Pacific Gold

Early this morning I returned to Timorim to improve my results with the Pacific Golden Plover, which seems to like this place - almost a week now on site. The bird showed well but I am not very happy with my results - it was a bit too distant, the light was bad (early morning sun obscured by clouds), lots of vegetation so I couldn't lie on my belly, etc. See how changing light conditions really change the appearence of the bird.

Pacific Golden Plover - adult

Today there were fewer shorebirds compared to Sunday but still some nice stuff: Black-winged and Collared Pratincoles, Temminck's Stint, lots of Marsh Sands, White-winged Tern and more. A Starling was new for me for the season.

 Here are some images of the plover with friends:

Black-winged Pratincole

 Marsh Sandpiper

  

Spur-wined Lapwing

Wood Sandpiper

PGP take 2

After on Friday I never made it to see the Pacific Golden Plover at Timorim (found by Eran Banker), this morning on my way to work I dropped in to the reservoir to have a quick look. 

The bird was still in place. It's a big reservoir so I had distant views only. It's a fine adult, almost completed its body moult with just a few dark feathers remaining on the flanks. Primary moult is about halfway through - P1 to P5 moulted, P6 still growing and P7 to P10 unmoulted.

Nice head profile - steep forehead, rather long bill:

Short primary projection: 

 Slight toe projection:

Grey axillaries and coverts:

Many more shorebirds sharing the same pond but had no time to check them. Impressive numbers of Marsh Sands, one Collared Pratincole etc.

Millions of alba WhiteWagtails everywhere. This is a 1cy (female?) - note the obvious moult limit in GC (two inner GC moulted) and tertials (two upper tertials moulted).

Good October ringing

Went ringing this morning at my CES in Ashdod. The morning began with a blow, when I discovered that recently someone had done some infrastructure work with heavy machinery in my swamp, and destroyed some of my net rides. Nevertheless I decided to go ahead and set the nets up. First round was very big and I thought I was going to work very hard but eventually it ended up as a good, solid catch. About 100 birds with a good, typical October mix. Lots of Willow Warblers, only one Chiffchaff, about 20 Bluethroats which was surprising - large number for this time of year. Other quality stuff included Red-backed Shrikes, Wryneck, Marsh Warbler among the commoner species.

Bluethroat

Willow Warbler - yakutensis type

My grove of Apple-ring Acacia Faidherbia albida is flowering now, attracting lots of warblers

Many thanks to the team that helped me this morning - Re'a, Shlomo, Liad, Miriam, Shahar & Arbel.

Dusky Warbler!!!

This morning after taking my kids to the kindergarten I headed off to Timorim, not too far away from my house, to look for a Pacific Golden Plover found by Eran Banker yesterday. In perfect timing I received an RBA message alerting of a Dusky Warbler trapped at Yeroham in the C Negev by Yoram Zvik & Rony Livne. PGP is a very good bird but I did not hesitate for a second and changed my destination to see the warbler. I have seen one in Israel before - a bird I found and ringed with Eyal Shochat on18 October 1996 near Beer Sheva, but that was long ago and I have no images of that bird. Dusky Warbler is still mega rare in Israel - this is only the 6th record; all but one were ringed, which made them non-twitchable and therefore it was a serious blocker of mine for quite many years. But in the modern era, when info passes so fast and cars are so fast as well, it became possible to twitch a bird in the bag.

Quite a good crowd assembled, both of local birders and some of Israel's leading listers. The bird was processed, photographed and released in good health. It was seen flitting in the bushes after release until it disappeared. 

It is quite an easy Phylloscopus to identify, with the combination of dark-brown upperparts, golden brown underparts, long and prominent supercilium, especially in front of eye, and delicate and pointed bill. It is tiny, with a wing of 55 mm. The wing was typically very rounded including heavily emarginated primaries. When released it gave one typical call - a dry 'tack'. The bird was identified as 1cy.

Congratulations and many thanks to Yoram and Rony - excellent bird!

Dusky Warbler

Rony Livne & his sweetheart 

Ringing birding ringing birding

The last week has been very busy for me. Every day I did some fieldwork - either ringing or counting raptors or other stuff. I am now very tired but this is such a great period to be out - so many birds everywhere.

Tuesday morning I joined a large ringing session at Ein rimon again. Another good catch of Black-eared Wheatears, with lots of sylvias, Spotted Flys and Whinchat as supporting cast.

Eastern Black-eared Wheatear - adult male

Eastern Black-eared Wheatear - 1cy male

Whinchat - 1cy (see the moult limit in GC)

This morning I went ringing with Meidad at the alfalfa field near my house. it was my first time ringing in the newly-planted field, and I still need to learn the bird movements in the field to improve the catch next time, but still we had a good catch of Red-throated Pipits (95% adults). In addition we had a mix of good birds - Whinchats, Corn buntings, Tree Pipits etc.

Red-throated Pipit - 1cy

Red-throated Pipit - 2cy+ (male I guess)

Greater Short-toed Lark

Corn Bunting

Some arrivals seen included White Wagtails, Water Pipits, Lapwings etc.

Thanks to Meidad for the hard work.

Family holiday birding

Went down to Eilat with the family for a long weekend. It's holiday season in Israel, so lots of people on the road and everywhere practically, but we managed to have a very good time. During the three mornings I spent there I managed to squeeze in two hours of birding, before the family woke up and I got the terminating phone call from my wife: "good morning, we're up!". That means I was under a real pressure of time each morning to get something done before I had to go back, and most of the birding was done before sunrise. As a result, in this post the photographic quality is lower than I usually present here.

Friday morning started off at the IBRCE, said hello to the guys and enjoyed this sweet Scops Owl they had just caught:

Drove off with Re'a to KM20 saltpans that were packed full with shorebirds, mainly Little Stints and Ringed Plovers with many hundreds each. We scanned the large flocks very fast but the best we came up with was one Broad-billed Sandpiper. In this image the focus escaped to the Little Stint on the right, sorry, didn't have the time to check the images on the camera: 

Both at MK20 saltpans and later on at KM19 sewage farm lots of marsh terns present - mainly Whiskered Terns but fewer white-winged and one black.

Whiskered Tern

Saturday morning I went to check Yotvata. As I drove in I was happy to see a large flock of about 40 Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters thrashing a beehive near the cafe. Most were juveniles. 

The southern circular field was swarming with birds and I had a really good time there. While I was birding got a call from Re'a that they had just caught a Common Rosefinch but I decided to give it a miss and continued birding. In the field there were about 1000 Greater Short-toed Larks, among which I heard one Lesser Short-toed; many tens of Tree and Red-throated Pipits, with fewer Tawny and one Richard's Pipit; many wheatears (isabelline, nothern, desert and black-eared), many whinchats and Red-backed Shrikes, tons of hirundines; one Black-headed Bunting; Barbary Falcon and several harriers (marsh, pallid and montagu's) cruising over the field - great fun.

Black-headed Bunting

The sewage ponds were very birdy too but nothing special. This juv. Collared Pratincole appeared for a brief visit (still before sunrise): 

In the late afternoon I got another call from Re'a that they were watching both a Purple Swamp-hen and White-tailed Lapwing at KM19, but I was busy with the family so could not go for these good birds. Took a chance and hoped they'd wait for me till the next morning. 

So Sunday early morning I first had a quick look at north beach that had very little apart for the resident Brown Booby and 3-4 distant White-cheeked Terns. Then I headed off to KM19 sewage tanks. The tanks are full of fish and had loads of gulls and herons, but no sign of the chicken or the lapwing...

Armenian Gull - this must be 1cy but how on earth do they get so bleached and worn in such a short time?

A small flock of five Spoonbills was fresh in:

  

Only bird of note was one Citrine Wagtail.

So to conclude, not a bad family birding holiday. Eilat is always fun. This is not a classic period for birding in Eilat - still very hot and not too many common migrants hopping all over the place like in spring, but still some sites were good and some quality too.