Akaziengrasmuecke

This morning I surveyed a beautiful acacia wadi in the Arava Valley, together with Meidad. Weather was lovely, trees in blossom, happy birds and birders.

The wadi held a typical species assemblage for this habitat. Nice numbers of common desert species - Blackstart, Arabian Green Bee-eater, Streaked Scrub-Warbler, Desert Lark etc. Due to eBird 48-hrs shutdown I cannot share my checklist.

Early on a majestic Golden Eagle flew past:

Then we enjoyed great activity of this habitat's specialty - Arabian Warbler. In Hebrew, and in German, it's called 'Acacia Warbler'. We had three birds, including a very vocal male already apparently holding territory. Such excellent birds. Certainly one of my best encounters with this species.

With a Palestinian friend

Even came down to the ground to feed on grubs, tossing leaves and acacia fruit up in the air like a Blackbird...

Other quality birds included quite many Spectacled Warblers (winter visitors here), and a Namaqua Dove.

Hameishar

Yesterday I surveyed different sections of Hameishar plains for the Atlas project, together with Rony and Leor. This sensitive military zone is off bounds on weekdays, so the safest day to visit without the risk of being kicked out is Saturday. Leaving home super early, we arrived at the first section, Wadi Trashim, shortly after dawn. Stepping out of the car, I was pleased to experience exactly what I was hoping for - air full of bird song, and bushes topped with perched birds. Brilliant. We started walking and picking up good birds in the exceptionally lush wadi - so subtly beautiful.

The soundscape was made up mainly by lark song - Lesser Short-toed, Crested, Temminck's and Bar-tailed, all busy in breeding activity, and also many Spectacled Warblers, giving their little display flights. Lesser Short-toed Lark is an opportunistic breeder here, only in years when rainfall is high and local productivity creates good breeding conditions, like this year:

Also breeding density of Spectacled Warbler seemed higher than average here:

There were lots of migrants too: a large flock of Greater Short-toed Larks, many common pipits, and goodies including Oriental Skylark, Richard's Pipit, Citrine Wagtail and Siberian Stonechat.

It was really great there (check eBird checklist here) but it was time to move on. We checked other sections in the south of the Plains, and experienced very different conditions compared to the northern section - extremely dry, with hardly any fresh germination, almost nothing, and perennials looking dry and dormant too. However this might change in the next week or two - large amounts of rain fell there in recent days, and may produce rapid germination of annuals and revival of perennials, hopefully followed by large-scale breeding events like last year (check here and here). Back to now and here, this recent rain event created some large puddles. When we drove up to one of the sites, we noticed that one of the puddles attracted massive numbers of Crowned and Spotted Sandgrouse - simply fantastic. They were actually very tame and confident, and some walked very close to our car. The whole vocal and visual commotion, of birds coming and going, was wonderful to experience. 

Birding southwest and southeast sections of Hameishar was rather quiet and dry, and it was getting hot; we still managed to document breeding of Temminck's and Bar-tailed Larks, Desert and Isabelline Wheatears and enjoy some migrants like this cooperative Woodchat Shrike perched on a Spiny Zilla bush:

Many thanks to Rony and Leor for company.

Cyprus pilgrimage

This morning Meidad and me paid Wadi Mishmar, by the Dead Sea, its annual late February visit, coinciding with peak migration of Cyprus Warbler. Soon after we started walking in, we heard a deep, distant raven croak and then spotted two Common Ravens perched on a dead tree in the distance - nice start.

We started checking the lush Taily Weed (Ochradenus baccatus) bushesץ At first it was big numbers of Sardinian Warblers; then as we continued climbing up the dry wadi bed, we encountered more and more Cyprus Warblers, giving their metallic chattering from deep inside bushes:

During the first hour or so, we encountered so many Cyprus Warblers, which was great, but from a photographic point of view they were real bastards, giving frustratingly bad views like this

or like this

or like this

Eventually I bumped into a male who wanted to play ball. I first spotted him looking all gorgeous in an acacia tree:

Then he decided to make the decent move and flew straight towards me:

And settled for a couple of minutes in a bush just few meters away, feasting on what the bush has to offer - fruit, arthropods, pollen. He was just brilliant. What a performer.

We ended up with 22 Cyprus Warblers - good tally. There were a few more migrants in the wadi - both cuckoos, Eastern Orphean, good fun. eBird checklist here.

On the way back home spent a midday hour in Lahav NR, which looks stunning now, flowers wall to wall, good birds singing, I had a good time.

Pink Butterfly Orchid

Finsch's Wheatear with Poppy Anemones in the background

Corn Bunting singing on Branched Ashpodel

Spectacled Warbler on Dominican Sage, accompanied by Xerocrassa seetzeni snails (thanks Nitai)

eBird checklist here.

Back to the hills

After the short Cypriot break, I resumed fieldwork in the Batha hills north of Jerusalem. On Thursday I surveyed some higher-elevation hills. While bird densities were somewhat low, perhaps due to higher levels of anthropogenic disturbance, I did find most expected breeding species including Long-billed Pipit, Cuckoo, many Eastern Black-eared Wheatears and Cretzschmar's bunting. As expected at these higher elevations, there was quite good activity of Woodlark - top quality bird IMO.

That wing pattern

Zoothera Lark!

Also Spectacled Warblers were pretty active and showed nicely, though light was a bit harsh:

On Prickly Thornet (Sarcopoterium spinosum)

With Red Everlasting (Helichrysum sanguineum) bottom right

Despite the near-shrubless habitat, there were hordes of Blackcaps in the low bushes, and Ortolans, mainly on the move but some came down to drink in puddles:

Black-veined White are very common in this habitat:

Pyramidal Orchid is one of the latest-flowering orchids in Israel:

Yesterday in the afternoon I visited Gazelle Valley in Jerusalem with Piki and my brother. We searched without success for a Great Snipe that is still there. Big numbers of swifts were impressive - those ultra-aerobats drinking in the main pond against the sun provided some photographic opportunities that I barely grasped:

Gazelle Valley eBird checklist here.

Today was super-productive at my local patch and at home. I had a Little Bittern surprise me in the garden while hanging up laundry, and a Red-footed Falcon flew over.  An early morning visit to my patch, Nahal Ekron (see checklist here) produced the goods - Little and Spotted Crake, Little Bittern and Barred Warbler on a fantastic Mulberry tree that also hosted 2 Golden Orioles.