Falcon Watch

In recent years it has become evident that poaching of large falcons takes place in the Western Negev, where every winter small numbers concentrate. Besides being catastrophic to the survival of species like the globally Endangered Saker, this activity is totally illegal. Our nature law enforcement agency, Nature and Parks Authority, invests considerable efforts to crack down on this activity, but they need support. In recent weeks, a group of volunteers patrols the most sensitive zone daily, and looks out for suspicious poaching activity. We have already found a bait pigeon, and provided information on several suspects that are being investigated.
Yesterday I spent several hours around where the falcons are, looking out for suspicious activity. I saw some birds too, of course. I was relieved to see two Sakers. I tried not to disturb them so these images are big crops:

Individual one - possibly 1cy

Individual two - paler and possibly older

Only two Peregrines were present, one was a stunning calidus-type:

This year it has hardly rained there (again) - fields are very dry bar those irrigated. As a result, some species are present in lower numbers - I had zero harriers, and only one Merlin. There was enough Merlin food though - I counted 5700 Skylarks, and an impressive 450 Calandra Larks, including some tight flocks:

Eurasian Skylarks

Calandra Lark

Mixed flock of calandras and skylarks

I searched for the ever-shrinking group of Sociable Lapwings - I saw seven sat distantly in the middle of a big field - no chance for photography with that killer heat haze. They are not doing great either - perhaps as a result of climate change that causes the continuous decrease in winter rainfall in this region?

Complete eBird checklist here.

pallidus Merlin

Started my second session of wintering raptors census today. Did the Urim transect in the NW Negev again. Fine weather, less mud than last time, slightly fewer birds but still a great day out. Had more Merlins today - a total of five birds including a stunning male pallidus - haven't seen one of these C Asian birds in Israel for many years. This was my personal highlight of the day. Unfortunately only got these crap shots in the shade. I missed it when it flew out and away, and managed to get nothing at all from it in good light. Shame - it was so pallid, almost like a Pallid Harrier. Here you can see it is pale and relatively poorly marked, but it was most impressive in flight in full light.

pallidus Merlin - is there a proper name for this? Maybe Asian Merlin?

Had better photography success with 'standard' Merlins:

Saw again the Saker from last month. Better views this time - moulting a few scapulars and coverts - OK for 2cy (hatched 2013). Tips of TF still fresh.

This must be a female - see how huge it is - here attacking an adult Eastern Imperial Eagle that landed on 'her' favourite pylon! Of course there is an optical illusion here but the falcon was really impressive (and bold).

Other than that the usual suspects - 3 Eastern Imperials, 5 Hen and one Pallid Harriers, 1 Peregrine, many Common and Long-legged Buzzards, and one Steppe Buzzard.

Towards the end of the transect had six Stock Doves exactly on the same pylon where I had them last year. Stock Doves are becoming more and more rare in Israel every year. Last year I had fourty.

 Crop of the image above

 On the way back home had a quick look at Re'im Reservoir - one male Red-crested Pochard (not plastic!) - here's my awful phonescoping attempt: 

There was at least one very happy dog today:

Bamba 

 Spanish Sparrow - just because they're so pretty

Mud monitoring

This morning I did my first raptor monitoring transect of the season, in the NW Negev. This area too received large amounts of rain recently, and as a result the tracks were terribly muddy. By the end of the day I was pretty exhausted of fighting the mud. Got bogged a few times, one of them seriuosly enough that I had to be pulled out of the mud by a tractor after another 4WD that tried to pull me out got bogged himself (thanks Harel and Itai).

But in between I did see some raptors and other birds along the 20 km transect.

Saker - 1cy

It seems that the Sakers that overwinter in NW Negev have very low survival rates as every year we have there almost solely fresh juveniles.

Other falcons I had were three Peregrines and one Merlin. I had three Eastern Imperial Eagles, two adults and a 1cy. This is an adult of course:

Buzzard numbers are lower this year compared to last winter - I had only 11 Long-legged Buzzards and 9 Common Buzzards.

Long-legged Buzzard - 1cy (pale eye), rufous morph

No pallids but four Hen Harriers:

Found the regular Sociable Lapwing flock but they were too deep inside a muddy field surrounded by muddy tracks, so gave up on the photo op. Had 11 Golden Plovers among the many Northern Lapwings:

Some nice mixed flocks of seedeaters including Goldfinches, Linnets and Spanish Sparrows:

Raptors

Repeated the raptor census transect in the NW Negev today. Good weather and much less mud. Didn't get bogged today! Had a good day with lots of good raptors, especially falcons. I had three young Sakers, which brings the total for this winter to four at the NW Negev- an adult has been seen recently. Also had four Peregrines and two Merlins.

Saker - 2cy 

Also had four Eastern Imperial Eagles - three adults and one 4cy:

Fewer buzzards today compared to December. So difficult to photography anything not perched on a pylon.

Long-legged Buzzard

Didn't really count kites - I estimated something like 15000 today, and I wasn't even close to their core of activity (Dudaim dump). Other raptors I had were two Booted Eagles, and some harriers.

One or two Black Kites

Not too much other than raptors. A flock of fourty Dotterels was nice. Couldn't find the sociables anywhere near my transect. About 50 Swifts on the move north (spring already!). 40 Stock Doves at the same place like last time.

Stock Dove - Israeli rarity

Saker world

As part of the national wintering raptor monitoring project I'm coordinating, I did a long driving transect in the NW Negev - Saker country. Again it was a good day, good weather, lots of raptors and good company in the form of Jonathan. We had two Sakers - both young birds. This is bird number one - very large individual:

Bird number two was also very powerful, and had very dark breast and belly.

Most prominent raptor was Long-legged Buzzard - what a fantastic year for them. We counted 25 birds just along our 10 km long transect.

Other raptors seen this morning included two Merlins, four Peregrines, four Imperial Eagles, one Greater Spot, two Pallid Harriers and lots more.

Merlin - 1cy

It was nice to see the Sociable Plover flock increased to 20 birds.

This image was actually taken near my house. A small field was plowed yesterday and had impressive numbers of eagles - 4 juvenile imperials and three greater spots, plus tons of buzzards and kites. This early morning only the buzzards were left. This young bird was assessing the fat reserves on my two neighbours doing their morning walk. 

Take-offs

Nice to get back home after a week of bloody cranes all over the place. I had a couple of free hours this morning so went for a quick drive along the Urim powerline in the NW Negev. Didn't see too much, in fact raptors were rather few. Perhaps due to the fact that there is little raptor food - saw zero lapwings, few doves and starlings. Only skylarks in good numbers, with some calandras amongst them.

This powerful juv. Saker was sat on its regular pylon. What a bird!

Saker - 1cy

Only buzzards showed in good numbers, especially long-legs. I managed to screw this take-off shot:

Long-legged Buzzard - 1cy

Better late than never

My photoshop license expired a few days ago and I am still unable to edit my images. Hope to get that sorted soon. Gal Shon edited these images for me - thanks Gal! Find a White-tailed Rubythroat soon!

Anyway, on Tuesday I had a few hours in the morning to check the famous powerline and its surroundings in the NW Negev. The whole area received very little rainfall and is still exceptinally dry. Birding was OK but a bit on the slow side.
I began with a search for Dotterels. Barak and Eyal found a large concentration a few weeks ago when I was in Kenya. It took my some time to find a group of 39, but as I found them a group of bastard Brown-necked Ravens flushed them, and they flew out of sight:

This is one of the rascals:

I continued birding in the general area and had 4 Eastern Imperial Eagles, 3 Peregrines, 2 Merlin and 1 distant Saker. As usual, lots of Saker food around - skylarks, starlings and pigeons.

Among the commoner stuff had a few hundred Calandra Larks, several Tawny Pipits, 2 Finsch's and good numbers of Isabelline Wheatears:

Later on I found another small group of nine Dotties, tht were a bit more coopertive. They are superb plovers, so deliacte and sweet. Of course compared to how they look like in summer they're brown jobs at the moment, but I'm quite happy with such brown jobs: