Disappeared again

I appologize for disappearing again. This time my excuse is a bit more convincing. My younger son Noam was stung by something (spider?) on Sunday and has been in hospital since. He is OK now but needs a few more days of medical treatment. I've been spending most of my time in hospital (writing this on a computer hospital), and have been unable to twitch the recent Audouin's Gull or Black-shouldered Kite. Hope to get back to my normal life soon. At least the air-con is working well inside the hospital - it was 40 bloody degrees today!

Local dip

This morning I checked a few reservoirs near my house, in search of a Terek Sandpiper seen yesterday evening by Re'a Shaish. The bird was not present despite extensive searching in all nearby reservoirs. All of this searching did not produce too much - 16 Ferruginous Ducks, 30+ Garganey, 1 Marsh Harrier, 1 Spotted Redshank, 3 White-winged Terns, 50 feldegg Yellow Wagtails, and my first Willow Warbler of the season. All the resrvoirs are so big and the birds so distant that I couldn't bother getting my camera out.

Back from the shadows

Spent last week up in the north of the country, away from computers and phones, which was quite good. Saw some migrants - first Redstarts, many Eastern Orphean Warbler, some Balkan Warblers and first flocks of White Storks.
Yesterday evening I was sitting outside in my garden when a Common Sandpiper flew overhead calling - a garden tick for me.

Local limicola

This morning paid a quick visit to my local patch - the Ashdod ponds. At last had a good bird there, a patch tick for me - Broad-billed Sandpiper (adult):

Otherwise not too much has changed since Saturday. Black-tailed Godwit still present:

New birds were a juv. Peregrine that spooked all the shorebirds, and a feldegg Yellow Wagtail. The partially leucistic Black-winged Stilt is still present and this time showed a bit better:

Gull ID marathon

After much work, Amir Ben Dov and myself completed editing our gull ID slideshow. Due to its size (108 slides of joy and wonder) we divided it into two parts - part 1 and part 2.

Comments, additions and questions are very welcome!

Shouting in the forest

This hot morning I was ringing at the JBO. This time of the year the pistachio and blackthorn bushes are full of fruit that attract migrant sylvias. These fruit are extremely rich in fat, which is very important for these migrants building their fat tissues up for migration.
Despite the heat we had a relatively good catch with mainly Lesser Whitethroats, Eastern Orphean and Olivaceous Warblers, and star bird of the morning - Olive-tree Warbler.

Olive-tree Warbler

There was one interesting environmental factor that negatively effected our catch in some of the nets near the forest below us. There is a new group of ultra-orthodox jews that do some kind of spiritual healing by shouting! They stand around in the forest (this morning 2-3 females and 2 males present) and shout their heads off for hours! I would call it something like counter-Vipassana... So anyway the adjacent nets didn't catch much. But it's quite an amusing show, daily, for free: Only in Jerusalem!!!