400

Those of you who have been following my Big Year effort might have noticed that until October I was doing well but not very optimistic about reaching 400. November was an amazing month, bringing me to 397. December was hard-going - my target, to reach 400, wasn't going to be easy to achieve. I had a Goshawk on Har Amasa on December 3rd (398), I twitched Israel's second Firecrest near Birya on 11th (399). Yesterday, a Red-breasted Merganser was seen off Acre - I couldn't go. This morning I was there early with Jonathan. The sea was rough and beautiful, there were many birds around, but no merganser! I played around with some Rooks, uncommon in Israel:

Eventually, after a proper search, I spotted the merganser swimming quietly at sea, beyond the surf line - boom! I quickly called Jonathan over - we were both super pumped:

Red breasted Merganser makes 400 species for the year! Very happy for you @yoavperlman brother, massive total! @BirdLifeIsrael pic.twitter.com/R8Cr8gLGAF

— Jonathan Meyrav (@JMeyrav) December 19, 2021

Eventually the merganser moved in a bit, and began fishing in the surf, still too distant for proper photography (unlike the showy one that shared the beach with Israel's first and only Snow Bunting, back in 2013).

What a great bird to reach 400 with. And the best feeling to share the moment with my brother Jonathan (who's on 392 currently!) - we saw so many of my 400 together.

Before leaving we spent some time seawatching, two Med Gulls being the best (eBird checklist here).

Mediterranean Gull 1cy with Armenian Gull 4cy (I think)

Down south

Yesterday I headed down south with Jonathan. We had some work to do, and combined that with kind of birding, or rather cherry-picking that largely went wrong. We started off at frozen Ovda Valley - 4⁰

 C is quite extreme in Israeli standards. As expected, bird activity was rather limited early on until the sun finally started heating the environment up. For the second time this winter I failed to find the Basalt Wheatear - what's its story? Sometimes it porns itself completely, on other occasions it's absent - I have no idea where it disappears to. Its chosen corner of the valley looks very dry and unproductive this year - last year it was crawling with beetles and stuff. The main section of the valley, near the 'Black Hills', was a bit better. Asian Desert Warbler, 12 Bar-tailed and 6 Temminck's Larks, wheatears and a distant herd of 15 Onager kept us entertained.

Busy Bar-tailed lark

Mourning Wheatear; one individual showed features of persica (dirty cap, dusky flanks, limited wing panel) but wouldn't pose for photos

Basalt wannabe - White-crowned Wheatear 

nana wannabe - super pallid young female Spectacled Warbler

Ovda eBird checklist is here.

On the way further down to Eilat we stopped briefly at Neot Smadar. No sign of the Hume's Leaf Warbler; Blue Pansy mini population somehow persists there:

In Eilat I had two photographic targets - Oriental Honey Buzzard and Lesser White-fronted Goose. Somewhat predictably, we failed to locate both species. We added some species to our growing year list, and clocked on local rarities - namely Pygmy Cormorant and Gull-billed Tern at IBRCE. 

Pygmy Cormorant - first documented record for Eilat?

We added Booted and Eastern Imperial Eagle, Citrine Wagtail, Dead Sea Sparrows while driving around, scanning the skies, ponds and plantations to no avail, but no other highlights. On the way back home, still on the theme of adding species to our year list, we stopped at Elifaz Reservoir for the Red-breasted Merganser, that was unimpressively sleeping distantly at the center of the huge reservoir (eBird checklist here):

Red-breasted Merganser, Pale Crag-Martin and Great Crested Grebe miles away

Last stop on the way back home was at Samar - fine views of a favourite species, Black Scrub-Robin. Superb way to end a long and overall enjoyable day.

Dipedeedooda dipedeeyay

What to do when you dip? Ignore the dip and move on without mentioning it ever again? Or celebrate, masochistically, the birds that were seen other than the one wanted bird? I choose option B of course.

Yesterday was, as James well defined it, 'the best dip in ages'. 

We set off in the middle of the night towards Dorset - a group of busy middle-aged men. We arrived at Ferry Bridge right on time for the Ross's Gull daily appearence. The temperatures were truly Arctic, but the bird did not do what it was supposed to. We were so bored standing around. I started photographing common birds there.

Not a Ross's Gull

Not a Ross's Gull

Not a Ross's Gull

Not a Ross's Gull

There were quite a few Red-breasted Mergansers and summer-plumaged Black-necked Grebes in the bay, and a couple of Shags, but nobody gave a %$£&. Still I photographed them, and Chris typed them into eBird, because we had nothing better to do.

We then spent the rest of the day in pinky's other favourite haunts, without success. RSPB Radipole Lake carpark was a clear gull hotspot, but the little bugger wasn't there either.

Not a Ross's Gull

Not a Ross's Gull

Certainly not a Ross's Gull

Radiploe, and Lodmoor, held nice numbers of Med Gulls. Not as beautiful as White Angel Ross's Gull, it still is a pretty neat beast.

YAA2 (from Serbia probably)

Lodmoor Med demonstrated well how we felt like

Lodmoor held BIG numbers of Snipe - the largest number we saw at one time was 180 birds, flying around in tight flocks like Dunlin. On a normal day I'd be quite chuffed about this.

Lodmoor was quite alright (see our eBird checklists, religiously typed in by Chris, morning and afternoon). I like this reserve, but prefer it when it actually hosts rarities.

The better end of a Teal

Oh Ross's Gull. I dreamed about you since childhood, when I got Peter Grant's first gull book. The obsession grew bigger with every time I saw the Dutch Birding logo.This was one of my main targets in the UK. I had three previous opportunities to twitch this bird, but I didn't go for various good reasons. How much I regret those responsible decisions now.

Many thanks to Mike (who drove most of the way), Chris and James; despite the painful dip, it was a fun day. Certainly a dip to remember.

Mr. Snowden

Took some time off today to revisit Israel's first Snow Bunting at Acre. I saw it few hours after it was found last Friday, but it was pretty skittish and there were other twitchers on the way to see it so I kept my distance from it and came out with record shots only. Since then it has become very settled and tame, and it might spend the entire winter with us. Seeing images of my friends who came later on to see it, I had to return and improve my images. When I arrived at Acre in the morning the light was crap and it was very windy. As I got out of the car met Noam, Rami, Amir and Eran - they were watching the eclipse male Red-breasted Merganser very close to the carpark. After spending a few minutes with the merganser, I moved on to the bunting's patch. The bird was showing down to a ridiculous distance, feeding with no fear whatsoever. First it was feeding on the ugly concrete blocks, then it moved a few meters to feed on the ground on some bushes. After a while even the sun came out which was nice. This time I am more satisfied with my results...

Snow Bunting - 1cy male 

Red-breasted Merganser

Amir

Later on I was joined by Frank. I went with him to look for the Great Black-backed Gull for his Israeli list. We searched for it for a couple of hours but it didn't show. Some Pallas's Gulls were flying around though:

Slightly disappointed we went to have hummus at the famous Sa'eed Hummus bar. We then walked back to our cars. Just as I was saying goodbye to Frank, with the camera already inside the car, I noticed the GBBGull flying low overhead - classic!