First, almost

Yesterday I did some work on Yellow-legged Gulls with Amir at the Zoological Gardens of the Tel Aviv University. After the gull stuff we went to have a quick look at the skin collection there. I had a very quick browse over some of the mounted skins, and was amazed to find this vittata Pied Wheatear - it's never been recorded in Israel yet! We were excited for a few minutes but then were disappointed to hear from Daniel, the collection manager, that this bird was taken in Ethiopia...  Forgive amir - the image was taken with his iPhone. Image courtesy of the Zoological Museum, Tel Aviv University.

Later on in the evening I met up with Santtu and his team from Finland at Neot Hakikar. We had a nice afternoon's birding with Clamorous Reed Warbler, Little Crake, Penduline Tit and lots of migrants around. After dusk we had cracking views of four Nubian Nightjars. The Finns were happy of course.

Windy slopes

This morning I went to survey the slopes of Mt. Amasa, near Arad. It's the southern tip of the central mountain range of Israel, and it's quite high - about 900 m ASL. This is a very interesting ecotone, where the Mediterranean zone and the desert and steppe habitats of the northern Negev meet. This leads to an interesting bird community - Mediterranean, steppe and desert species. It is very interesting to find two true desert birds - Scrub Warbler and Desert Lark in such a high altitude habitat - a week ago there was snow there!

Anyway, when I arrived on site at first light the wind was so strong I could hardly open my car door. I almost left the door closed and drove back home, but eventually decided to give it a try. For the first two hours I saw almost nothing, as the wind was blowing so hard. But later on the wind slowed down considerabely and I saw quite a lot of stuff. The most obvious and noisy birds on the barren slopes were Rock Sparrow - I had about 50 birds, many in pairs already. They are very vocal and mobile, but eventually I managed to get one semi-decent shot:

Rock Sparrow

As in all steppe regions of Israel, Spectacled Warblers were present in good numbers. All pairs were busy building nests and displaying.

Spectacled Warbler - male

Many wheatears were present. Finsch's were in good numbers - about 20. It was nice to see Eastern Black-eared and Finsch's side by side as in Hebrew they're called Summer and Winter Wheatears respectively.

Eastern Black-eared Wheatear

Finsch's Wheatear 

A few male Long-billed Pipits were holding (distant) territories:

Long-billed Pipit

After the wind died migrants started showing in very large numbers with some good stuff. Especially impressive was swift migration with tens of thousands going through in an endless stream. In this stream I saw all four spcies - common, pallid, alpine and little. In the foothills large flocks of Greater Short-toed Larks were flying around, mixed with a handfull of Bimaculated Larks. There were tens of Cretzschmar's Buntings around, and I found a very mobile group of 5 Cinereous Buntings. Didn't manage to get even a record shot of them. This is typical habitat and date for them but good birds neverthless.  Apart for that some more nice migrants - 2 Eurasian Crag Martins, Rueppel's Warblers, Tree and Tawny Pipits, Common Redstart (not Ehrenberg's - pretty early record) etc.

Cretzschmar's Bunting - male

That's much better, thanks

Had a great morning with Meidad. We went to check Hameishar Plains, which is one of my favorite sites in southern Israel. We went to check for signs of breeding in territories found during last year's atlas work. There was no rain there this winter, so everything is very dry, but still lots of birds feeding on seeds remaining from previous years.

Of course the most dominant family was larks, represented by six Thick-billed Larks:

Three displaying pairs of Temminck's Larks:

Four displaying Bar-tailed Larks (they're so sweet):

And a flyover Lesser Short-toed Lark. Some Desert Wheatears were holding territories too:

On the plains themselves migrants were very few, but this cracking Ehrenberg's Redstart added a splash of colour to the general brown-ness of the morning:

We made some coffee in a lush wadi just north of the plains. The Ochradenus baccatus had lots of sylvias feeding in them, so we quickly erected a net up and enjoyed some nice birds while drinking our coffee.

Cyprus Warbler

Rueppel's Warbler

Thanks to Meidad for the company and help.

Full moon, night stars

Yesterday I spent the night out with Jonathan and Rune to prepare some stuff for the forthcoming Eilat Festival. The moon was (almost) full, the night calm and pleasent - perfect conditions. 

We started off at Neot Hakikar where we had very good activity of Nubian Nightjars - my first night excursion of the season. At the moment the birds and their habitat are still OK. But what will happen next year? I don't know.

Nubian Nightjar

 

Some nice desert scenery:

This morning I was working from home. I ringed my first garden Rueppell's Warbler - female unfortunately.

Rueppell's Warbler - 3cy+ female (how the hell do you spell it?)

Not quite full blast yet

This morning I went to have a look in the Nizzana region. It was fun because I had time for some enjoyable birding, compared to the hectic visits of the past two years where I went there mainly for survey work.

Weather was good after a very cold and wet week. Bird activity was slightly disappointing in a way. I did see all of the 'good' birds expected - MacQueen's Bustards (incl. three dancing males), Cream-coloured Coursers, Pin-tailed and Spotted Sandgrouse; but common breeding species, such as Desert Lark, Scrub Warbler, Sand Partridge etc. were rather few and quite silent. I was expecting the skies to be full with singing birds but the sky was half-empty. Further, migration was very slow and I had only a handful of migrant passerines - some Short-toed Larks, Northern Wheatear and this sexy Ruppel's Warbler:

The small number of migrants was especially depressing after reading all the news from Eilat where migration is already very strong. Thanks to Meidad for the coffee.

Pin-tailed Sandgrouse

On the way back home checked the Lesser Kestrels breeding along the road on the Be'er Sheva bypass - great birds:

Lesser Kestrel

Back to normal

This morning I joined Mimi to complete the plant transects at Neot Hakikar. It is amazing how low plant diversity is, because of the hyper salinity of the soil and water. Only few bushes can survive in such harsh conditions, and only one or two species of annuals. However most of the bushes are very unique and are on our red list.

I had my first substantial flock of White Storks this season - about 200. Their main migration route is much farther west, but today a crazy westerly was blowing that pushed this moribund flock off its course. Weather conditions were really disgusting with lots of dust in the air.

One of the special bushes found in the saltmarsh is Toothbrush Tree Salvadora persica. It was used by Bedouins for tooth brushing as it contains fluoride and antiseptics in its leaves and branches. Its fruit are favorite food for birds, and the big bush we found had many Lesser Whitethroats and Chiffies feeding on it.

Toothbrush Tree Salvadora persica

There is one specific butterly to the Salvadora bush - Blue-spotted Arab. Its larvae feed exclusively on Salvadora persica leaves.

Blue-spotted Arab Colotis phisadia