Good old friend

Yesterday Piki and I paid a visit to a good old friend, Goldy, the Tel Aviv Pacific Golden-Plover. This individual bird has been returning to the same busy strip of coastal rocks for its eighth winter. Since 2017, when it was first found by Ilan Moriyah, it normally arrives in mid September, and stays until early March. Over the years, this bird has witnessed the adjacent landscape changing dramatically. In its early years, across the coastal promenade, an active airport was still in operation, Sde Dov. Back then, when the beach became too busy and disturbed by humans and dogs, the bird went to rest and roost in the open spaces buffering the runways, with other shorebirds. Check the blogpost from my first encounter with it, when I was attended by airport security trying to photograph it inside the airport ground. The airport stopped operating in 2019; a couple of years later development started in the abandoned land. Now it's all dug up with huge land works taking place. 

Over the years, Goldy has become fully accustomed to human disturbance on one of Tel Aviv's busiest beaches. In its early years it was quite skittish. Now Goldy is a true performer, so confident and relaxed. Piki and I found it first thing, before sunrise, on the exposed vermetid reef with a few more shorebirds. We sat down quietly, no hide or camouflage needed. The bird approached us, very calm, and did its thing, which was mainly foraging for little crabs and other invertebrates living on the rocks, resting and preening, waves crashing on the rock behind it. 

The sun rose behind the tall buildings of Tel Aviv, its early rays adding a beautiful golden tone to Goldys' feathers. 

After a long wait for it to complete its preening and grooming session, it finally agreed to stretch its wings for us, exposing the grey-brown axillaries. What. a. bird.

Spot that one tiny shed feather

Stretch!

Of course, with all the justified admiration to Goldy, it would be rude to ignore its neighbours. 

There were two Greater Sand-Plovers on the same rock, and another two further south. In the background of this photo is the tip of a sea kayak passing close by.

Two cute and round Common Ringed-Plovers shared that same rock too:

Several kingfishers, Common and Pied, were fishing around the rocks:

In the air that was little active migration of wagtails and pipits. Several White Wagtails were jumping on the rocks, happily chasing after insects:

A couple of graceful, fearless Little Egrets came in too close for a photo of their complete body:

Thanks to Piki for an enjoyable morning session, despite all the horrible news creeping in from all directions, threatening to shatter our nature-healing bubble.

PGP at Ashdod

This is going to be long - beware!

Yesterday Amir Ben Don and Ehud Dovrat found a Pacific Golden Plover at Yavne 4 ponds north of Ashdod. I had a couple of free hours in the morning, so gave it a try. The weather was OK - no rain and sunny, but very windy which made photography a bit shaky.

The ponds were shorebirdless, just a few Temminck's Stints. I had a quick look at the gull flock nearby. One of the first birds I saw was this colour-ringed Baltic Gull. I was very happy to see this bird as I had ringed and released it in September. It was rehabilitated at the NPA wildlife hospital after being found exhausted.




There were fewer Baltic Gulls compared to what Amir had yesterday. There were only 10 or so adult baltics. But nevertheless they are such beautiful birds, and I can never resist getting more images of them in good light:


Numbers of Caspian Gulls are starting to build up:

There were about 20 adult Siberian Gulls. Look at this impressive male:

Note the big mirror on P10:

After I had enough with the gulls, I drove down to the beach. I started to scan through the hundreds of roosting shorebirds on the beach, and quite quickly relocated yesterday's Pacific Golden Plover. At first I had crap distant views, but later the bird moved in quite close. I got decent images, though I didn't manage to get the wanted underwing shot. At one moment a late Hobby made all the shorebirds take off, but I missed the photo-opp. Oz Horine got a great flight shot - see here: http://www.israbirding.com/israelbirdsforum/forum_entry.php?id=1173.

I really enjoyed watching this elegant plover for a long time. I have seen quite a few in Israel, but it is always a cool bird to see. It was especially interesting to compare it to Israel's first American Golden Plover I saw last November at Ma'agan Michael. Note especially the short primary projection of this bird - not even three primaries exposed beyond the tertials.

It was nice to see so many shorebirds on the pretty beach and not in a stinking fishpond or sewage pond. There were about 10 Greater Sand Plovers, all more or less in full winter plumage already.

Among the commoner species were Ringed Plovers, Little Stints and Dunlin.

I dipped on the Cyprus Wheatear Amir had yesterday; it was really too windy for passerines. There were several Northern Wheatears though: