Distant

I spent one night in Eilat with my family, spontaneously escaping from another hot and sticky weekend in the center. While Eilat was certainly hot, at least it wasn't sticky and it was better fun than staying at home. Yesterday early morning I met up with Shachar and Dudu for a couple of hours of seawatching off North Beach. I have had worse morning there: highlight was a 2cy Arctic Tern, that gave good scope views as it flew rather distantly just behind the border, often alongside a Common Tern allowing good comparative views. I failed even to get a record shot - all I managed was a lovely photo of a Jordanian border police boat:

There's an Arctic Tern somewhere in there, honest

Arctic Tern is just about annual in Israel, typically in July-August. I assume it's overlooked, because of my biased luck in finding them - I have already found several during 'random' one-day visits, including here.

Other highlights were two (distant) Lesser Crested Terns, 2 (slightly less distant) Cory's Shearwaters, and nice numbers of (even less distant) White-cheeked Terns. 

White-cheeked Tern - 2cy

White-cheeked Tern - adult (moulting)

eBird checklist here.

After a lovely day spent snorkeling at Coral Beach, on the way back hope kidnapped my family for a very quick whiz through KM20 saltpans. I saw one Red Phalarope. At what distance you ask? Distant... But hey-ho, a year-tick is a year-tick. Two birds are present for about a week, though they could be the same two seen in late May.

Twitchin' Aileen

Storm Aileen that crossed the Atlantic and hit UK last week deposited a good number of yank waders in the west and south. Dorset fared especially well with three quality species few miles from each other. That was too much for me and yesterday I joined a car full of Norwich birders for a muddy twitch. We left Norwich at silly o'clock to get to Dorset in the early morning. Driving down we already got news that all three were present. Smiles and cheers in the car. We started off at Lodmoor RSPB. Both local stars were on show - first Stilt Sandpiper. Quite a big WP bird, this lovely juvenile showed very well, albeit slightly beyond my camera capacity. Very elegant on those long, yellow legs; a fine supercilium gives it character; and that long, downcurved bill is so special. Brilliant bird.

In this case, phonescoping didn't get any better results:

Next up was the Least Sandpiper only 200m away. It was even more distant, so my photos are worthless, but another fine little bird. Nice supercilium again, and nice breast pattern. Good size comparison with Dunlin here.

In this case phonoscoping got slightly better results:

Birding there was pretty good with lots of migrants and local birds. Supporting cast to the yank waders was this Great White Egret:

Rubbish bird and two quality geese

While birding at Lodmoor we learned that the Buff-breasted Sandpiper at Portland, just a few minutes down the road, had made a bunk. We decided to search for it anyway, hoping it reappears. But that did not happen. I was quite disappointed - in fact it was my most wanted species of the three. We had a good walk around Portland Bill that produced rather little. A few migrants around - one paddock had over 30 wheatears; and there were pretty good numbers of chiffs and willows; that was no consolation prize. The others connected with a Wryneck in the quarry but I spent that time chatting to the mighty warden Martin Cade, nice to meet at last. In hindsight we were pretty lucky, because a short while after we had left Lodmoor the Stilt Sand flew off never to be seen again. So it could have been worse.

On the long way back to Norwich we picked up a couple more coastal birds blown inland by the storm. The Sabine's Gull at Daventry CP in Northamptonshire went missing for a few hours. However, a few minutes after we had arrived it reappeared and showed really well. Gorgeous-looking thing, though it looked quite miserable with its eyes half-closed and a 'I'm-going-to-die-soon' vibe to it.  

I don't like Northamptonshire!

Eyes closed even when flying

Why are those funny looking Polar Bears looking at me?

Then in the fading light, a few miles down the road, we paid a quick visit to the Grey Phalarope at Hollowell Reservoir. Sorry, until I see a red one in Iceland I will continue calling it Grey!

Beautiful bird. Shame about the (no) light.

I can swim!

Many thanks to Jake, Michael and Daniel for a great day out. Lots of driving (by Jake) but a good daily tally overall.

Good bird at last

This morning I checked some reservoirs in the Judean Lowlands near my house. There were very good shorebird numbers in the first resrvoir, with 137 Ruff and lots of other stuff. The second reservoir was pretty good too with some Collared Pratincoles (possibly bred there), Spotted Redshanks, White-winged Terns and quite a few Black-headed Wagtails. Then I spotted a very distant phalarope. Already from this great distance I could see that it's very pale, so I moved nearer as much as I could. I was very happy to discover it's a Red Phalarope. How could anyone call this specific bird 'red' I don't know.

Anyway, it's a very good bird in Israel. Since the 2000's it's not as rare as it used to be, with about 2-3 annually, but this record is very unusual. First, it's the earliest autumn record ever, plus it's one of the very few inland records.

This reservoir is half empty, so the bird was very distant, and into the sun, hence the poor record shots.

I have a few more similar images but I don't think they will contribute anything to the scientific community, so I will keep them to myself.

Some more birds from this morning:

Green Sandpiper

Quite a few White Storks hanging around:

Southern adventures

Yesterday I had a long and slightly weird day. Left home just after midnight, met up with Ron, Yotam, Avner and Hillel and headed down to Yotvata. Our main reason for driving so far in such a crazy time of the night was to ring Oriental Skylarks. I have a long, unsolved business with this bird, after having them dodging my nets for so many years. This time we were pretty motivated and were sure we had good chances as 15 birds had been reported in the famous northern circular field in previous days.
We arrived at Yotvata just after 03:00 and as we drove in were greeted by a HUGE Striped Hyena walking across the field. What a beast! We started setting the nets up and everything was ready on time. Except for the birds. We had plenty of gulgula's in the field, but they just would not behave and in the end we did not catch not a single on. It's a pity, as this is possibly the largest documented concentration in Israel - we had 15-20 birds in total, with the largest group of 10 together. At least I got this record shot.

Oriental Skylark

Otherwise ringing was pretty standard, only birds of note were two Desert Wheatears (ringing tick for me!).

This is myself trying to persuade the farmer not to plough my nets:

This field is so good and I'm sure it will produce more rarities in the next few days. We had the male Black-crowned Sparrow-Lark in flight, Lesser Short-toed Lark, 2 Richard's Pipits, 5 Siberian Stonechats and many other birds. It was good to meet Heikki and Tapio from Finland, and we birded together for a couple of hours, during which my car got bogged in the sand...

After the wind picked up and the farmers started working in the field, we left Yotvata and drove to Eilat to see the Grey Phalarope (it's grey! Not red! When they're in Iceland they can be named red, but here they're grey) at KM20 saltpans. It was as tame as always and showed very well. Cool bird!

On the way back we had mixed feelings. On the one had, we failed to ring the skylarks and found nothing new, which was disappointing considering all the good birds around. On the other hand, how disapponting can a day be with Black-crowned Sparrow-Lark, Grey Phalarope, 15 Oriental Skylarks and a ringing tick be? Funny people we are, birders.

It ain't over till it's over!

What a fantastic day! Who said spring ended?

Early in the morning I revisited an Arava atlas box, on a mission to confirm breeding of Dunn's and Hoopoe Larks I found there on my previous visit.

The morning began well with an impressive wolf running along a wadi.

Wolf

Soon the air filled with lark song. First were several Bar-tailed Larks, but soon they were joined by a dawn chorus of Dunn's Larks. I was happy to find this newly-fledged juvenile on the deck, though it was pretty distant hence the crap images. I think this is one of the very few ever documented, in Israel for sure.

Dunn's Lark - juvenile

I had four singing and displaying males. They spent much time singing from the ground.

Two males were constantly singing in each other's faces, chasing each other and basically being very annoying:

After having enough of each other they did some aerial song and display:

I saw no females. Could they be on eggs again? 3rd cycle?!?!

While watching the dunns, I heard the beautiful song of Hoopoe Lark not too far away, and soon I connected with a family - male, female and two juveniles. The male was singing and displaying intensively, but still had time to collect food for the babies:

This is one of the juveniles - so sweet:

Interestingly, one of the juveniles (a male?) constantly followed the father, and imitated his display, performing its' own short display flights. Here the juvenile can be seen observing the father:

After my mission was accomplished, I drove down to Eilat for some birding. I began with a very easy twitch of the Red Phalarope that was found at the IBRCE on Friday. It took me exactly two seconds to locate the bird - it was by far the ugliest bird in the pond. But still a good rarity! It refused to get close and I was too lazy to get my feet wet, so these images are large crops:

Here it is with it's pretty sister - Red-necked Phalarope. There were about a dozen present.

A short visit to North Beach was quite unproductive - it was late and hot and virtually birdless. The only birds of note were a Eurasian Curlew going north and this Reef Egret:

KM20 saltpans were quite birdy. The commonest shorebirds were Ruff and Wood Sandpiper with several hundreds each.

Wood Sandpiper

There were about 200 White-winged Terns, typically collecting insects from the water surface. By this time light conditions were terrible and I couldn't get any decent shots of this lovely bird.

This one was watching porn:

9 Little Terns were nice:

And it is always nice to see Glossy Ibises away from sewage canals and rubbish dumps: