pallidus Merlin

Started my second session of wintering raptors census today. Did the Urim transect in the NW Negev again. Fine weather, less mud than last time, slightly fewer birds but still a great day out. Had more Merlins today - a total of five birds including a stunning male pallidus - haven't seen one of these C Asian birds in Israel for many years. This was my personal highlight of the day. Unfortunately only got these crap shots in the shade. I missed it when it flew out and away, and managed to get nothing at all from it in good light. Shame - it was so pallid, almost like a Pallid Harrier. Here you can see it is pale and relatively poorly marked, but it was most impressive in flight in full light.

pallidus Merlin - is there a proper name for this? Maybe Asian Merlin?

Had better photography success with 'standard' Merlins:

Saw again the Saker from last month. Better views this time - moulting a few scapulars and coverts - OK for 2cy (hatched 2013). Tips of TF still fresh.

This must be a female - see how huge it is - here attacking an adult Eastern Imperial Eagle that landed on 'her' favourite pylon! Of course there is an optical illusion here but the falcon was really impressive (and bold).

Other than that the usual suspects - 3 Eastern Imperials, 5 Hen and one Pallid Harriers, 1 Peregrine, many Common and Long-legged Buzzards, and one Steppe Buzzard.

Towards the end of the transect had six Stock Doves exactly on the same pylon where I had them last year. Stock Doves are becoming more and more rare in Israel every year. Last year I had fourty.

 Crop of the image above

 On the way back home had a quick look at Re'im Reservoir - one male Red-crested Pochard (not plastic!) - here's my awful phonescoping attempt: 

There was at least one very happy dog today:

Bamba 

 Spanish Sparrow - just because they're so pretty

More Caspian Stonechats and harriers - boring stuff!

Again had some time for birding this morning instead of standing in traffic. First checked my alfalfa field at Bet Kama - highlights were a funny-calling Oriental Skylark (very soft call; flushed it twice but didn't manage to soundrecord it whatsoever), 2 Hen Harriers, 1 Merlin and a Caspian Stonechat. Nice late wave of Northern Wheatears.

Caspian Stonechat

Northern Wheatear

Merlin

Then another short stop at the Tzor'a alfalfa field - not much there apart for this 1cy Hen Harrier - very close!

In the afternoon new village tick but again just 100 m away from my garden - Red-breasted Flycatcher.

Men with big falcons have a small penis

But unfortunately they most probably do not read my blog so please pass this on to them.

This morning I met up again with Rune Palmqvist. We birded the NW Negev area. In fact it was a rather slow day with few birds, perhaps in response to the funny weather today. The peak event of the day was a negative one - we found this female adult-type Barbary Falcon dead on a high-voltage pylon - this bird escaped from a falconer, and its jesses got tangled on the pylon. I climbed up the pylon to collect the bird (about 10 m above ground) and managed not to get myself electrocuted. 

Such a shame - it was such a pretty bird. Lovely rufous head pattern and rich cinnamon underparts. 

Falconery is illegal in Israel but unfortunately it is practiced illegally by some Bedouins in the Negev. However, it is impossible to know where this bird escaped from - we've had cases of large falcons escaping from Arabia and ending up here. Of course in Arabia flaconery is a big deal and the falconery industry circulates huge amounts of money. Bunch of assholes. They have big shotguns and big 4WD's too. I am sure it reflects in the length of their penises.

What a terrible and unnecessary death.

Among the few live birds we had were some Merlins and Peregrines, Eastern Imperial Eagles and two Finsch's Wheatears.

Merlin (sorry I couldn't be bothered to photoshop away all the branches behind the bird)

Ha-ha! I'm too small for falconery!

This Whitethroat was the only real sign of migration.

Cross-country twitching

Today (23/12/09) I spent the day birding with Gert Ottens, a good friend from the Netherlands. We decided to work the NW Negev first, so we made an early start and got to Ofakim just as there was enough light for birding. It was actually very cold and pretty quiet there. Didn't manage to find two target species there - Dotterel and CCCourser (Jonathan had them there the previous day - you bastard!). But still we had some good stuff, in form of Spectacled Warbler, two Merlins, a nice male Hen Harrier and this cracking male Finsch's Wheatear that behaved really well in the beautiful early morning light. Unfortunately it tilted its head a bit while singing:

Then we drove towards the famous pylons of Urim. On our way we bumped into a flock of 30 something Eurasian Golden Plovers. While driving along we got a call from Amir. He'd just found a loon in Acre, and went through the ID with us - it was a Red-throated Loon! I was developing the twitch-itch very quickly, but I didn't want to miss the NW Negev completely (and disappoint Gert), so we had a quick drive along the pylon line. Our best achievement there was not getting bogged with the car after yesterday's rains. Long-legged Buzzards were present in good numbers (including a stunning dark-morph), but other raptors were rather few. However, some birds we saw were two Eastern Imperial Eagles, two Peregrines, another Merlin, a few tens of Calandra Larks, and the best bird was this 1cy Lanner:

So at about 09:30 we started making our long way north to twitch the loon which evolved into two birds! Amir and Shachar were having such a great time with the birds, so I really stepped on it... Gert was being quite a sport. Even though he has tons of them back home in Holland, he was happy to join the twitch - and work on his Israeli list too. En route we were joined by Rami and Jonathan, and we got there in the early afternoon. We enjoyed good views of these terrific birds from the shore straight away, but soon realized that if we wanted to get some photos we needed to get a boat. Amir quickly arranged one for us, and off we went. Well, that's how one should enjoy a tick!

It was so much fun cruising through the bay with one of the birds, which seemed quite happy feeding on sardines. I wonder if they will overwinter.

It's so special to see loons in Israel, and of course this was a great tick for me. 4th record - and two together - and gripping views - and good images - what else can I ask for.

This is what happens when Amir gets overexcited:

There were so many other quality birds in the bay. This Great Black-backed Gull stirred quite a twitch when it first arrived in winter 2005/6, but now returning for its fourth winter it gets less attention. A great bird nevertheless, and still a huge rarity in Israel:

We also had a Common Gull (rare in Israel) and this 1cy Med Gull:

So, congrats Amir for this great find and I hope the birds will stick around enough time for everyone to get in touch with them.

Seedeaters at Lakhish

Today, as part of my job as a regional coordinator of the barn owl project, I made a final sweep of the nest boxes before the breeding season begins. During January the owls already check the boxes out and choose their boxes for the next breeding season, so everything has to be ready by then. I went over all of my boxes in the Lakhish area, cleaned and fixed them - so now the owls have to do their own thing. This is one dirty job - cleaning the boxes after the previous breeding season is not much fun. Especially with the Jacksdaws filling the boxes up with junk. Thanks Miri for the help.
During the day we saw quite a few birds. The area is just packed with seedeaters - mixed flocks of Corn Buntings, Spanish Sparrows, Linnets, Greenfinches and Goldfinches, and also large numbers of Meadow and Red-throated Pipits and Skylarks. Among the raptors we had today two Greater Spotted Eagles, Merlin, Hen Harrier, and several Long-legged Buzzards.

Corn Buntings

Red-throated Pipit

Linnets

Lakhish area