Spring catch-up

It's been a very strange spring for me. On the one hand, how can one enjoy the beauty and thrill of bird migration spectacles when all of *this* is going on in my country. On the other hand, what else can I do other than go out birding, enjoy the healing power of nature, appreciate every little bird hero that makes it despite all the troubles. As I have been doing for over five years now, I am out birding every day. During migration seasons this habit offers me even more thrill and excitement, to detect the seasonal changes in the sites I visit often, and enjoy impressive migrations. In recent weeks I have been all over, but often my motivation to photograph and to write is low. This damn war.

In any case, I am still trying to bird hard and see as many birds as possible, without doing a Big Year. This is quite enjoyable actually, and liberating, seeing news of rarities show up in far-flung corners of the country and not going for them! Still, I am doing OK, I think. Here are some of the birds I saw and the few photos I took:

Luckily, fieldwork and site visits take me to places with loads of good birds. While monitoring our restoration site in Maagan Michael I was dazzled by the variation in Western Yellow Wagtails - in this composite are (I think) dombrowskii, superciliaris, feldegg, thunbergi, flava and a hybrid Citrine X Yellow, all in one small flock.

superciliaris

Striated Heron in Tel Aviv

A work visit to Eilat Birding center rewarded me with this gorgeous, deadly Painted Saw-scaled Viper:

Our restoration sites in Kfar Ruppin are exploding with birds now, so much quality too:

When a flock of tired White Storks drops out of the sky after a day of migration and rests on a wetland you've recently restored, you guess you did something right pic.twitter.com/LMfaiiEGg4

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) April 20, 2024

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Not only birds enjoy our restoration project - also invertebrates. Here are Black Percher and Ivory Featherlegs.

In May, when much of the country clears out of migrant passerines, the relatively cool and lush Jerusalem Mts. still host large numbers of migrants. Mulberry trees are especially attractive to Sylvias, also favoured by Golden Orioles. This photo was taken out of my friend Rami's window:

The Jerusalem Bird Observatory is at its best in early May, with huge numbers of common migrants using the habitat to refuel. Among the common warblers also good numbers of Olive-tree and Barred are seen; I have seen also River, Marsh, Icterine and Upcher's there in recent dats. Also plenty of European Nightjars this year.

One of the Eurasian Sparrowhawks that visit the JBO regularly

I am a migration junkie

It's this time of year here in Israel, that makes me face the truth: I am a migration junkie. No, it's not peak season for rarities. I don't travel to far flung corners of the country. But I feel very lucky on a daily basis. I can experience high-intensity migration near home, every morning. I am addicted to migration watching, and I must get my daily dose. Thankfully, it's holiday season here now, which makes my mornings a bit more flexible. However, this time of the morning that I need to stop neglecting my normal human obligations, tear myself apart from migration (temporarily), pack up my gear up and head back home is so difficult. Too often I am late being back for breakfast or for errands or for something else, apologising, but actually all I want is to head back out to the field and absorb more migration. More migration. More migration. Up in the sky, down in the bushes, along the muddy banks - migrants are everywhere and I just can't have enough. 

Every morning I am out before dawn, aiming to be 'on site' at the crack of dawn. That's the magic period, when migrants drop out of the sky after a long night of migration; vocal species making themselves apparent - pipits, wagtails, larks, buntings. Beautiful, small dark silhouettes emerging in the half-light, calling 'Tzip' or 'Chup' or 'Trrrr'. I sharpen my ears, try to identify every soft call. This is so cool.

Then I spend the next hour or two of 'standard' birding, checking for migrants in the vegetation, enjoying the awesome variety and numbers. Those migrants that don't call readily on active migration are now in full show. Red-backed Shrikes, Whinchats, Willow Warblers. Swarms of hirundines and bee-eaters swerve as they hawk for flying insects. Early rising harriers, sparrowhawks and falcons are after them.

Then, when the temperatures rise, raptor migration intensifies. These are peak days for Lesser Spotted Eagle and Levant Sparrowhawk; European Honey Buzzard and Black Kite pass through in good numbers too. Migration continues over my house all day long, but I can't spend full days watching the skies anymore. I did that for many years, when I worked for the annual autumn raptor migration count between mid August and mid October in the 2000's. Now I am a responsible adult (am I?), with adult responsibilities, but all I want is to bird and bird and bird, witness this exciting, fascinating, exhilarating miracle of migration. Year after year, season after season. Remind myself that despite all the horrible damage that we cause to our beautiful planet, nature can persist, if just given the chance.

Here are a few photos that aim to demonstrate some of the feelings I expressed above:

Western Yellow Wagtails on the move

European Turtle-Dove on its first migration. Migrate safe young hero

Red-backed Shrike looking very sexy

Gotta love a Whinchat

Early Morning European Honey-Buzzard

Late morning Oriental Honey-Buzzard

Early morning Montagu's Harrier

Part of a flock of 320 Levant Sparrowhawks

Young Lesser Spotted Eagle

The moon photobombed by Lesser Spotted Eagles

Booted Eagle is unique among other migrating raptors, by its habit to hunt during migration. Most other species fly over Israel without looking down. It is not unusual to watch a Booted Eagle migrating with other raptors (here with a Levant Sparrowhawk)

Suddenly it leaves the stream, and stoops down from high altitude at huge speed towards a flock of pigeons in a field below

Flying past the moon

A few days ago I had another adrenalin-packed experience. I was watching a Hobby flying idly over Hulda Reservoir

Suddenly it changed direction and increased speed - obviously it had spotted something in mid air

I stayed focused on the Hobby; only at home on the computer screen I noticed it was after a small passerine presumably on active migration. Unbelievable how the falcon located and locked on that tiny warbler.

This is a tight crop - I assume this incident happened at 70-80 m above ground. Here the Hobby closed in on the poor warbler:

The Hobby made a super-fast maneuver and tried to snatch the warbler - I think this is a Sedge Warbler. This happened so fast; I didn't see the warbler at all; I don't know whether the warbler managed to get away. I couldn't see the falcon flying away with anything, so I think the warbler survived. Wow.

Here are a few representative eBird checklists from recent days 10 minutes from home:

Hulda Reservoir this morning with Piki

Givat Brener on Thursday

Tal Shachar on Wednesday with another Yoav

New Year Birding

It's Rosh Hashana here - Jewish New Year, which means a three-day-long holiday, that translates into more time for birding... These are fantastic migration days in Israel, and I try to make the most of it without driving too far. 

Yesterday (Tuesday) I was hoping to enjoy a good take-off of Honey Buzzards off the hills above Tzor'a in the Sorek Valley. 300K Honey Buzzards passed over Israel in recent days, and I was hoping for good conditions. I started early with Bamba, and enjoyed lovely autumn weather, much needed after the brutally-hot summer. 

The alfalfa fields in the bottom of the valley were packed with birds, especially the recently-cut sections. 450 Yellow Wagtails were busy providing ecosystem services (i.e. feeding on Egyptian Cotton Leafworm caterpillars), always spectacular to see. Among the wagtails were a few pipits (tree and tawny), Greater Short-toed Larks, Cretzschmar's and Ortolan Buntings, Rollers, Whinchats and Wheatears. Fantastic.

A single, beautiful, gingery juvenile Montagu's Harrier was sat in the field, chilling before moving on:

I then met up with Gidon, Amir and Dan and we continued birding together. The surrounding scrub and WTP provided excellent habitat for many more migrants. Tons of hirundines, many shrikes, warblers. It was fun (eBird checklist here). Before leaving I spotted two young Bonelli's Eagles. They were strongly associated with each other, probably siblings. They flew around for a while, playing around with pigeons and generally being immature. 

They gained some height, and circled with a Marsh Harrier. Suddenly, both eagles decided to have a go at the harrier - we thought they were going to predate on it. Eventually the encounter left the harrier destroyed, with injured wings and an injured leg, but still alive as it migrated on, somehow. The attack itself took few seconds - I managed to capture only a secondary encounter. Incredible to watch.

Sadly, young Bonelli's Eagles are really stupid when it comes to electric pylons, and they are especially susceptible to electrocution. This valley is a bit of a dead zone for these threatened eagles (CR in Israel). See for example here the sad story of a tagged eagle I found dead a year ago. Frustratingly, Israel Electric Corporation doesn't do enough to protect pylons against electrocution.

Eventually, the main Honey Buzzard stream passed to our west, and we say only few take off. However, when I got back home it was flooding straight over. In 32 minutes of sitting outside I counted 4420 Honey Buzzards (and quite a few other raptors) - always incredible to watch. eBird checklist here. How lucky I am to live bang on the main highway. The only problem is that when they arrive over my house they are normally very high and the light is harsh, providing difficult conditions for photography.

This morning (Wednesday) I had time only for a short session at nearby Tal Shahar, a bit west of Tzor'a. It was short but uber-productive and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Again, there was a huge, even larger, flock of Yellow Wagtails in the alfalfa. I estimated 550 but it could have been much more. Check this video  - I hope you can absorb the sensation of walking through the alfalfa, with clouds of wagtails jumping at my feet. You can also appreciate the habitat in the Sorek Valley where I bird often. Also, this video demonstrates that we are in the transition period between feldegg (early migrants) and flava, compare the two call types - clear (flava) and rasping (fledegg).

These are shrike days in Israel. Indeed, there were many shrikes in the surrounding scrub, mainly Red-backed and fewer Lesser Greys etc. I really love Lesser Grey Shrike - especially the young birds look so good to my eyes. None of them posed long enough for a proper video, all they allowed me was a hasty jumpshot. 

Again, the wagtail flock contained welcome guests, and the scrub provided a wonderful array of migrants, all lovely and so welcome. Migrate on safely you little heroes. eBird checklist here.

On Monday I did something a bit different. I went with Piki to Tel Barukh beach in Tel Aviv, where the Pacific Golden Plover returned for its sixth winter - see previous encounters here (2020) and here (2019). It is fascinating how this individual rarity survives, trapped somewhere far west of its original flyway, and returns to the same rocks on one of the busiest beaches in Israel. And it was a new addition to my Year List...

There were quite a few migrants moving around within the abandoned Sde Dov airport grounds, nothing massive (eBird checklist here). We hadn't enough time to enjoy some of the better habitats nearby, or watch active migration over the sea, reported by that other birders. But I guess we couldn't complain.

Eilat plover mystery

 On Thursday I spent the morning in Eilat with Jonathan, Arad and Rony. In fact we left home on Wednesday before midnight, and made our way down south picking up some night birds along the way. None posed for photos, but this Desert Hedgehog, the largest of Israel's three hedgehog species, was quite lovely:

At first light we started birding at Seifim Plains. I had quite high expectations from this site - reports from recent weeks described the place as heaving with birds. It was very quiet in fact - not many larks singing, few migrant wheatears (no sign of the pied seen there the day before) - eBird checklist here.

Hooded Wheatear 2cy male

At IBRCE things were not much busier - a significant exodus of birds happened the night before... Nothing special to report on the bird side, some year birds (Levant Sparrowhawk, Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin, Red-necked Phalaropes) - eBird checklist here. This fine Schokari Sand Racer was very cool to watch:

Then we moved on to KM20 saltpans for the disputed sand plover. It was waiting for us at the entrance to the saltpans, and showed well. This bird was found by Shachar Shalev on March 27th, and it's ID isn't final yet (IMO). Our initial reaction when seeing the bird, especially the long bill, was 'whoa, this can't be a Lesser Sand-Plover'. But then, at closer inspection, we started to have other thoughts. Re size, though slightly larger than Kentish Plover, it was certainly in the 'small and delicate plover' camp, comparable with kentish and ringed, rather than 'beast plover' camp. Then, in all angles, it's seemingly clean legs were black or blackish, not green. With no signs of moult into summer plumage whatsoever, I find this a solid candidate for Lesser Sand-Plover, but happy to be proven otherwise. 

Photos by Rony Livne:

Digiscoped photos and video by Jonathan Meyrav, taken through Swarovski Optik ATX85:

I agree it has a long legs, large head and long bill, but from my experience, there's so much variation in both species in these features that I'm not sure how relevant they are. Same for leg extension and wingbar pattern. See my insights on identification of Lesser and Greater Sand-Plovers in Kenya here and here.

The mental process regarding the identification of this bird reminds me of the process we went through with the 2010 Lesser Sand-Plover. When seeing the photos taken by the finders, we were eluded by the longish bill. It wasn't until we saw the bird in the field that we realised how small it is. 

It is interesting that almost everyone who saw this bird identified it as Lesser Sand-Plover, while those identifying it from photos say it's a greater. In any case, this is a great bird to study - more to come!

After we had enough of the sand plover, we continued to check the saltpans that were packed with shorebirds, gulls, wagtails, pipits and generally very lively (eBird checklist here). It was entertaining to watch a variety of Western Yellow Wagtails chase after swarms of shore flies (Ephydridae) coating the banks:

feldegg-type (with some green stuff on head, and flies on back)

Typical feldegg with more solid black head

thunbergi? Or dombrowski? Very small supercilium on a blue head

Typical flava with more developed supercilium

On the way home we paid a quick visit to the Black Scrub-Robins in Kibbutz Samar, this one ringed as part of a study on their movements and colonisation:

Thanks to Jonathan, Rony and Arad for the company, vibes and use of photos.