Spring bliss

This morning was one of those mornings that demonstrate best (to me at least) why I am a birder and how rewarding being a birder can be. I visited Mt. Amasa, at the southern tip of the Judean Mts. This is one of my favourite birding sites in March - the habitat is beautiful, the landscape is stunning, and birding is magnificent. The open, rocky slopes, now covered with flowers, attract juicy migrants, and support healthy populations of quality breeding species. For me, a mid-March visit to Mt. Amasa is really one of the highlights of my birding year in Israel. I know the sites there very well, and I could predict almost precisely what and where I would see. It made no difference - it was a beautiful morning, albeit a bit short (family stuff...).

I met up early with Barak (in the photo above), Avi & Ron. At first we checked around the ruins of Tel Krayot, then descended to the adjacent Wadi Tov. It was a bit cold early on but soon the sweet warm sun lit up some beautiful birds for us. Check out this handsome 2cy male Woodchat Shrike, likely a migrant (not quite in breeding habitat), glowing in the soft early morning light:

There were really nice numbers of Cretzschmar's Buntings, several flocks moving through and quite many hopping on the rocks. They do breed here but despite some males bursting into their sweet 'Si-si-seee' song, I think they were mostly migrants.

Male

Female

Using the ruins and boulders as breeding sites, there were good numbers of Rock Sparrow, Blue Rock-Thrush and Eastern Black-eared Wheatear, all seen in advanced breeding activity. Wait for it and turn your volume up:

Down by the wadi there were more Sylvia warblers in the scattered bushes, including Rueppell's, Eastern Orphean and Eastern Subalpine. I have seen brighter subalps before - still a very neat bird.

There were many redstarts about - lots of wintering Western Blacks still here, one cracking male Eastern Black (likely semirufa), and several Commons, including three male Ehrenberg's. Barak talking in the background:

Twas also fun watching several Wrynecks rockhopping. Always fascinating birds.

There were many common migrants around. I enjoyed that immensely. A few scarcities weren't seen this morning (Cinereous Bunting, Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrush) - next time hopefully. More images and videos in the eBird checklist here.

JBO ringing

This morning I operated the ringing at the Jerusalem Bird Observatory. I ring there once a month, to keep my fingers practiced... It was a great morning with lovely weather (a little cold at start, then warmed up) before more winter weather coming up - it's the coldest March on record in Israel! JBO looked fine this morning, with birds, flowers and people (three school groups).

Quality birds came in nicely - there were so many species this morning. Most unexpected was a Moustached Warbler - one of the very few ever in Jerusalem:

This male Rueppell's Warbler was a first for the season at JBO:

Among the hordes of Lesser Whitethroats there was a nice wave of Eastern Orphean Warbler - nine ringed:

Two Common Redstarts - both sammamisicus, soon the nominate subspecies will arrive:

Two Wrynecks - always amazing to handle. Check the stunning fine tail pattern:

Grey Wagtail is another species not often caught at JBO - this male is developing the black summer bib:

eBird checklist here.

Thanks to all the team who helped me this morning - Hanna, Dror, Adam, Avihu, Reva and Gerda.

My rosefinch

It's still around, my subtle beauty. This morning it finally posed albeit briefly. Perched for a few snaps and disappeared somewhere - still not familiar with all of its hiding spots. I think I am the only birder who has seen it - a few others tried and failed.

It is interesting (for very few of us, admittedly) to note that this bird has asymmetric tertial moult: On its left wing longest tertial is unmoulted, on right wing it is moulted.

Amidst a few days of unsettled weather, this morning was perfectly still and bird activity was great at my local patch. I had higher numbers than my winter average of Chiffchaff, Bluethroat and Blackcap. A Wryneck that I have seen a couple of times during the winter showed nicely. Reed Warblers are back. Full eBird checklist here.

White-throated Kingfisher

Lots of wildflowers now, including the stunning Blue Lupins.

Migfest

I missed the actual event at Spurn this weekend, but an early morning visit to Tsor'a Valley near my house more than made up for it. A true migration feast, compressed into three hours. Started walking through the large recently-cut alfalfa field south of Tal Shahar. It was packed with birds - clouds of Yellow Wagtails flying low over the field, swarms of Willow Warblers collecting caterpillars on every bit of vegetation, skyfull of thousands of hirundines hawking over the field, Whinchats, wheatears, shrikes - simply fantastic in the golden sun. Numbers of feldegg and flava Yellow Wagtails are about even now:

flava Yellow Wagtail - adult male (lovely broad greenish GC fringes)

1cy (female?) flava Yellow Wagtail (narrow whitish worn GC tips)

feldegg Yellow Wagtail (adult male)

I tried, without real success, to capture the spectacle of a flock of 800 Yellow Wagtail flooding the field, moving from side to side with every passing raptor. Not easy to get them in flight.

Willow Warblers were present in strong numbers too. For example, in a 5X5 patch of unmown vegetation remaining around an irrigation pipe in the middle of the alfalfa field were 30 WIWAs.

That same patch also held several Savi's and Reed Warblers, including this one that repeatedly adopted a 'banana posture':

Out of this same patch I flushed another Locustella sp. I got on it in flight as it flew low over the field and disappeared in the cut alfalfa. I was 99% sure I saw streaked upperparts! I walked up to where it landed, flushed it again - still couldn't 100% positively confirm it had streaked upperpats. I then lost it and spent another frustrating 20 minutes searching for it in the field. Personally I know it was a Grasshopper Warbler but cannot do anything with this record. 

This is the time of year when we see in Israel intriguing House Martins, with darkish underwing coverts, streaked undertail coverts and shallowish fork, but still Northern and not Asian.

Now there's a turnover between adult (above) and 1cy (below) Red-backed Shrikes:

I was pleased with double figures of Roller (12), all 1cy bar this fine adult:

Still more Cretzschmar's present than Ortolans:

I quickly visited Yitzhak and Yosef who were ringing in the reservoir - they were very busy!

Wryneck - always entertaining

Quick video before release

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Crimson Speckled - very common

I had to leave just as the first raptors were taking off.

Short-toed Eagle

That was fun! Check my full eBird checklist here.

Spurn Migfest 2017

Glad to be back home after another brilliant Spurn Migfest weekend. So many stories to tell but in short - great birding, good time with friends old and new, fantastic talks (hope mine was good too?), incredible young birders and lots of smiling faces. Stellar job, as always, by Spurn Bird Observatory team, BTO, RSPB, Migfest volunteers, Westmere Farm - congratulations!
For me, personally, it was a charged weekend. Last time I was here, in 2015, I spent most of my time with Martin. Since then also Andy had passed away and the gap in the Spurn heart seems to have increased even more. But Migfest team, led by chairman Rob Adams, certainly made this weekend so good for me - thank you!
Birding was very good - beyond weather-expectations. On Saturday morning vismig was brilliant with huge numbers of Meadow Pipits, hirundines and Tree Sparrows going through. I heard one Richard's Pipit call but nothing more than that. Other vismig and seawtching highlights were Roseate Tern (sweet call! First time I hear it), several Short-eared Owls and two Bonxies.

Short-eared Owl

Tree Sparrows

Great Spotted Woodpecker working the fence poles by Numpties. Yummy grubs!

Then I lead a walk with Terry. Five minutes after starting news broke of the headline bird of Migfest - Long-billed Dowitcher at Corner Pond / Holderness Fields. Brilliantly picked up on call by Paul - legend! We did make the group run a bit; completely ignored a cracking juv Little Stint en route. By the time we got there quite a crowd had already assembled. Great bird - distant views though.

Long-billed Dowitcher

Digiscoping results were not much better

Dowitwichers (copyright Jonnie Fisk)

The great Darren Woodhead in action. That's how far the bird was

After a few minutes of admiring this beauty of a shorebird, we moved on to look for the Wryneck at the top of Beacon Lane. We saw the bird immediately as it was feeding on aphids. As I was leading I spent no time on photography, hence the poor photo. Others got some great photos and footage of this cooperative bird.

Then a few minutes of seawatching produced Little Gull and 2 Arctic Skuas. Not a bad walk... And look at this daily summary, complete with a swallow:

Enjoyed this brilliant Comma sunning itself

On Sunday morning I helped with ringing at Church Fields. Pretty quiet but nice to see the Caspian Gull fly over, first seen over Numpties a few minutes before. This female Migrant Hawker was sweet:

Perhaps my best photo of the weekend was taken on Friday morning near Kings Lynn - while waiting at a meeting point to swap cars this Muntjac sped across a cut wheat field in the warm morning sun. Stunner. 

Almost perfect Scilly twitch

On Friday night I embarked on my first ever mega-island-twitch. Together with Nick, James and Dave we went for the Great Blue Heron that has been present now for about two weeks on the Isles of Scilly, the 2nd ever in the UK. For me it was also my first opportunity to visit these famous islands, so obviously I was very excited about this trip. We left Norwich before midnight and at first light we were parked at the Marazion Marsh carpark to recuperate a bit after the long drive. The others tried to catch a few minutes of sleep and I tried to see if the Pacific Diver that had wintered there was still present. It was not, but then I saw a Great White Egret roosting in the woods behind the reserve, so I had to wake the guys up. Common bird in Israel, but still pretty good in the UK and not bad as a first bird of the day. The egret soon left the roost and disappeared into the marsh.

Then we headed into Penzance for breakfast. 12 Purple Sandpipers were still present by the swimming pool:

Purple Sandpiper and Turnstone

All morning flights were fully booked so we took the Scillonian. As we were boarding the boat we got news about a Hudsonian Godwit in Somerset, not too far away. Immediately we started calculating how to combine a sweet little detour on the way back with our plans to head back home as quickly as possible. Not easy.

Quite a few seabirds were seen along the passage until we sailed past Land's End: several good rafts of Manx Shearwater, quite many auks (Guillemots, Puffins and Razorbills), and one Fulmar.

Manx Shearwaters

When we sailed into St. Mary's harbour we had distant views of a Long-tailed Duck:

Quickly we caught a speedboat to Bryher, for the main dish. The Great Blue Heron was quickly spotted as it flew in to Big Pool and showed well to the medium crowd that came on the Scillonian. At first the weather was poor, and the bird looked quite miserable too:

Great Blue Heron

Then the rain got lighter and the bird walked around a bit and tried to fish. What a cool bird! Forgot how massive they are compared to Grey Herons.

  

After we were satisfied with our views, as much as possible in these awful weather conditions, we went into the village to celebrate with a beautiful Lemon Drizzle at the Vine Cafe. On the way up stopped for a panoramic view of the heron and its surroundings - see it down at the bottom?

We spent the next few hours birding Bryher, as it felt that there were some fesh migrants in, possibly knocked down by the foul weather. As an Israeli I had to work hard on myself to get excited by the few migrants around, but the locals were quite choughed with our good fortunes: we had two Wrynecks, one Golden Oriole, 8 Tree Pipits, 3 Whitethroats, several Willow Warblers and three Wheatears. In addition, I had a probable Sibe Chiffchaff below Samson Hill. I had too brief views but it looked good. Unfortunately we had to run for the boat back to St. Mary's so I couldn't nail it. Too bad.

Wryneck

During the walk back to the Key where the boat waited for us the sun came out and it became quite beautiful. I desperately scoped Big Pool of Tresco hoping to see the Black Duck but failed to string any ducks there.

Shag

We had an hour to kill before the Scillonian took us back to the mainland, so we birded the Garrison that was completely devoid of migrants. Peculiar to see these black rabbits all over the place there:

Good to see House Sparrows and Song Thrushes are doing very good on Scilly:

2cy Song Thrush - note moult limit in GC

We got into Penzance close to midnight and were too knackered to go anywhere. We found accommodation nearby and decided to hit Shapwick Heath early in the morning despite the fact that the Hudsonian Godwit had taken off with a flock of blackwits yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately the bird did not return this morning. Really classic. All blackwits return, only the one bird of interest does not. 

Icelandic Black-tailed Godwits - sadly all with neat white underwings

We heard there some heartbreaking stories about birders who came from NE Scotland to miss the bird by an hour etc., so our situation was not that tragic. We were all disappointed by not seeing the bird we wanted, however I enjoyed the superb reserve. During the short time we were there we had 2-3 booming Bitterns, Wood Sand, Garden and Willow Warblers, one Cuckoo and generally pretty birdy there. The drive back home was uneventful.

Despite the slightly sour flavour that ended our trip for not seeing the Hudwit, still it was a mega experience. I really enjoyed the Scillies - very unique and beautiful (when the sun came out). Of course our main target, the heron, was great indeed, and we added some more quality birds.

Huge thanks to my brothers in arms - Nick, James and Dave.