Best of autumn

These past few weeks have been super busy for me. I have been doing more fieldwork than I usually do, especially with a raptor count that we did in northern Israel. It has been an excellent autumn/fall migration, with good numbers of many common migrants. I enjoy this kind of birding very much. Admittedly there have been few proper rarities recently, but I'd rather marvel at spectacular migration every day than go twitching. 

On September 11th I was out in Maagan Michael, doing my routine monthly monitoring of our restoration project there. Halfway during a point count, I spotted a Pectoral Sandpiper that walked into view for two seconds, then disappeared from view before the two others with me could see it. I had to wait in agony until the 10-minute point count was over, to walk around the corner and confirm the all-too-brief ID. It was.

This sweet Eastern Black-eared Wheatear was one of many migrants present that day.

On September 16th my organisations (SPNI) has an event for our employees on the beach in Tel Aviv. I co-led one of the free walks we offered our staff, and found this White-tailed Lapwing on the beach - super unusual in urban Tel Aviv, a harbinger of a small influx that brought five birds to Tel Aviv. 

On September 19th I led a pelagic trip into the Gulf of Aqaba, on behalf of Eilat Birding Center. Only one bird came into the chum slick, but that bird was a Swinhoe's Storm-Petrel that showed very well for a couple of minutes. 

Before the pelagic Piki and I checked the KM20 saltpans that were full of common shorebirds. Among the less common shorebirds was this lovely Broad-billed Sandpiper:

September 23rd was a day of massive raptor migration over Israel. I was not out counting that day, I was busy doing all kinds of things, but the 36 minutes I could spare in my garden, watching the sky, were awesome: 2360 Lesser Spotted Eagle and 1420 Levant Sparrowhawks that went through in several tight flocks like this one:

I enjoyed connecting with two beautiful young Red Knots on Maagan Michael beach on September 26th - scarce birds in Israel, but this is THE place and time for them in our country:

Local birding has been awesome too, with some reservoirs holding large amounts of birds. Check this sweet flock of Whiskered Terns (and a Pied kingfisher):

On Yom Kippur (October 2nd) my birding/checklist streak had to continue, so I walked out of home to check the adjacent fields, unusually carrying my camera. Those were days of big European Bee-eater migration, and this wonderful flock perched on a mulberry looked especially glamorous:

On Cotober 3rd I was counting raptors in Gvat. Take-off was impressive, the Lesser Spotted Eagles struggled to gain altitude, and sailed past me very low, some of them very close. 

This one had a metal ring on, I couldn't read the code:

Steppe Eagle

On October 4th I was point-counting at our restoration site in Kfar Ruppin for a study we're doing there. Phenomenal amounts of birds still (eBird checklist here). After the point counts it was getting hot yet the alfalfa fields were full of birds. I found a Richard's Pipit which was a bit nice:

This shrike duo, Great Gray Shrike on left, and Lesser Gray Shrike on right, allowed good comparison. Both are so beautiful.

On October 6th I was counting soaring birds again, this time in Afek National Park, in central Israel. Raptor migration was quieter (eBird checklist here), but pelican migration was awesome:

Finally, a Spotted Flycatcher, one of many seen at Nafha on October 9th. In my eyes, this is a great example of a birds that isn't colourful at all, nevertheless it is so pretty. 

May the rest of the autumn continue to be so good!

Pratincole zen

Amidst the series of blogposts from my trip to Kenya in July (one more left to go), I need to remind myself that there is quality stuff to be presented from here in Israel too. This is a tough period for birding, with extreme weather. Birding is really limited to the first two hours of light. Yesterday I stopped in Kfar Ruppin for a couple of hours before heading up to the Golan heights for less fun work (regulating the operation of bird-chopping wind turbines). Two hours of early morning birding zen is exactly what I needed ahead of a difficult day.

Good things are happening in Kfar Ruppin. The kibbutz has made a strategic decision to direct their future towards sustainability, nature and tourism. I am very proud to collaborate with our partners at the kibbutz. Our pilot project there, Amud Reservoir, was looking amazing as always first thing. Mimicing natural wetland water cycles, water levels are low now, which translates into a huge, beautiful reedbed, exploding with Savi's Warblers, Acros, Little Bitterns and such (eBird checklist here). 

Kfar Ruppin fishponds are looking very good now. Two large reservoirs have low water levels, exposing precious mud to migrants. One reservoir held a great flock of Collared Pratincoles, a post-breeding concentration of the locally-breeding population. I love pratincoles. With the soundtrack of Blue-cheeked and Common Bee-eaters, this pond provided me with the zen experience I needed (and another checklist).

What other species can you spot mixed in the pratincole flock?

That corner of the reservoir attracted also quite many shorebirds, and terns. Little Tern isn't common inland. One Whiskered Tern is in here too.

Whiskered Tern

Temminck's Stints - so tiny compared to Little Stint!

All videos embedded here were taken using a Swarovski ATX85 scope and a Swarovski phone adapter.

Eilat

While down in Eilat it was not all about locust. Raptor migration was excellent - peak days for Levant Sparrowhawk. We did not see any huge flocks, but enjoyed nice numbers (several hundreds), and for me driving up and down the valley seeing levants fly alongside the car, or dart between trees, is a thrilling experience.

These were early days for European Honey-Buzzard migration, we had several tens on each morning; a few 'local' Orientals were seen too.

European Honey-Buzzard

The saltpans south of IBRCE and also KM20 were packed with shorebirds. Among the many stints and ringed plovers were also Red-necked Phalaropes, Black-winged Pratincoles and Broad-billed Sandpipers. We missed a huge arrival of White-winged Terns by few days. At KM20 all three 'marsh tern' species were seen foraging side by side - very beautiful birds. Forgive me White-winged Tern for ignoring you this time.

Black Tern - quite scarce, actually a photo tick for me in Israel

Whiskered Tern

Megan, Michael and the purple chicken

This morning went birding at Ma'agan Michael (often called Megan Michael by UK birders). Some pretty good birds were reported there in recent days so I was looking forward to a nice morning of birding. It was quite nice indeed but migration was still on the slow side, especially few shorebirds.

I first went to check the Purple Swamphen Lior had found a few days ago. I relocated it pretty fast on the reedy edge of a very birdy fishpond. It showed on and off for some time. In Israel we mostly get the green-backed African form madagascariensis; there are only two Israeli records of the grey-headed Asian form caspius. Lior was there again with a group of kids so I didn't try to get any closer to it and settled with distant views from across the pond.

Lots of terns were feeding on the ponds. Especially big numbers of White-winged Terns, and of course lots of the local breeding Common and Little Terns. Fewer Whiskered Terns and one adult Gull-billed.

Almost all White-winged Terns were adults, in varying stages of moult out of breeding plumage. They have a periodic feeding technique - they forage slowly into the wind. When they reach the end of the pond they fly quickly downwind to the other end and then again slowly make their way upwind, dipping into the water and collecting stuff from the water surface. This makes them rather easy to photograph on the wing. Lovely birds they are.

White-winged Terns

Whiskered Terns

Rather few shorebirds on the beach - 21 Greater Sand-plovers, some Turnstones and Sanderlings. Gulls included Armenian, local breeding Yellow-legged, one 2cy Med Gull, some Black-headed and lots of Slender-billed.

columbinus Greater Sand-plover - they typically moult very early, so now have almost no signs of summer plumage:

Yellow-legged Gull and Common Sandpiper

On the way out noticed this poor Little Grebe hanging from a net protecting the fishponds. First time I see a Little Grebe hanging like this (many years ago had a black-necked at Kfar Ruppin). With the assistance of Asaf I cut it out and released it - damaged wing but hopefully it makes it. This issue of massive nets covering fishponds is being dealt with for about two decades now, but as far as I can see very little has changed on the ground. These nets still kill too many birds every day.

Goodbye spring, hello summer

Sorry for the long absence since my last post, I visited cold Germany with my family. No time for birding resulted in no birds of note.
Back in hot Israel, these are the last days of spring - here migration is really slowing down, compared to Europe where things are just warming up. Weather was good this afternoon so I spent some time checking reservoirs near my house.
There was a nice mix of late migrants and good breeding species. Among the migrants were this flock of about 100 pelicans. Note the Sand Martins in front of them - there were about 2000 hawking for insects over the water in Hulda reservoir, which was very birdy as always.

One good bird that made a brief appearence was this Blue-cheeked Bee-eater. It flew in from the south, perched on a Tamarix bush for a few seconds, I got some distant record shots, but before I managed to get any closer a bloody crow flushed it away. This is a good record for this region.

Other good migrants in the three reservoirs I checked were 6 Whiskered and a single White-winged Tern, 1 drake Garganey, 4 Purple and 20 Squacco Herons, 5 Curlew Sandpipers and over 200 Ruff.

I had some good breeding birds too. There were six pairs of Ferruginous Ducks. It was nice to see the males' courtship - they puffed their heads and breasts up like goldeneyes, and chased after the females. Another quality breeding species was Collared Pratincole - I had two pairs, the females sitting on eggs.