Fun in the Golan

Since the northern ceasefire went into effect a few weeks ago, birders returned to northern Israel and started finding lots of great birds. It was tormenting for me to see all these wonderful reports come in, without being able to travel north. Yesterday I had to get away, after weeks of intense personal stuff and work overload. I left early with Jonathan and Rony. Climbing up the Golan heights from the Hula Valley after dawn was breathtaking. I missed this region so much.

It was very cold up Mt. Bental, and at first bird activity was low. At least it was very beautiful up there.

Slowly the sun climbed out of the cloud, temperatures rose and birds became more active. We met up there with Barak and Uri. We first found a couple of sweet Red-fronted Serins, then we had several more, total of about eight. That's a good number for Israel. Sadly all the serins I saw were very mobile and I didn't manage to get any decent photos of them.  The stars of the morning were two Radde's Accentors that have been hanging around there for a couple of weeks. Great to see this rare birds - I haven't seen one in Israel since 2011. They were not easy to see, but eventually I managed a half-decent photo.

I also enjoyed the nice numbers of Rock Buntings there, I find them pretty in the pastel-toned winter plumage.

We left Mt. Bental satisfied (eBird checklist here), and headed south. A stop at Mt. Bnei Rasan wasn't very productive and the wind picked up, so we continued further south towards Meitzar Reservoir, where a Red-wattled Lapwing had taken residnce in the last few months. We found it quickly, hanging out with Spur-wings on some rough ground. These are my first photos of this rarity in Israel. I did see one briefly in early 2024 in the Hula valley but all I managed that morning was a sound recording as it flew past me in thick fog.

We descended from the Golan Heights via Susita, where we had four Crag Martins, and a Blackstart - this is a northern range extension for this desert species in Israel. Every northern Big Day we do we visit Susita for Blackstart and a few other species.

Northern clean-up

While spending a few days up in the north, I had time for some birding, including a clean sweep of northern rarities, now safely nestled in my 2021 yearlist. 

Israel's first Wilson's Phal that nearly gave me a heart attack when it was found, is spending the winter in tranquility in the Bet She'an Valley. Now relocated to Kfar Ruppin fishponds, it chose a wonderful pond full of birds.

Avocets with Jordanian backdrop

Nice flock of 19 White-winged Terns in summer plumage

Floating solar panels installed on nearby large reservoirs, functioning as comfy perches for birds

Up on the cold and windy Golan Heights, the Lesser White-fronted Goose is still around

Pure gold

Long-billed Pipit in Susita

Two Fire-fronted Serins still on Mt. Bental, with Euro Serins

בוקררררררר ברמת הגולן
Frosty morning on the Golan Heights pic.twitter.com/yq55dSAAmQ

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) January 24, 2021

Tons of storks, kites and starlings at Tovlan landfill site in the Jordan Valley:

Hula Festival - Mt. Hermon

Today I led the Mt. Hermon tour with Nadav for the Hula Bird Festival. After breakfast we left the hotel and arrived directly at the drinking pools pretty early. Immediately we noticed large numbers of finches feeding and drinking around the pond. Showed our clients their first Syrian Serins and soon saw quite many more. We positioned ourselves to watch the drinking, and enjoyed a very active hour or so with lots of birds coming in to drink. Of course Chaffinch, Linnet and Goldfinch in big numbers, but lots of good stuff mixed in. Best were Red-fronted Serins. We had three, later on other groups had another 20! This is an outstadning concentration in modern Israeli standards. Other goodies we had were some Yellowhammers and Bramblings, two Dunnocks, many Rock Buntings and Syrian Serins and a Redwing overhead.

Red-fronted Serin

Then we left the drinking spot and climbed up with the cablecar to the upper platform. It was cold in the lower platform to start with, so on the upper platform it was freezing and the wind was strong. Bird activity was poor and we really didn't see much, only quite many Woodlarks and one Fieldfare. Just before leaving we spotted this Black Vulture which was a good consolation prize:

Returned to the lower platform for other target species. Hard work again but eventually we had good views of Sombre Tits, and part of the group saw Western Rock Nuthatch.

Sombre Tit 

After an excellent lunch at the Druze village of Majdal Shams, I decided to skip the original plan of searching again for finches and buntings on the windswept Golan Heights, and headed back down to the Hula Valley instead to see some large, noisy birds. We had a enjoyable last hour of light watching a good pre-roost gathering at Lehavot Habashan fishpons with thousands of Black kites, Pelicans, Black Stork, herons and egrets, one nice Peregrine, some Citrine Wags and Temminck's Stint -very nice end to a good day. Many thanks to my co-leader Nadav and to Martin and Sander who helped me a lot during the tougher parts of the day.

Fire front!

This is our traditional July Hermon ringing weekend. For family reasons I could participate only in the first half, which was very good. Not huge numbers but some very good stuff. Highlight was this female Red-fronted Serin. Only the second ever to be ringed in Israel (I ringed the first at the same place in 2003) and a good winter rarity in Israel, it's extremely rare in summer but we've had some records on Mt. Hermon in recent decade. I believe it breeds quite close, perhaps on the E slopes of the Syrian part of Mt. Hermon. Of course we didn't find any breeding during our breeding atlas project. Unfortunately, like all adults this time of year, it was terribly worn and ragged; but still a good-looking bird! Stuck to its bill are remains of Creeping Cherry (Cerasus prostrata) - important food source for many high-altitude species this time of year.

Red-fronted Serin - 2cy female

I don't have the totals yet but it seems that Syrian Serin and Linnet were well represented. Goldfinch numbers were alarming low. Rock & Black-headed Buntings OK too I think. This adult Balkan Warbler might be from the local breeding population or an early migrant - they're on the move already:

Balkan Warbler

Rock Bunting

We had quite many Hill Sparrows coming down to drink but unfortunately none got caught.

Hill Sparrow

Alpine Swifts 

We normally open our nets early enough in the morning to catch a bat or two. This time we had a stunning  Long-eared Bat sp. (waiting for taxonomic updates from my bat friends).

Long-eared Bat sp. (Plecotus spp.)

Many thanks to the team members - Nadav, Gidon, Yosef, Ron, Re'a and all the others.

Turkey day 3 - Işak Paşa to Van Gölü - colours and quality

For me it felt like an overall slower day, but looking back and reading at this post gives me the impression of a cracking day. Anyway, after the exhausting climb up Mt. Ararat the previous day, we started off early on June 22nd and first went to check the area around Işak Paşa castle south of Doğubayazit. This is a well known site for Grey-necked Bunting and Mongolian Finch. We saw no buntings at all, and of Mongolian Finch we had only some brief flyby views. So what did we see?

First we birded along the good track heading south from the castle to the grassy upland plains. As anywhere else in this region, Black-headed Bunting was the most obvious species. I saw so many during our trip and this was the first (and last) one I photographed: 

We tried really hard to locate Mr. buchananni, but all we could find were Ortolans - they were everywhere. We got worried and started suspecting that all previous birders misidentified them... 

Ortolan - male

Ortolan - female

Still we had many good birds there. Some brief Mongolian and Crimson-winged Finches, Twite, quite many White-winged Snowfinches, and one singing male Common Rosefinch that showed rather well, our only rosefinch of the trip:

We had some Red-fronted Serins around the palace, again showing too well - in fact one landed for a second on my lens when I was trying to photograph it:

Quite many Whinchats breeding on the grassy plains:

This is dedicated to my Israeli followers:

עקעק

Again, good numbers of Western Rock Nuthatces and Eastern Black-eared Wheatears were seen breeding on the rocky hills, as well as our only Hill Sparrows of the trip. A pair of Golden Eagles breeds on the cliff just around the corner from the castle.

Unfortunately, here like everywhere else in E Turkey, signs of intensive huting pressure were very evident, with few mammals and lots of pellets: 

Işak Paşa castle - Doğubayazit in the background

 

After drinking coffee with millions of holidaying Turks at the castle gardens, we headed back south. A short stop at Tendurek moutain pass produced a very very cooperative Rufous-tailed Rock Thrush. Who said that only in the tropics you get colourful birds?

Tai Chi training 

 And then he came to check us out:

 And even sang a little for us:

At Çaldiran we met some new Kurdish friends over lunch:

When planning this trip, I used info and tips from some good friends. But I learned that I need to double-check my info, as I made a stupid mistake. There are two Nemrut Daği's in Turkey - one with a crater, overlooking the west shore of Van Gölü, and another some hundreds of km west (where Kurdish Wheatear breeds). I discovered that only when we were on the road heading to the wrong Nemrut Daği. Anyway the trip was much longer than we expected, and we decided to give Nemrut Crater a miss. Next time. We focused on reedbeds around the lake for Paddyfield Warbler. First we checked a small reedbed along the road on the N shore of the lake, that looked good (  38.780481° N   42.608487° E). Indeed there was some paddyfield activity there but it was too hot and we saw very little. A family of Armenian Stonechats showed there - the female was terribly worn. What a dark-looking bird!

That's one of the two recently-fledged juveniles of the Armenian Stonechat:

Then we followed a tip from Emin and headed to a fantastic site in the NW corner of the lake, just south of Ahlat ( 38.733648° N  42.441921°E). This is a very interesting and diverse wetland, with a matrix of small canals and patches of reeds and bullrush. We had plenty of Paddyfield Warblers there, some of them showing very well, especially in the small clumps in the NE side. All were adults - I suppose the young have not fledged yet, and very worn.But still good looking acros, as good as acros can get...

Paddyfield Warblers

I know this is out of focus but note the distinctive wing formula - very short and deeply notched P2, and P4 well emarginated (probably also P5), creating a very short, rounded and fingered wing structure. Dark distal half to lower mandible was very prominent too.

Other good birds at this site included a pair of Ruddy Shelduck, some Moustached Warblers, Bearded Reedlings and Penduline Tits. In the end we made one hell of a circuit to see Paddyfield Warbler; I'm sure there are sites much closer to Van, but it was nice to be there. 

After we were done there we started heading back to Van along the south shore of the lake. Beyond Tatvan we used the last minutes of sunlight to check a patch of scrub / degraded forest ( 38.455103° N  42.323805° E). There are few dense patches of forest or scrub in the Van region, and it was good to bird there for a short while. I am not sure whether the tress there are natural or planted (oaks and polar), but this site is very different from anywhere else in Van region. We didn't have anything special there, just some singing Nightingales among other common forest birds, but this site looks promising and certainly worth another check. I played Phylloscopus music but nothing responded...

In Van we stayed at the pretty shabby Medi Hotel, quite close to the airport.