UK family visit autumn 2024

Yesterday I returned from a nice family holiday in the UK. Our main purpose was to meet friends, and indeed much time was spent catching up with good friends. We were based in Norwich most of the time. Norwich - Norfolk - easterlies - early October... Hmmm... We travelled up to Yorkshire to visit our friends Mark and Amity. Yorkshire - easterlies - early October... You get my idea. So my days were divided between family and friends stuff after 10:00, and whatever birding I could get done before 10:00. Several mornings were spent locally in Norwich, birding city parks for my eBird checklist streak, I enjoyed that, even without seeing much - I like Norwich and its habitats. Admittedly, the habitat always looks better that what it actually holds, especially this time of year when most breeding warblers have gone already. Still, seeing birds I don't see in Israel is fun.

I spent two mornings with Mike Dawson in fantastic reserves in Norfolk - NWT Hickling Broad on September 30th, and RSPB Strumpshaw Fen on our final morning, October 8th. In Hickling the weather was awful but I enjoyed seeing pinkfeet back, and there were Curlew and Wood Sandpipers. 

En route to Yorkshire we spent one night in Sheringham with friends. I admired the regular chippy-eating visitors.

The weather was building up, and I anticipated my morning birding at Beeston Bump on October 3rd. That morning easterlies were blowing nicely, and Beeston Bump felt rare. I worked the patch hard but came up with nothing special and few indications of active migration. Scanning the sea produced a few birds I enjoyed - Brent, Common Scoter and Red-throated Diver. Just as I was about to leave and rejoin my family, birds started to appear, coming in-off - some thrushes, finches and mipits. This was thrilling but I didn't have enough time and had to leave when the game was on. Arrgghhhh...

The Pale-legged Warbler at RSPB Bempton Cliffs, the 2nd for Britain, had been found a few days before I arrived in the UK. Had I been a serious twitcher, I could have gone for it from Norwich. However, at my current status I am not a serious WP or UK twitcher. Therefore I decided to wait patiently, maybe it will wait until our planned trip up to Yorkshire on October 3rd. It was still seen on the evening of October 2nd. I was hopeful and persuaded my family that the best spot for coffee in Yorkshire is Bempton. The bloody bird buggered off that night. With negative news on 3rd and slight disappointment we travelled direct to York. York is a beautiful city and we had a lovely time with Mark and Amity.

The Shambles

York Minster

Mark and I escaped early morning of October 4th for some much-needed birding quality-time. The wind was still good but with clear skies we didn't expect a huge fall. We headed to Flamborough, hoping to find a good birding spot and avoid crowds. We were amazed to find Old Fall parking layby empty - were we missing a mega nearby? We walked along Old Fall hedge and quickly witnessed really nice migration - not a huge fall indeed, solid numbers of birds coming in and moving along the hedge and into the plantation. Halfway down the hedge a small bunting jumped up and flew off strongly. Mark fired off a few flight shots and I heard a sharp thin 'tzik' - Little Bunting! A few meters further down we flushed a Woodcock. We positioned ourselves at the southern side of Old Fall plantation and had a great couple of hours in beautiful weather, waves of migrants coming in and heading towards the mainland - Goldcrests, warblers, finches, thrushes. We were joined by another local Yorkshire birder Paul who had nearby another Little Bunting, maybe even two. A Richard's Pipit flew over calling, a Firecrest joined the goldcrest and tit flock, a Red-breasted Flycatcher rattled from the plantation, several Yellow-browed Warblers were very active in the sunshine, often chasing each other - magic. 

Coming from a goose-deprived country, I appreciated the incoming flocks of Pink-footed Geese.

Incredible that Mark, with his mighty photographic skills, managed to take such a lousy selfie.

Wonderful morning birding Old Fall, #Flamborough with brother @yoavperlman. Waves of migrants moving through in warm sunshine, inc Richard's Pipit, two Little Buntings, RB Fly, Firecrest, Pied Fly, 5 Yellow-brows, Bramblings, thrushes, lots of Goldcrests. A privilege and a joy. pic.twitter.com/1O0aJaTSv7

— Mark James Pearson (@Markthebirder) October 4, 2024

Inside the plantation there was lots of activity. We had fleeting views of an unidentified Acro, a nice Pied Fly, Redstart - thoroughly entertaining. Listen to all the bird calls in the Old Fall sycamores. Bliss.

Then it was back to Norwich. I refused to twitch the Winterton Asian Desert Warbler - I am so mature and responsible. I was strongly motivated to find an inland Yellow-browed. I tried very hard every morning without success, until the final morning. RSPB Strumpshaw Fen looked glorious in the sunshine. Just as Mike and I left the carpark I heard the anticipated 'Tswee'. Love the shape of this sonogram.

There were a few more quality birds including Bearded Titlings and Bittern.

I am amazed how quickly Great Egret transformed from a rarity to a common bird in the UK. I saw them at several sites in Norfolk, including Strumpshaw.

And that was that. eBird trip report here. Till next time. Thanks to all the good friends who make us feel at home in the UK.

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

Day and night

Last night I decided to take advantage of the abundance of waders and small moon; I organized a good team (Yotam, Ora, Hiller, Shlomo and Yosef) and we went mistnetting in the muddy Ashdod ponds. Night conditions were different from the morning, with fewer and more scattered birds, but the main pool was still good enough. we set our nets up quickly and by dusk everything was ready. We kept going until 23:00. We didn't catch too many birds, but we had a very good variety. Commonest species of course was Little Stint. I was happy to catch the single Broad-billed Sandpiper I saw in the morning. Such a great bird! Its bill is so unique.

Broad-billed Sandpiper

Another good bird for these inland ponds was this juv Turnstone. Again, I had only one in the morning, and we managed to trap it!

In the morning I did not see any Kentish Plovers at all, but we caught one - an adult.

Kentish Plover

We had one adult Dunlin too, losing its black belly:

Though present in large numbers, we had only two Ringed Plovers:

Of the tringas we had one Redshank:

And four Wood Sandpipers:

And this Spur-winged Plover added some colour:

Not quite a bird, this Kuhl's Pipistrelle was a real sweety:

After a short sleep, I returned in the early to my CES for 'normal' ringing. It was pretty good, with Willow Warblers dominating the catch. Two Tree Pipits were nice:

Early morning migrants included many Ortolans and Tree Pipits.

Ma'agan Michael - migration in full swing

I spent the last three days at Ma'agan Michael. I took part in a data anlysis workshop given by Nat Seavy of PRBO. After visiting PRBO last year it was great for me to meet Nat over here, and of course I learned so much from his experience and expertise. Unfortunately I had very little time for birding, and only this morning I had a couple of hours to do some birding with Nat.
Ma'agan Michael beach was very birdy, with many terns, gulls and shorebirds. We had five Greater Sandplovers, this one being rather tame and showing well in the early morning light. Note the huge bill and yellow legs.

Greater Sandplover

There was a good selection of other shorebirds but nothing too exciting. However Turnstones are always amusing to watch.

Ruddy Turnstone

There were several hundred terns roosting on the beach. Most were the local Common Terns, but there were good numbers of Little Terns and White-winged Terns - about 50 of each.

Little Tern

I had two colour-ringed Little Terns that had been ringed as part of a project run by the NPA, both were ringed at Atlit (15 km north) earlier this month. Hopefully some Israeli terns will get sighted in South Africa this winter.

White-winged Tern (what a poor name)

After this quick look at the beach we drove around the nearby ponds. This did not produce too much, with the only birds of interest being 1 Eurasian Cuckoo and 1 Temminck's Stint.

As you can see the workshop itself was great fun too. Here we R analyzing some data ;-)