Macro portrait experiments

I am preparing for my trip to Kenya in a couple of weeks, and I am searching for the optimal lens for in-hand photography. I borrowed Rony's Canon 100 mm f/2.8 macro and tested it this morning while visiting Yosef at Tsor'a. Unfortunately I found it unsuitable for photography of full birds when I'm both holding the bird in one hand and holding the camera in the other - focal length is too long (and/or my arms too short). However it was fun to play with portrait possibilities. I have very little macro experience and it was interesting for me to work with such a tiny depth of field in open apretures. Here are some very amateurish results.

Goldfinch

Clamorous Reed Warbler

Sardinian Warbler

Penduline Tit

Chaffinch

On the way out this Stonechat was nicely backlit (this is with my 500 of course)

Eye-browed Thrush!!!

Wow, this Novembers' massive attack doesn't end! This morning got a call from Avner Rinot, asking me to send out and RBA message. "What do you have?" -"Eye-browed thrush at the JBO!". In 20 seconds I was in the car heading through heavy traffic into Jerusalem. I met Avner and we started searching for the bird in the Rose Garden near the JBO. Initially Avner had good views of the bird together with two other birders, but it was flushed by a jogger and was not seen since. The area of suitable habitat is large and cover very dense, so searching for this mobile and shy bird was very difficult. After about an hour Avner and myself had very brief views of the bird in flight, being chased by a Blackbird, but that was it. The bird disappeared into a hedge and never came out. It was searched for by a few other guys who arrived after us, but they saw nothing. Hopefully it sticks around for a few days and performs a bit better.
Amazingly, it was at exactly the same area as the previous bird in Nov 2007 which was the 2nd for Israel, making this the 3rd national record! Perhaps this bird also comes in for a drink at the JBO pond and gets ringed?
Other birds seen during the morning were many Hawfinches, two Siskins, one Siberian Stonechat and lots of common stuff.

Good autumn ringing

This morning I did my monthly ringing demonstartion at Ashdod. As in my previous visit, ringing was very busy with a great fall of Chiffchaffs and many other species too. We worked hard!
Early in the morning I first heard and then caught this Common Waxbill (another bird was flying around but didn't get caught). Both were certain escapees - they had funny rings on them. This species colonized parts of southern Europe recently, interesting to see whether it does the same here.

Common Waxbill

A nice surprise was this extremely late Barred Warbler (1cy male; most pass through Aug - Sep):

Early in the morning a small flock of seven Penduline Tits was caught - such great birds!

Southern adventures

Yesterday I had a long and slightly weird day. Left home just after midnight, met up with Ron, Yotam, Avner and Hillel and headed down to Yotvata. Our main reason for driving so far in such a crazy time of the night was to ring Oriental Skylarks. I have a long, unsolved business with this bird, after having them dodging my nets for so many years. This time we were pretty motivated and were sure we had good chances as 15 birds had been reported in the famous northern circular field in previous days.
We arrived at Yotvata just after 03:00 and as we drove in were greeted by a HUGE Striped Hyena walking across the field. What a beast! We started setting the nets up and everything was ready on time. Except for the birds. We had plenty of gulgula's in the field, but they just would not behave and in the end we did not catch not a single on. It's a pity, as this is possibly the largest documented concentration in Israel - we had 15-20 birds in total, with the largest group of 10 together. At least I got this record shot.

Oriental Skylark

Otherwise ringing was pretty standard, only birds of note were two Desert Wheatears (ringing tick for me!).

This is myself trying to persuade the farmer not to plough my nets:

This field is so good and I'm sure it will produce more rarities in the next few days. We had the male Black-crowned Sparrow-Lark in flight, Lesser Short-toed Lark, 2 Richard's Pipits, 5 Siberian Stonechats and many other birds. It was good to meet Heikki and Tapio from Finland, and we birded together for a couple of hours, during which my car got bogged in the sand...

After the wind picked up and the farmers started working in the field, we left Yotvata and drove to Eilat to see the Grey Phalarope (it's grey! Not red! When they're in Iceland they can be named red, but here they're grey) at KM20 saltpans. It was as tame as always and showed very well. Cool bird!

On the way back we had mixed feelings. On the one had, we failed to ring the skylarks and found nothing new, which was disappointing considering all the good birds around. On the other hand, how disapponting can a day be with Black-crowned Sparrow-Lark, Grey Phalarope, 15 Oriental Skylarks and a ringing tick be? Funny people we are, birders.

Siberian bombshell!

Oh, November, the month we all live for! If in Europe and the UK October is THE month, apparently it takes the good birds a few weeks to make their way down to this dusty part of the Middle East. The last couple of weeks have been really crazy with great birds found almost every day (and this is with about 15 active birders in the whole country! Imagine we had 1500 birders here...). At last I am getting return value for my RBA subscription...
Anyway, this morning I was ringing at the JBO. Pretty useless, only birds of note being several Hawfinches flying around but none got caught. About halfway through the morning my phone rings (again...), this time it's Ron Haran: "I've got a Black-throated Accentor in the hand at Netiv Halamed He, can you come over?". F@&@!!! I was busy with two school groups and couldn't see how I can get myself down there in reasonable time to see the bird before it's released. I gave the poor schoolkids the shortest ringing demonstration ever and sped off. Luckily no car crashes or police interactions due to my speed...
When I got there I released a sigh of relief, the bird was still in the bag, safe and cool. Took a few images, and let the bird go. It disappeared into an almond orchard. I actually managed to glimpse it in a tree an hour later together with Shachar but nothing more than a glimpse. But what a terrific bird it is! So beautiful and so special. It was aged as a 1cy by the shape and amount of wear on its alula and rectrices.

First of all, congratulations to Ron and Yotam for yet another great find! This site has real magic to it!

This is the 2nd record for Israel. the first was in 1982 in Jerusalem, just a year before I started birding. So this is serious blocker out of the way! Of course it was an Israeli and WP tick for me.

After the adrenalin left my veins, I had time to contemplate my destiny as a twitcher. What's the point in seeing a rare bird in a bag? What does it matter to myself or to anyone whether I saw the bird or not? Was it worth almost getting myself and others killed on the road while speeding to see the bird? OF COURSE!!! YES!!! I am a bloody twitcher and proud of it!

That's the way aha aha I like it aha aha

This morning began with another boring meeting. Just as we were supposed to end the meeting my phone rings, Yosef's number on the screen, which could mean only one thing... "I have a Yellow-browed Warbler in the hand, are you in the area?". It took me about 10 seconds to get to the car and head to Tsora. It's not a mega and I've seen and ringed quite a few in Israel, but it's always a great little bird to see, and it's always fun to feel the adrenalin of a twitch, even if it's not that rare...

I got to Tsora, bird out of the bag, click-click - and the bird was released, calling once to make sure we remembered the call.

Yellow-browed Warbler

Thanks to Yosef for alerting me of this bird!

On the way out stopped by a small puddle that had many Red-throated Pipits coming in to drink. It's still bloody hot!

Why don't they ever have primary projections? Why only on Fair Isle?

But nevertheless they are fun birds to watch.

This 1cy female Bluethroat came in to check the area out:

And then decided to join in for a dip:

Many Stonechats are present already, most are paired up for the winter.