Nostalgic photo-dump

 Once upon a time, when I was a young blogger, my blogposts typically went something like this: 'Today I went birding here and I saw this and that'. Then I matured and developed and started writing about deeper stuff like feelings and sociological observations. Today, before a meeting at Ma'agan Michael, I made time for my monthly point-count session at our evolving bird park there. It was a busy morning of point-counts, and the conditions were horrific with gale-force easterlies (listen to the background noise in the videos below), yet somehow photography went ok and I felt a need to share my photos with you, the world. Nothing to write home about, no special reason, just a representation of common and less common birds I saw today, like back in the days; some photos are decent, others less so... my eBird checklist for the morning is here.

Great White Pelicans

Pygmy Cormorant

Egyptian Geese looking very wild (they're not)

Late Squacco Heron

Ruddy Turnstone on the rock

Eurasian Curlew shared the rocks

Temminck's Stints

Avocets looking smart as always

Pallas's Gulls on the beach

Wait for it! Not easy to be a gull on Ma'agan Michael beach - constant disturbance

Check the wind blowing the sand in the video above - Google Photos stabilizer did a good job.

Different Armenian Gulls

Avi-blitz

This weekend I took part in an avi-blitz organised by (in no particular order) Israel Ornithological Center, IBRCE, Eilot Regional Council and Nature and Parks Authority. Over 30 teams took part in this effort. We surveyed remote corners of the southern Negev and Arava, seldom visited by birders. Many of these areas are deep within military firing zones, so access is restricted only to weekends. It was great fun, though my polygons were less productive. On both days I worked deep in the desert west of Neot Smadar. Yesterday was rather quiet (eBird checklist here), though I managed to find an uncooperative pair of Arabian Warblers at a new site in the far west of their predicted range, possibly the westernmost territory in the world?

Otherwise, away from the acacia wadi, birds were very few. The desert is extremely dry here, and the few birds concentrate where some productivity may be found. Good to absorb some desert serenity.

Somehow I managed to hear a distant singing Temminck's Lark; Spotted Sandgrouse flew by somewhere and that's it. I was really impressed by the huge numbers of Dorcas Gazelles on both days - we had over 100 yesterday and 60 today. They were generally tame and confident, implying that there is little poaching in this region if any.

As horny as they get

Check those huge rear toes on this Bosc's fringed-toed Lizard

Almost qualifies as a good bird - Poekilocerus bufonius

**This fascinating insect is venomous - it spits poison at predators, the poison is produced from the poisinous bush Pergularia tomentosa on which it is perched in this photo - thanks Avner for the info** 

After we were done we headed down to Eilat for some recreational birding. Again I failed locating both personal photography targets - Oriental Honey Buzzard and Lesser White-fronted Goose. No show. We checked the traditional sites, KM19 sewage and IBRCE. Nothing special, just the regular wintering birds plus local rarities and scarcities:

The now resident, funny Pygmy Cormorant at IBRCE

Rare in winter, this Gull-billed Tern spends the winter at IBRCE

One of four LEOs roosting at IBRCE

Caspian Stonechat just north of the park

Banana posture

Today I worked a polygon in the same general area. As we entered the area we had an Adrenalin-pumping early morning encounter with a pack of 9 Wolves - such fantastic animals.

Again there were rather few birds around (eBird checklist here). Only bird of interest was a fine male Cyprus Warbler that didn't pose well enough.

Those undertail coverts...

Huge thanks to the organisers Noam, Itai, Libby and Eran, to Eli who helped design the fieldwork. Hai Bar staff hosted us wonderfully - thanks! Kudos to all the hard-working skilled teams who did a stellar job. Till next year!

The Valley of Dreams and Wires

I am staying up north with friends for a couple of days. Early this morning I escaped for a sweet few hours of birding in the Bet She'an Valley. This is one of my favourite parts of the country, not only because I lived there between 1998 and 2001. I challenged myself to pick up as many species as I could, so I rushed from site to site and did not invest in photography at all. Admittedly, I was pretty lucky, especially with some migrant passerines that were present in ones and twos. I walked some alfalfa and scrub near Kfar Ruppin, then scrub and fields near Tirat Zvi, and ended up down at the bottom of the Jordan Valley below Kfar Ruppin at some beautiful reservoirs. As always, Bet Shean Valley is packed with birds, and diversity was very high too. Many species with big numbers. Some highlights were Little Crake, 2 Citrine wagtail, 5 species of shrike (woodchat most common). Among the most prominent were Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters, that congregate in the valley at this time of year. I counted about 70. Not easy to get wireless photos pf them - wires are their favourite perch.

Blue-cheeked Bee-eater - adult

1cy

It was heartwarming to still be able to see fair numbers of Turtle Doves. I had over 100, including flocks of tens; far fewer than the tens of thousands I'd see in the same area 15-20 years ago.

Namaqua Dove has become a regular feature of the valley, which is lovely.

There were only small numbers of Honey Buzzards that took off - main passage should start any day now. One of them swooped down, very focused, and came down to drink in an empty fishponds:

That eye...

There were moderate numbers of shorebirds in the dry fishponds, with some variety but nothing too special. Nice to see over 60 Collared Pratincoles:

Demonstrating it's not black-winged or oriental

Temminck's Stint (adult) with two Little Stints - 1cy (top) and adult (bottom)

A few more random photos:

Huge numbers of Barn Swallows, many of them of the local breeding taxon transitiva

Black Stork 1cy

Desert Finchs

Pygmy Cormorant

Short-toed Eagle pre-sunrise

By 09:00 I was defeated by the heat and retreated to aircon coolness. All in all it was a brilliant early morning - 115 species in just over three hours ain't too shabby I think. Full eBird checklist here. Thanks to Avner for his help.

No Basras for me today

This morning I joined the Hula ringing team (Nadav & Dotan) to try for the Basra Reed Warblers at Lehavot Habashan in the E Hula Valley. I first discovered a small population breeding at this site in summer 2006 together with the late Amit Geffen - see the link to BirdLife announcment. The birds were found again in 2007 and 2008, but were not found during several ringing attempts at this site in 2009. Today was the first attempt for 2010, so I was very optimistic, but unfortunately no Basras showed up. I will have to settle for those at Ngulia this coming December, poor me.
I really hope that these rare birds are still lurking somewhere in the Hula Valley, and that their appearence in 2006 to 2008 wasn't just a passing episode. After all, these acros are real skulkers, and it's a tiny population to start with, so the chances of missing them even though they are present is quite big.
But anyway it was a productive morning with many birds and some good stuff. Little Bitterns were present in good numbers but only this newly-fledged juvenile got caught. They are always fun birds to handle!



Other birds of note ringed were two Great Reed Warblers and several Common Whitethroats already migrating somewhere after breeding, god knows where to.

Pygmy Cormorants were present in large numbers, and I managed some rather poor shots of them.