Raptor rewild party

I spent this morning in Kfar Ruppin, at our rewilding site, with Nadav. The morning started pretty wild with a violent thunderstorm that went through, quite quickly. It remained overcast most morning, making birding quite pleasant. This is a photo of our wetland from spring - we spent some time overlooking the wetland from the hill at 10 O'clock of the image with the white structure.

There were many waterbirds in the wetland, but the main attraction was raptors. The big raptor migration is over, but there was still lots going on. A fresh northerly was blowing, and many raptors took advantage of the updrift to hover and, seemingly, play around with the wind. Honestly, it felt that some birds were really enjoying it. There were Booted and Short-toed Eagles, Long-legged, Common and Steppe Buzzards, Marsh and Pallid Harriers, a young Peregrine, Osprey, Sparrowhawks, lots of Black Storks going through - very good fun. I recently bought myself a new camera Canon R7. This was the first time I could test it properly in the field. I have lots of learning to do, but I am already impressed by the focus tracking and by the image quality.

Steppe Buzzard 1cy

Booted Eagle

Peregrine

Attacking a passing Short-toed Eagle

Marsh Harrier - camera coped well tracking it against a cluttered background

Same with this Osprey

eBird checklist for Amud Reservoir here.

On the way out had a quick look around the remaining fishponds (eBird checklist here), and said hello to the remaining White-tailed Lapwing (here with friends - Little Ringed-Plover and White Wagtail):

Falcon Watch

In recent years it has become evident that poaching of large falcons takes place in the Western Negev, where every winter small numbers concentrate. Besides being catastrophic to the survival of species like the globally Endangered Saker, this activity is totally illegal. Our nature law enforcement agency, Nature and Parks Authority, invests considerable efforts to crack down on this activity, but they need support. In recent weeks, a group of volunteers patrols the most sensitive zone daily, and looks out for suspicious poaching activity. We have already found a bait pigeon, and provided information on several suspects that are being investigated.
Yesterday I spent several hours around where the falcons are, looking out for suspicious activity. I saw some birds too, of course. I was relieved to see two Sakers. I tried not to disturb them so these images are big crops:

Individual one - possibly 1cy

Individual two - paler and possibly older

Only two Peregrines were present, one was a stunning calidus-type:

This year it has hardly rained there (again) - fields are very dry bar those irrigated. As a result, some species are present in lower numbers - I had zero harriers, and only one Merlin. There was enough Merlin food though - I counted 5700 Skylarks, and an impressive 450 Calandra Larks, including some tight flocks:

Eurasian Skylarks

Calandra Lark

Mixed flock of calandras and skylarks

I searched for the ever-shrinking group of Sociable Lapwings - I saw seven sat distantly in the middle of a big field - no chance for photography with that killer heat haze. They are not doing great either - perhaps as a result of climate change that causes the continuous decrease in winter rainfall in this region?

Complete eBird checklist here.

Eagles & poisoning!

This morning I took my time to avoid rush-hour into Tel Aviv, so I went for a quick look near Hulda, not far away from my house. Many eagles were seen there yesterday, so I hoped to get some images of them before the big weather system that should hit us during the next few days (first thunderstorms at the moment!).

As I got to the specific field, I noticed several raptors feeding on the ground in different parts of the field. Immediately I saw 2 Greater Spotted Eagles, 1 Steppe Eagle, 1 Imperial Eagle, several buzzards, many kestrels, and a juv. Peregrine, all feeding intensively on skylarks.

As I drove around the field, I noticed a few skylarks that showed signs of poisining - they didn't fly properly, stumbled and fell when walking, dropped their heads etc.

I met the local farmer who told me that he used Alpha-Chlorlose - a nerve poison against skylarks causing damages to his chickpea field. He used the poison according to his permit. This is another example how the laws for use of poisons in Israel are twisted and out-of-date.

I called the local NPA warden; together we patrolled the field, chased raptors away and collected dead or dying skylarks. I had to leave before noon but the ranger stayed there to complete the job. Hopefully the rain that is pouring at the moment will wash the poison away. At the moment no raptors with secondary poisoning were found, and I hope it stays like that. Anyway we will patrol the area to search for poisoned raptors tomorrow.

The total number of eagles for the morning was 4 greater spots, 2 imps and 1 steppe, which is a good winter bird for this region. Two Hen harriers are worth mentioning too. A brief scan across the adjacent reservoir produced about 60 white-headed Ducks, 10 Ferruginous Ducks and 50 Black-necked Grebes.

This is one of the poisoned skylarks. I took it home and later it came back to life. I released it in the afternoon.

This is one of the Greater Spotted Eagles eating skylark-popcorn:

And this is how skylarks should look like:

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.