Hit the ground running

How can one complete a Big Year and let go? Lean back? Impossible. New year, new targets (who said 400?). The main lesson learned from 2020's bittersweet performance was to start strong. Not to leave stuff for the final month. Will I (and Jonathan) be able to keep up with the speed? Personally, I am quite knackered, and my work load is huge these coming weeks. But there is no choice, only to push on.

So it's January 5th, lots of good birds around, good weather. Up till now I have done only one quality birding session, on Sunday in Kfar Ruppin. Before and after a meeting (how convenient) there was time for good birding, picking up 'important' and cool species such as Isabelline Shrike (two, here), 6 Oriental Skylark and 7 Siberian buff-bellied Pipit (here) and a nearby Red-crested Pochard (here).

As always, birding in Bet She'an Valley is a blast, with So. Many. Birds. everywhere (how many times can I use NJAudubon's trademark?).

Oriental Skylark

A beast of a young Bonelli's Eagle

Watch this space for more stuff!

Persian twitch

That was a long day... Yesterday I left home at three, met up with Meidad and together we headed down south. Dawn stop was at Neot Smadar fields that were OK, smelled rare but produced nothing better than several Sibe Stonechats, and Oriental Skylark and a late, strange-looking Eastern Black-eared Wheatear (eBird checklist here).

variegatus-type (little white at base of TF)

Yotvata circular field was full of pipits, wagtails and larks (eBird checklist here). Not surprising that it attracted several falcons and hawks, including a Merlin and a super-smart adult Lanner.

One of six Oriental Skylarks:

Midday IBRCE was hot and fairly quiet, no sign of the Little Bunting there the previous day, but two Red-breasted Flycatchers were sweet, and a constant trickle of mixed raptor overhead was nice (eBird checklist here). 

Then it was time for the main Persian dish. Afternoon birding off North Beach was, well, can't remember much until I first spotted the Persian Shearwater arriving from the south. I got everyone on to it, it flew towards us, did a nice flyby, showing small size, dark underwings and dark vent, then it landed on the water in front of us, albeit quite distant. Birders arriving then, in fading light, feared they had to make do with a tiny dark blob in the water (see my video here). With some imagination one could see pale feathering above the eye... Luckily, it was flushed by a passing boat and flew up, but in the wrong direction, away from us... No photo opps for us this time, but I am very pleased with the good views it gave when flying in. I managed a couple of shocking videos through my Swarovski scope, incredibly these are the only videos on eBird/Macaulay/Birds of the World. This one showing its flight action in totally still conditions as we had (live commentary courtesy of Itai):

Phew, a sigh of relief was released when it showed up. I am ashamed to admit that on Friday I already tried once, and failed. At least the second attempt was successful. Boom, Israel, WP and world lifer, 3rd record for Israel and for WP, serious blocker down for some old-timers. Happy days.

#nofilter

October Big Day

Yesterday the IL big day team (Jonathan, Re'a and me) reunited for our bi-annual mad dash across the country. Despite doing it for several years now, our motivation is still high. This year, eBird October Big Day was merged with Global Birding Weekend, and we were happy to support both efforts.

As in previous big days, focus of the day was on hi-speed birding, and there were few opportunities for photography. We left home in the middle of the night, ticked Barn Owl en route, and arrived at the gate of Hula Nature Reserve well before dawn, to quickly hear Tawny Owls. We entered Agamon Hula when it was still dark, and were rewarded by great views (but awful photos) of a majestic Eurasian Eagle-Owl, not too common down in the valley. 

Early morning birding was good in the Agamon - plenty of birds around (82 spp), nothing special but Sibe stonechats, Black Francolin, Stock Dove and soundtrack of newly-arrived cranes were all quality. The weather was lovely and cool - in fact it was the first time this season that I wore an extra layer.

Siberian Stonechat ssp. hemprichii

A quick stop at Lahavot Habashan produced Marbled Teals. Up on Mt. Hermon birding was fairly quiet - despite the dry weather relatively few birds came in to drink at the pools. Nevertheless, we cleaned up Hermon specialties quickly and efficiently - Syrian Serin, Sombre Tit, Western Rock Nuthatch etc.

Syrian Serin - sorry, messages came in to my phone

After we descended from Mt. Hermon, temperatures were already high. We needed to work quite hard to find birds in this heat but I think we did rather well (and thank god for car air conditioning).  On Mt. Hermonit we found a male Finsch's Wheatear. In Susita it was so hot that we feared the Long-billed Pipit running across the road would burn his feet.

When we arrived at Kfar Ruppin, at the bottom of Bet Shean Valley, the heat was really challenging, for both birds and humans. However, with hard work and good gen we found most specialties we were after, and somehow managed to enjoy good birds obscured behind the clouds of Black Kites everywhere: Daurian (Isabeline) Shrike, 3 Oriental Skylarks, Richard's Pipit, Dead Sea Sparrow.

Heading west we quickly stopped for some gulls in Heftziba where a lovely dark morph Eurasian Marsh-Harrier flew past.

Our last birding site for the afternoon was HaMa'apil fishponds. We quickly got on to the Greater Painted-snipe that had been present for about three weeks now, standing motionless at the corner of its favourite little pond. Lovely bird, and especially for me it was a big moment of relief. Ashamedly, In recent weeks I have been up there a few times already, failing to find the skulker each time. So it was very well received.

Blink! That's the most activity this Greater Painted-snipe did while Re'a @JMeyrav and I watched it. Filmed thru @SwarovskiOptik ATX85 at near darkness. Fitting end to our @Team_eBird and @global_birding #GlobalBigDay and #GlobalBirdingWeekend run@Rutlandbirds @RockjumperTours pic.twitter.com/kQHElc7ICg

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) October 18, 2020

Our day ended with 151 species, quite respectable I think. Certainly much better than the 130 of October 2019 or the 137 of May 2020. Yet, I think that the potential is much higher - again we missed good raptor diversity, and passerine migration on the slow side. Let's see what we do next year.

Thanks a bunch to my team, Re'a and Jonathan, for another successful Global Big Day. Fun and laughs all day long, you guys rock! It was a privilege, as always, to use the supreme optics provided by Swarovski Optik. Makes finding birds so much easier! 

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.

Pipit-fest

I had an enjoyable morning birding with Tuvia in the alfalfa fields west of Kfar Ruppin. The fields were packed with pipits and larks: very big numbers of Meadow, Red-throated and Caucasian Water Pipits, with Richard's Pipit, Oriental Skylark and Calandra Lark thrown in for good measure. A muddy puddle at the edge of the field attracted many common pipits:

Red-throated Pipit

Caucasian Water Pipit

Meadow Pipits

Western Yellow Wagtail - probably thunbergi

Two Siberian Buff-bellied Pipits joined the party. Great views of this one at the far end of the puddle, a bit too distant for proper photos.

Check the brown legs

 

Hardly streaked mantle

Adios! 

eBird checklist here. Thanks Tuvia.

The Magic Puddle

Yesterday I had meetings in Eilat, talking about monitoring there with Noam and the IBRCE team.  Left home super early to do some birding, with rarity finding on my mind. As always, this mental approach didn't really work... Started off at Neot Smadar. At first it was cold and pretty birdless. Only this inquisitive Red Fox scrutinized me from some distance.

When the sun came up, bird activity increased a little, nothing huge. I walked the alfalfa fields hoping to lush a rare pipit. First found only common ones.

Caucasian Water Pipit

Tree Pipit

Then my morning was partially salvaged by a familiar call from a pipit flying towards me - Olive-backed Pipit! It flew over me calling a few times and disappeared in the off-limits kibbutz. Too quick for a photo or sound recording. I was hoping for a bigger pipit, but I had to settle with this one. Better than nothing I guess. Encouraged a bit, I kept on walking both in the fields and at the sewage farm, but came up with little else. eBird checklists are here (fields) and here (sewage).

Next stop was Yotvata. Itai Shanni was there earlier and reported larger numbers of birds on the recently-ploughed northern circular field. It was birdy indeed but most birds were distant in the large field, and most were doves... I noticed better activity at a small puddle, attracting many birds. I parked my car appropriately in relation to distance and angle, and started waiting. Soon the birds came in, and I enjoyed lovely 45 minutes, with many and different birds coming in to drink. Shooting birds on the ground out of the car window is not ideal, but I can't complain...

There was a flock of about 40 Desert Finches on the field. At first they were distant - quite pleased with my new camera (canon 7D km2) focusing on them at a distance:

Then they started trickling towards the water:

Nice numbers of Red-throated Pipits in various plumages came in for a splash too:

2cy+, probably male

1cy

1cy, slightly more advanced

1cy Western Yellow Wagtail

One of many Spanish Sparrows, this is an adult male

Corn Bunting

Northern Wheatear

There were a few skylarks around. At first some Eurasian Skylark came in for a drink:

Up to 10 Oriental Skylarks have been seen there in recent days. Where I was sat I had two or three. They kept their distance when I was there - one did come in to drink briefly but buzzed off as soon as I pointed my camera on it. These photos are all large crops in unattractive setting, yet they illustrate some important ID features, including longer, thinner bill, lighter breast streaking, buffy belly and short primary projection.

Oriental Skylark 

eBird checklist here.

At IBRCE between meetings there were a few nice birds, including Steppe Eagles on migration and a Bittern on the lake. eBird checklist here.

Eurasian Cranes

On my way back home after the meetings I visited Ovda Valley. I failed to relocate the two returning rare wheatears, but enjoyed some beautiful desert serenity.