preched on a rather ornamental fence, and was nicely backlit while stretching. Unfortunately it was quite distant.

And a large crop:

Later we visited Be'erotayim grove which was quite birdy with many Blackcaps and Redstarts. I had a probable female Pied Wheatear there. I had it for just a few seconds but I saw it was very dark and cold-toned, dark breast and neat pale fringes to mantle feathers. It vanished and we could not relocate it despite extensive searching; hopefully someone looks for it again in the next few days.

Black-winged Kite Nizzana

This morning I went ringing in an alfalfa field near Nizzana, where the Black winged Kite has been hanging around for almost two weeks now. I was joined by Ron, Elon, Darren and Nimrod. Ringing was busy and with good variety, more about it below.
Anyway, the kite showed up just as we finished setting the last net, and immediately started hovering over the field.

Soon it discovered our mistnets and was very pleased with the new perches we erected for it in the field:

It is such a great bird. Even though I've seen it a couple of times before in Israel, it's always a fascinating bird to watch. Its' hovering and gliding are so unique.

So as I said ringing was good, with 145 birds in total. Nothing groundbreaking but lots of good stuff. Most impressive were Marsh Warblers - we had 16 birds, which is possibly a national record (Hadoram mentions 14 in his book from the 1980's), almost like Ngulia... We had many Reed and Sedge, 12 Savi's, and 16 Willow Warblers. Out of the 24 Yellow Wagtails, four were beema with a very broad white supercilium, pale ear coverts, very white below and rasping 'eastern'-type calls. Other birds of note were three Isabelline Wheatears and a Garden Warbler.

Isabelline Wheatear

While ringing we couldn't ignore the hundreds of sandgrouse that came in to drink in the nearby ponds. Among all four species, 40 or so Crowned Sandgrouse were nice. Three Tree pipts were flying around, my first for the season. After ringing we had a quick look at the ponds after the sandgrouse had finished drinking. The ponds produced three Collared Pratincoles, a Temminck's Stint and three Namaqua Doves.

What a terrific day, and thanks to all the guys for the hard work!

Night beast

After three years of ringing bloody warblers like an idiot at my site in Ashdod, at last I figured out how to set a net across the Lakhish stream, and started catching some big waterbirds.
Yestrerday I had a very good ringing session. We caught two (stupid) juvenile Night Herons - big beasts...

This is Shlomo my loyal volunteer:

We caught this terrific Pied Kingfisher:

And about 10 Common Kingfishers, that are always amusing to show to the kids:

And yes, I still had bloody warblers, quite many in fact. 6 Savi's Warblers were good. We had an adult Marsh Warbler. Note the short and pale claws, the thick bill and the long and pointed wing:

Marsh Warbler

There were quite a few Willow Warblers, and I expect to get some big numbers of these long-distance migrants in the next few weeks.

Willow Warbler