Third time unlucky

 On July 18 mega news broke:

MEGA: Senegal Thick-knee @ Kfar Ruppin, Beit She'an Valley Israel.
2nd record for Israel if accepted. @TarsigerTeam @westpalbirds @JordanWatching pic.twitter.com/OlovJiJSxu

— Tuvia Kahn (@KahnTuvia) July 18, 2020

I needed that bird! The first for Israel came when I was in the UK. I was unable to go straight away, and in any case the bird was not twitchable that day. I went there the next day, dip #1, my air conditioner broke down at 45⁰ C. Joy.

Fast forward to August 1st:

Then they became two! Again, I couldn't go the same day; next day I was there again, dip #2. Aarghh! So frustrating. We just cannot figure out their local movement patterns.

On Wednesday Avner Rinot again found one, in a slightly different spot. This morning I went AGAIN, hoping for a third-time-lucky. In Hebrew we say third-time-ice-cream. No luck nor ice cream, dip #3. What's going on?

This tale of serial dipping raises existential thoughts about the whole concept of listing and twitching. From my personal point of view, my listing career in Israel changed dramatically when I moved to the UK. Since my return two years ago I got back in the game, but somehow my energy is slightly lesser. My stamina is OK, but will I go fourth time? Most probably...

The only positive aspect of these visits to Kfar Ruppin is that birding there is excellent, luckily. Tons of birds, quality, nice build-up of autumn migrants. I have never paid so much attention to variation in Eurasian Thick-knees...

Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters are present in large numbers, many juveniles around:

Western Yellow Wagtail - adult female feldegg

It was a good breeding season for Collared Pratincoles:

And for Purple Herons:

Frustration sometimes led to attention diverted to butterflies, like this Little Tiger Blue:

Thanks to my partners in dip, Jonathan, Piki, Amir.

American dream

This morning I had some time before a meeting at Ma'agan Michael. I had two targets in mind: Crab Plover - they are seen at MM in July about once every 20 years, typically for 10 minutes, so my odds were pretty high. I also thought that for 4th of July it would be neat to find an American shorebird. Eventually I had neither (surprise!) but it was a sweet morning session nevertheless. There were some early returning / failed breeder shorebirds, gulls and terns, many herons and egrets, a dead Green Sea Turtle on the beach, etc. eBird checklist here - 62 species, including an escape Black Swan... Dream come true.

Purple Heron

Miserbale-looking Lesser Black-backed Gull - probably fuscus; in the background Yellow-legged and Slender-billed

Marsh Sandpiper - only a month ago had them on their Kazakh breeding grounds

White-winged Tern among two of many colour-ringed Little Terns, by Yosef Kiat in Atlit (H59 from 2 July 2019, E1B from 4 May 2018)

This recently-fledged Little Tern, carrying ring H39, did some interesting movements in three days

Nice surprise - Arrocampo

On our last full day in Iberia (19 May) we spent the morning birding in a few sites around Arrocampo reservoir, north of Trujillo. It's a large reservoir with some birding infrastructure in the northern arms. I haven't heard about this site until a few days before, and it was surprisingly good there. There is a small visitor center, and a few hides. We found the hides completely non-useful but bird activity was good and it was good fun just to stand around by the waters edge and enjoy the birds. The reedbeds were bustling with warbler song. Several Savi's Warblers were singing but we glimpsed only one. Great Reeds showed better. Good birding altogether. Most impressive was the high density of Little Bitterns - males were constantly chasing each other and chasing females in display and territorial dispute. So beautiful in the golden light.

By the redness of the bill it is evident they are very horny

Also lots of Purple Herons around - always smart:

Oh, I have to go...

  

That's better... (sorry about the powerlines)

Great Reed Warbler

Gull-billed Tern

Goodbye spring, hello summer

Sorry for the long absence since my last post, I visited cold Germany with my family. No time for birding resulted in no birds of note.
Back in hot Israel, these are the last days of spring - here migration is really slowing down, compared to Europe where things are just warming up. Weather was good this afternoon so I spent some time checking reservoirs near my house.
There was a nice mix of late migrants and good breeding species. Among the migrants were this flock of about 100 pelicans. Note the Sand Martins in front of them - there were about 2000 hawking for insects over the water in Hulda reservoir, which was very birdy as always.

One good bird that made a brief appearence was this Blue-cheeked Bee-eater. It flew in from the south, perched on a Tamarix bush for a few seconds, I got some distant record shots, but before I managed to get any closer a bloody crow flushed it away. This is a good record for this region.

Other good migrants in the three reservoirs I checked were 6 Whiskered and a single White-winged Tern, 1 drake Garganey, 4 Purple and 20 Squacco Herons, 5 Curlew Sandpipers and over 200 Ruff.

I had some good breeding birds too. There were six pairs of Ferruginous Ducks. It was nice to see the males' courtship - they puffed their heads and breasts up like goldeneyes, and chased after the females. Another quality breeding species was Collared Pratincole - I had two pairs, the females sitting on eggs.

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.