Jaffa Bizzare seawatching

Spent a few hours seawatching at Jaffa this morning. It was pretty rainy but between showers it was actually not a bad morning. Funny enough most birds of interest were not seabirds. Highlights were four Short-eared Owls (I saw two), 1 Euro Nightjar that flew in off the sea, 5 Med Gulls, 2 skua sp., 1 Yelkouan Shearwater (before I arrived), 16 Greater Flamingos, and four thrushes that were probably Fieldfares. Large gulls included several fuscus, michahellis, cachinnans and heuglini.

Greater Flamingos (use your illusion)

It was good to catch up with ALL the guys. At most times there were more birders than birds to be seen.

Trouble in the saltmarsh

As you might have noticed, in recent weeks my post-rate has dropped dramatically. This is a result of the little time I have for birding during the most exciting birding period in Israel, when mouthwatering sibes can show up on any bush. The main reason for this is my increased time consumption in a campaign to protect the last saltmarsh in Israel, at Kikar Sdom, home to the last remaining population of Nubian Nightjars in Israel.

Nubian Nightjar

This unique, patchy habitat was common only 20 years ago along the Arava Valley, but increased cultivation destroyed all saltmarshes but this one, and overpumping of groundwater altered the hydrology of this fragile ecosystem. The main reason why the Sdom saltmarsh wasn't cultivated up till now is because the valley there is a big minefield.

I have been involved in conservation of this ecosystem since 2004, when I started my research on the nightjars. In recent years, I have been leading a campaign, as part of my work for the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, to protect the decreased and degraded habitat remaining down in the Rift Valley, south of the Dead Sea. In recent weeks, the campaign reached its' climax, when a plan promoted by the regional council, to cultivate practically all the remaining habitat, is being processed by the local planning authorities. Unfortunately, the regional council fails to understand its role in protecting its natural resources. To my point of view, they even fail to understand that the future of the existence of sustainable communities along the Arava Valley depends not on more and more cultivation, but on conservation and protection of natural resources, ecosystems and habitats.

Unfortunately, while taking part in endless meetings to try and find a sustainable solution to this conflict, the local farmers don't stand still. On Sunday, while showing the remaining habitat to a group of local experts, I noticed that another 10 hectares of pristine saltmarsh were cultivated recently, this time with the aid of the military that cleared the mines. This developement was carried out without the necessry permits, and is an action that only elevated mistrust between the different parties in this conflict. I sent the data out immediately to the local law enforcement people, and to the media, but of course that's too late.

Two nightjar territories less

What happens next? I will continue, together with my partners, to work on this in two aspects. First, to continue negotiations with the regional council and the local farmers to try and reach a sensible agreement on the future of the saltmarsh. But simultaneously, we will use all possible tools we own as a powerful NGO, to kick their asses, both in the planning meetings and in the media.

But at the moment, the situation looks very grim. For all those birders who have already seen the nightjars with or without me in Israel, you might be very lucky as potentially next year there is no saltmarsh and there are no Nubian Nightjars left in Israel. I still have the faith that with solid data, dedication and cooperation between various organizations, we can reach considerable achievements in this campaign, but it's gonna be a tough one.

I will keep posting about this in the near future.

Down south again

This morning I headed down south again, in search of rarities. I never find rarities when I search for them, and today was no exception. To top this up, the morning began at 05:30, just as I arrived at Ezuz, with a phone call from Yosef: " If I have a snipe with pin-like outer tail feathers, does it make it a pin-tailed?". Of course it does. I went over the ID features with him, and woke Oz up to send an RBA out (I knew he'd twitch it so had no problem to wake him up). Great catch by Yosef. Luckily I have seen three in Israel before, including one I've ringed in Nov 1998. Otherwise I would have begged Yosef to bag it for me for a couple of hours until I reached Tsor'a.

Anyway, with great motivation to beat Yosef, I started birding Ezuz. The grove was very birdy, with lots of Chiffchaffs, Black Redstarts and Robins, but even though I tried very hard couldn't find anything good there.

I continued to Kmehin sewage ponds. The ponds were full of ducks (1 Garganey was the only interesting duck) but very little otherwise. I watched from a safe distance the sandgrouse coming in to drink (Spotted, Black-bellied and Crowned), but only some black-bellies flew close to me:

Black-bellied Sandgrouse

A nice bonus was a flock of 15 Lesser Short-toed Larks that made a brief appearence:

On the way back home had a quick look at a small field near Mashabe Sade. It turned out to be the best site of the day - a small field packed with birds. On every sprinkler either a Stonechat or a Black Redstart was perched. Lots of pipits, chiffies, Bluethroats and Skylarks too. I flushed a large thrush from the field. It disappeared several times and kept a safe distance, but eventually I identified it as a Mistle Thrush - a good bird.

Mistle Thrush (200 m away)

Today exciting news was released - a pair of 'Asian' Black-winged Kites have bred in Israel for the first time, and successfully raised 4 chicks! Check this article. They bred right next to the Agamon Hula ringing station. I can take small credit for this discovery, as I, together with Amir Balaban, discovered the nest for the first time in September, and confirmed the breeding. They are such fantastic birds. I hope they stick around for the Hula Festival in two weeks time.

It's raining chiffs, hallelujah!

Yesterady a big storm hit us, and it must have knocked down huge numbers of migrants. This morning I went ringing at Ashdod, and as it turned out we were at the right place in the right time. We had a massive fall of Chiffchaffs, and we worked pretty hard this morning to handle them all (184 chiffies in total!). It was an impressive sight to see the bushes swarming with chiffies, like mosquitoes. We must have had several thousands at the ringing site.

The best bird among them was a Yellow-browed Warbler. Unlike in the UK, it's still a good rarity in Israel, with less than 5 a year on average. The last week has been good for them with four recorded, three of them ringed. This is my first at Ashdod, and my second good phylloscopus after the Green Warbler in June. Great little bird!

Yellow-browed Warbler

There were lots of other birds apart for the chiffies. This apparent 'fusca' Savi's Warbler was a tricky bird. I got it mixed up with River Warbler at first, but after a closer look at the images and discussing its ID with others, I agree that it's a savi's.

Savi's Warbler

Penduline Tits returned to my site, and we caught a few:

Other good birds we had in the field were a late Nightjar when we arrived early in the morning, and a Reed Bunting.

Many thanks to the excellent team that helped me through this big day without any pressure at all: Re'a, Shlomo, Carmel and Miriam.

Happy Re'a

Casucasian Stonechats

This morning I had a good ringing session at my local alfalfa field near Bet Kama, with Eyal and Re'a. We had a good catch that consisted mainly pipits (red-throats, coutelii water and meadow). In addition we caught two Caucasian Stonechats, that are good birds for this region. In the NE Valleys (Hula and Bet She'an) and at Eilat one can see on a good day this time of year 15-20 individuals or even more. The male was a classic variegatus, with more than half of each tail feather is white.

Caucasian Stonechat Saxicola maurus variegatus - male

Females are much more tricky. In the field, the tail of this individual would look completely dark, and would be identified as maurus. However, when the uppertail coverts are moved aside, the white bases to the rectrices (about 10 mm) become visible. This of course is impossible to see in the field. This female seems to fit variegatus too; I'd expect armenicus to have less or no white at the bases of the rectrices.

For this reason I believe that many of the European records of 'maurus' females in fact involve variegatus. It would be interesting to compare the ratio of variegatus VS. maurus records in W Europe for males and females.

Caucasian Stonechat Saxicola maurus variegatus - female

"Field" views - all dark tail:

White bases to rectrices revealed:

Water Pipit Anthus spinoletta coutelii

Eurasian Skylark

Other good birds seen in the field were 1 Oriental Skylark, 1 Merlin and 1 Peregrine.

Many thanks to Eyal and Re'a.

Hero or zero - today zero

Today I went with Jonathan to bird some of the best sites in the C Negev. We weren't expecting any fantastic experiences, as other birders who had visited the region over the weekend reported very few birds, but we still had some hopes for a goodie or two.

We started off at Mitzpe Ramon sewage. As we drove in we surprised a huge Striped Hyena from a very short distance - what a beast! I was driving but Jonathan managed to fire off a few record shots of the animal running away. This got some adrenalin pumping, but soon we realized that birding was very slow indeed. This site held very few birds; 1 Red-breasted Fly and that's it as far as decent birds are concerned. No sign of a probable Pied Wheatear reported there yesterday. On the way out we checked the park by the entrance to town; it held a male ochrorus Black Redstart, possibly a returning bird from last winter:

We checked the sewage ponds near Bahad 1; this used to be one of Israel's top birding sites, and has a fantastic rarity list. Now it's gone - totally dry and overgrazed; we had about 3 birds there in total. We then spent the rest of the day in a nostalgic (or even pathetic) mood, reflecting on all of the good birds we had seen here and there, and how once everything was so much better than today. But that's how autumn birding has always been in the south, really slow until you stumble upon a good warbler or bunting. But not today.

Nafha sewage and orchards were a bit more birdy that other sites. We added another two Red-breasted Flys, and the famous pair of Golden Eagles put on an appearence - such impressive birds! More images will come tomorrow.

We then drove to Nizzana, where we first checked the Kmehin sewage. It was very quiet there as well; the only birds of interest being 1 Eurasian Curlew and 1 Caspian Stonechat.

A visit to Be'erotayim grove killed us terminally. It was so dead we wanted to die ourselves. On the way out we found this unlucky lilith Little Owl; it was hit by one of the very few cars that drive to Ezuz every day. It had some kind of head injury, we took it into care and from what I heard it's feeling better this evening.