IOC and brief Ma'agan Michael

Yesterday we had a great event - the annual ornithological conference, held at Tel Aviv University. This event grows every year - yesterday we had over 1000 guests! It was a nice but very busy day for me, had to smile to so many people and behave myself the whole day. But it was good to catch up with many good friends.
We had some superstar guests from overseas. Here is Marco Lambertini talking about his bird life:

And this is Thomas Krumenacker presenting his stunning images. One day I will photograph like him...

I was very proud of myself with the exhibition of the bird photography contest I had organized and produced:

Today I had the honour and pleasure to spend the morning with Ian Newton. I picked him up from Tel Aviv and we drove off to Ma'agan Michael. We had little time there, and the weather was quite British - cold, grey and windy, but we did quite OK I think. Ian had a good time for sure with four lifers (Ian - you owe me four pints next time we meet).

This Citrine Wagtail was very loyal to a small grassy patch which had tons of insects sheltering from the strong wind:

I totally screwed this image up - the focus stayed locked on the tail:

We had two male Siberian Stonechat. This one is a typical variegatus - note that at least half of the length of the rectrices is white:

Didn't get any images of the second bird but it was closer to armenicus, with very little white at the base of the rectrices - perhaps 1/4 of the feather.

Other good birds we had were four Pallas's Gulls (great views), one Yellow-legged and many Slender-billed Gulls (some were really pink - almost like a ross's - I wish...), many Water Pipits, Temminck's Stints, Sanderlings, Reed Bunting and lots of other stuff.

Seedeaters at Lakhish

Today, as part of my job as a regional coordinator of the barn owl project, I made a final sweep of the nest boxes before the breeding season begins. During January the owls already check the boxes out and choose their boxes for the next breeding season, so everything has to be ready by then. I went over all of my boxes in the Lakhish area, cleaned and fixed them - so now the owls have to do their own thing. This is one dirty job - cleaning the boxes after the previous breeding season is not much fun. Especially with the Jacksdaws filling the boxes up with junk. Thanks Miri for the help.
During the day we saw quite a few birds. The area is just packed with seedeaters - mixed flocks of Corn Buntings, Spanish Sparrows, Linnets, Greenfinches and Goldfinches, and also large numbers of Meadow and Red-throated Pipits and Skylarks. Among the raptors we had today two Greater Spotted Eagles, Merlin, Hen Harrier, and several Long-legged Buzzards.

Corn Buntings

Red-throated Pipit

Linnets

Lakhish area

Ashkelon seawatching - short

Spent a couple of hours seawatching at Ashkelon this morning. even though the wind was wrong (SE), I had five Yelkouan Shearwaters, one ad. Kittiwake and several Sandwich Terns. Due to the wind all birds were far offshore so no images, only crap scope views.

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.

Hawfinch

This morning I was ringing at a small site near my house. I live in a small village at the Judean foothills, and this is a very birdy area. Not many hotspots but large numbers of common stuff everywhere. I've been ringing at this drinking spot for a few monthes, and it has produced some nice stuff (best was a Red-breasted Fly in September) but usually no dramas, so it was a nice way to spend a sunny morning with my son Uri.
Our best bird of the morning was this female Hawfinch. The little bitch bit some flesh off my fingers even though I was cautious.

Hawfinches are regular but rather sporadic winter visitors to the northern half of Israel. On most years they arrive in small numbers, though usually they peak in March. But this year is special, and many tens or hundreds are seen in many sites in Israel. I had about 50 flying around this morning, but only this one came down to drink. What a great bird!

Paddy!

Last evening I got a call from Asaf Mayrose, director of the Ma'agan Michael Birdwatching Center. He did a late evening catch with Francis Argyle, and they trapped an interesting acro. "We're pretty sure we have a Paddyfield Warbler!". I went with them over the ID features, Asaf quickly emailed me some images, and after we confirmed the ID the news was spread out. As it was already very late, and the bird was in active moult so it was not planning to migrate last night, we decided to keep it overnight and release it first thing in the morning.
So, another one of those weird twitches, when the bird is waiting in the bag...
I got to Ma'agan Michael early, had a cup of coffee with all the (tired) guys, and before dawn we had a look at the bird:

Tired twitchers (Eran & Jonathan):

After years of ringing thousands of Reed Warblers, I was very happy to handle this sweet acro. It's so small! The primaries were about 80% moulted, so it must have been in the site for at least a couple of weeks, and it may well overwinter. Look at this never-ending supercilium!

We waited for first light to release the bird at the exact site where it was trapped. This is the moon setting into the Mediterranean:

And this is how the paddy looks in pre-dawn light:

We released it and quickly it disappeared in the reeds. This is an Israeli tick for me - haven't had one for quite a while... Cheers to Asaf and Francis for the great find and well-organized mega-twitch (15 twitchers!)

I joined the ringing team for the rest of the very windy morning. The best bird was this female Siberian Stonechat: