Lynx-quest

Returned last night from five days in Spain, the fourth installment of our 'Big Cat Quest' (after Tiger, Lion-Cheetah-Leopard, Jaguar). While Iberian Lynx is at most an honorary Big Cat, it still is rare, beautiful and attractive, hence our interest. The team stayed the same - Amir, Eli, my brother Gidon and myself. We teamed up with Simon / Inglorious Bustards and stayed up in Los Piños, on the edge of Parque Naturel de la Sierre de Andujar.

On the way south we first stopped for a look at Laguna de Navaseca, about halfway between Madrid and Andujar - ideal birding stop with lots of birds, including many White-headed Ducks already getting into business:

Then it was up to the impressive Parque Natural de la Sierra de Andujar. We had planned to dedicate three full days and another morning for Lynx. Because of foul weather and various other limitations we spent much less time up on the mountain. 

Foul weather

When the sun did come out, we enjoyed spectacular Andujar scenery.

Embalse del Encinarejo

Sunset over Basilica de Nuestra Señora de la Cabeza

When planning the trip I got the impression that Lynx was almost guaranteed with the amount of time we had planned to spend. In practice, we had to work very hard to get just a glimpse of this phantom cat. We spent most of our time at La Lancha, that seems to be the place for Lynx nowadays. On our final afternoon, in fading light, news came through of a male that was spotted down the road. We sped there, joining a rather large crowd assembled there.

After a nerve-wrecking wait the large macho was finally spotted patrolling his territory slowly, thanks to a mischief of mobbing magpies. He was distant, and my camera didn't cope well with the harsh conditions. Check this abstract illustration called 'Lynx walking majestically by a bush'.

Amir, however, managed to obtain some decent footage:

Adrenalin levels were high, and we were pretty chuffed. However, sadly, not all of our team managed to connect with the cat, and viewing conditions for those who saw it were far from ideal. We left the mountain with a slightly bitter taste, and hunger for another visit.

Birding was good, especially when the sun was out, highlights being Spanish Eagle, Cinereous Vulture, Iberian Green Woodpecker, Rock Bunting, Dartford Warbler and generally large numbers of finches. Check this representative eBird checklist.

Spanish Eagle

Cinereous Vulture

Supporting mammalian cast was Spanish ibex near the dam, including these two playful young males:

We broke the long journey back to Madrid and home in some familiar agro-steppe habitat south of Tembleque (thanks Remco!). We found there large flocks of Great Bustards, Little Bustards, Calandra Larks and other birds sheltering from the horrendous weather.

Avutardas

As always, big, wet bessos to the team for yet another great trip. Harder work this time, but fun nevertheless. Thanks to Simon and Niki for support before and during the trip.

Here goes the sun

Now I am back in cold and grey UK, but I have a small debt from my final day in Israel to cover. I had a few hours around midday to bird with my mates Jonathan and Meidad. It was lovely and sunny. We birded around some reservoirs in the Judean Plains. Nothing special, rather quiet in fact. But still lots of species - check my eBird checklist for the morning. I already miss this type of casual birding. So what did we see? There were many raptors up in the air, making the best of the sunny day to gain altitude. There were several Greater Spotted and Eastern Imperial Eagles, but only this spot was close enough to photograph, just about:

Greater Spotted Eagle

Near Kedma a large flock of about 1000 Common Cranes provided an ambiance similar to Agamon Hula:

The reservoirs had large numbers of waterfowl, but we found nothing special. Fair numbers of White-headed Ducks in most reservoirs, and small numbers of White-headed Ducks too.
Some time ago I started a project to photograph as many bird species in Israel as possible. Obviously I am not very living in the UK, but in every trip I try to cover some gaps. I stand now at 409 'species', collated in a Facebook album. Checking the reservoirs, I added three missing species, like these Tufted Ducks:

Some Israeli brightness:

White-throated Kingfisher

To summarize my trip, I had a lovely time in Israel with family and friends, but very little birding. I dipped on the Asian Hoiuse Martin, and had no time to connect with some quality species present in Israel currently - Lesser White-fronted Goose, Slavonian Grebe, Basalt Wheatears etc. Next time.

More raptors and more mud

Continued my muddy raptor transects today. Today I did the Judean Lowlands. Best bird of the day was along the road driving there - a Pin-tailed Sandgrouse flying almost at the same speed I was driving along route 6, in a very northern location.

Raptor activity started off pretty slow (still very cold nights) but later on raptors started moving around more and I had quite many eagles (Greater Spotted, Eastern Imperial and Booted), buzzards (Common and Long-legged) and harriers (Marsh and Hen). Also two Peregrines. When I first saw this 1cy Common Buzzard my heart skipped a beat:

Part of a flock of 32 Golden Plovers:

In the resrvoirs many ducks, including good numbers of White-headed Ducks and some Ferruginous Ducks and Black-necked Grebes.

White-headed Ducks

White Wagtail

Thanks to Shimshon for the company in the morning.

Yesterday found this run-over Wild Cat (Felis silvestris, thanks Ezra) not too far away from my house, near Kiryat Gat. Erased some ugly intestines etc. from the image...

Lost and found

This morning had some time for birding (sorry again Barak) so checked some reservoirs in the Judean Plains. They were all half empty and packed full with common waterbirds (Mallards, Glossy Ibis etc.) and many shorebirds as well. In one reservoir I first saw quite many Wood Sandpipers showing through the wet vegetation. But then an early Booted Eagle went low overhead and spooked everything up - that flock contained about 150 Wood Sands and many other tringas and Ruff, including Marsh Sands and Spotshanks. Some Collared Pratincoles too.

Booted Eagle mobbed by a local Ketrel

Ducks included, among the many Mallards, some Garganeys, Shovelers, Teals, Ferruginous Ducks and a male White-headed Duck that is probably a stranded bird - it's been around these reservoirs all summer.

White-headed Duck

Big numbers of Yellow Wagtails already - about 200 in total, all feldeggs as far as I heard.

Yellow Wagtail - 1cy male feldegg

Ashdod gulls and stifftails

This morning I had some time to look at gulls at Ashdod. Numbers are building up for the 'winter' (30º C!), but with very few Baltic Gulls (30-40) I had only one very familiar colour ring.
Siberian Gulls were very dominant, with about 150 - second commonest gull after armenian. This adult (male?) is in typical moult stage, with P7 to P10 unmoulted, and S1 growing. Look at this amazing eye!

Siberian Gull

The same brute taking off:


Another, smaller and more delicate bird, a female?

It was bitching at every gull nearby:

This Baltic Gull was very aggressive too:

I spent some time enjoying the tracking abilities of the 7D AF system, and I am pleased with these images of low, fast-flying gulls against a cluttered background:

Siberian Gull 1cy

Armenian Gull 2cy

Armenian Gull 1cy

I had my first Caspian Gulls of the season - 2-3 adults and another 10 or so 1cy's. I also had a Steppe-type Gull, but no images of it.

On the way back had a quick look at Ayalon and Hulda resrvoirs, that produced 193 and 340 White-headed Ducks respectively, and a few Ferruginous Ducks and Black-necked Grebes in each.

White-headed Duck

Spring stuff

Wow, lots of stuff...
Yesterday had a long and productive day with Kent Olsen (Denmark) and his friends. From the airport they drove directly to Ashdod where we met up with Amir and Ehud for some gulls. We had a good ID workshop, and we enjoyed close-up views of many barabensis, heuglini, cachinnans and armenicus. We had a quick look at the beach, en-route we had a cracking male Rueppell's Warbler and a 2cy Pallid Harrier. At sea we had an adult Pallas's Gull.
From there we drove to Hulda reservoir where we had 46 White-headed Ducks (females only), two Ferruginous ducks, several summer-plumaged Black-necked Grebes and heard a Citrine Wagtail. White Storks were passing in good numbers overhead.
In the afternoon we visited Lahav Reserve where we had good views of 3-4 singing Long-billed Pipits, two Finsch's Wheatears and several Spectacled Warblers. On a nearby cliff we had a few Lesser Kestrels.
In the evening at Neot Hakikar we had good views of four Nubian Nightjars - a great end to an intensive day.

After a short sleep I found myself this morning at Nizzana. This time I surveyed an atlas box deep in the desert south of Ezuz. Highlights included a pair of Temminck's Larks in courtship, two MacQueen's Bustards, all four Sandgrouse species scattered on the hills (two crowned), and another territory of Lesser Short-toed Lark. I already had several families of Spectacled Warblers with fully grown fledglings, like this one. They are fast breeders!

This male Hen Harrier spent some time hunting over a wide wadi. It had an interesting interaction / cooperation with a male Merlin. They were hunting together for about 15 minutes, the harrier doing the regular cruising routine, flushing many birds. The Merlin kept darting across the plain, chasing after the birds the harrier had flushed. I have never seen this kind of cooperation before.

Eagles & poisoning!

This morning I took my time to avoid rush-hour into Tel Aviv, so I went for a quick look near Hulda, not far away from my house. Many eagles were seen there yesterday, so I hoped to get some images of them before the big weather system that should hit us during the next few days (first thunderstorms at the moment!).

As I got to the specific field, I noticed several raptors feeding on the ground in different parts of the field. Immediately I saw 2 Greater Spotted Eagles, 1 Steppe Eagle, 1 Imperial Eagle, several buzzards, many kestrels, and a juv. Peregrine, all feeding intensively on skylarks.

As I drove around the field, I noticed a few skylarks that showed signs of poisining - they didn't fly properly, stumbled and fell when walking, dropped their heads etc.

I met the local farmer who told me that he used Alpha-Chlorlose - a nerve poison against skylarks causing damages to his chickpea field. He used the poison according to his permit. This is another example how the laws for use of poisons in Israel are twisted and out-of-date.

I called the local NPA warden; together we patrolled the field, chased raptors away and collected dead or dying skylarks. I had to leave before noon but the ranger stayed there to complete the job. Hopefully the rain that is pouring at the moment will wash the poison away. At the moment no raptors with secondary poisoning were found, and I hope it stays like that. Anyway we will patrol the area to search for poisoned raptors tomorrow.

The total number of eagles for the morning was 4 greater spots, 2 imps and 1 steppe, which is a good winter bird for this region. Two Hen harriers are worth mentioning too. A brief scan across the adjacent reservoir produced about 60 white-headed Ducks, 10 Ferruginous Ducks and 50 Black-necked Grebes.

This is one of the poisoned skylarks. I took it home and later it came back to life. I released it in the afternoon.

This is one of the Greater Spotted Eagles eating skylark-popcorn:

And this is how skylarks should look like:

Oxyuras and gulls

This morning I began with checking a couple of reservoirs not too far away from my house, despite the weather - cold, windy and rainy (in Israeli standards; I guess that in European standards this was a perfect day). I began with Latrun reservoir. The light was still OK at that time. I had 182 White-headed Ducks - which is a good number for this small reservoir. Also 10 Black-necked Grebes were present. This is part of the WHD group:

And a male agreed to approach a bit:

At Ayalon sewage farm the light disappeared and rain began. This female White-head wasn't shy enough. Even though after years of campaigning to prevent shooting in these reservoirs (led by SPNI and NPA), which are so important globally for this endangered species, the threat of poaching is still there. But it's better to have shy birds than dead birds. At Ayalon I had 145 WHD's, 8 Ferruginous Ducks and 5 Black-necked Grebes.

This Kestrel was pretty against the dark sky:

Then I continued to Ashdod for some gulling. I had about 1500 large gulls, out of them (among the adults) about 300 fuscus, 100 cachinnans, 80 heuglini, 50 barabensis (!), 6-7 intermedius, and 5 armenicus. Note that all gull images from today are very dark due to the bad light.

During the short time I had there, I saw 9 colour rings, at least two out of them new for Israel. Later Ehud Dovrat continued with the gulls and had at least 11 more rings! well done Ehud, it was a mega-productive days for the both of us.

This one is a tribute to the Copenhagen conference that began today:

This intermedius-type was ringed in N Norway in 2007, and seen today for the first time in Israel:

This barabensis had an exceptionally pale eye:

And this heuglini was impressive as always. I really like this form.