Photo miracle

Last night I was on guard duty in my village. Had several singing Scops Owls and found this one sitting on a wire. Had only my small lens (400/f5.6) with me, no tripod and no torch. This image was taken single-hand-held; in my other hand I was holding my phone using the built-in torch to get some light on the bird in order to focus. Used the built-in flash. Exposure was 3.2 seconds long! I have no explanation how it came out reasonabely sharp. Also cannot explain the phantom owl to the left...

Scops Owl

Yesterday morning I ringed at Ashdod after I hadn't visited the site the whole winter. A huge flood in January destroyed much of the vegetation, and dumped loads of mud everywhere. Water level was too high, but still I waded like a bloody hippo the whole morning. Rather few birds and strong wind made the whole morning not too much fun. Still about 40 birds, some Chiffchaffs, Lesser Whites, Bluethroats etc. Only bird worth a photo was a Penduline Tit but I was coated in mud so couldn't be bothered to get the camera out.

Thanks to my muddy helpers - Arad, Liad, Shlomo and Miriam.

Let the season begin

The nightjar season begins with a Nationality Tick - two super-nice visitors from Estonia. Thanks Tarvo for holding the torch.

Nubian Nightjar

Birding coldspots - birding hotspots

Left home in the middle of the night and went with Meidad to check one of the most important sites in the Arava valley for Hoopoe Lark and other larks. In previous years it was an amazing site - check this report from 2010 for instance. So expectations were high, especially after the good winter rain. But in fact we had an amazingly quiet morning. In about two hours of birding we had only 6 birds(!): two Asian Desert Warblers, two Brown-necked Ravens, one Bar-tailed Lark and one Hoopoe Lark - heard it several times and glimpsed it once. I have no idea why it was so dead. There is some germination in the wadi, and some bushes are in flower, and weather was OK. I do hope that in my next visit things will look better. Driving in, before dawn, we had one cute Lesser Egyptian Jerboa.

Asian Desert Warbler

After a couple of hours we wanted to go somewhere with birds. So we went to Hameishar Plains  - it was very good there, just by the road. Highlight was four pairs of Cream-coloured Coursers, busy courting and copulating. In addition, large numbers of Trumpeter Finches, Chiffchaffs and Isabelline Wheatears, and some Rueppell's Warblers too. Mammals included seven Wild Ass and some dorcas gazelles.

Rueppell's Warbler - male

Trumpeter Finch - male

Isabelline Wheatear - male singing

On the way back home I spotted a Griffon soaring low over the road south of Be'er Sheva, quite unusual there. I took some images - it's ringed of course. According to data provided promptly by Ohad Hatsofe (NPA), this individual hatched prior to 2001, was ringed in 2005 in the Judean Desert, and was last resighted in 2011. Thanks Ohad.

Eurasian Griffon

I had a quick look at the Yellow-browed Warbler found by Avner Rinot almost two weeks ago on the outskirts of Beer Sheva - it was rather shy and skulky, perhaps due to the strong wind and high temperatures. Good bird nevertheless.

Recent updates

Here in Israel spring is already evident, with more and more migrants appearing, and in the desert breeding is already taking place in some species. 

This is going to be a busy spring for me. I am coordinating to breeding bird atlas surveys - one in open scrub habitats ('Batha')n in the N Negev, and another on Mt. Hermon. On Wednesday had a look at Lahav reserve where the atlas project will take place. Just checked some different methods so didn't see much but found already three pairs of Spectacled Warbler nest-building and incubating, and a few Finsch's Wheatears.

Thursday evening and Friday morning I helped Meidad guiding his bird-guide training course at Nizzana. I gave a couple of presentations to his excellent trainees, and led a morning field excursion. At night, near our camp, we had a few singing Lilith Owls. In the morning I took them to my favourite hill overlooking some pristine, beautiful habitat south of Ezuz. We had there three dancing male MacQueen's Bustards. This hill has some ancient Nabatean rock carvings - really spiritual feeling to think how 2500 years ago people sat on the same hill and shared their observations with me.

Nabatean rock carvings

Later on we had another two dancing bustards, giving us all great views (but still to distant to photograph). Apart for that some coursers and Pin-tailed Sandgrouse. Enjoyed my first Eastern Black-eared Wheatear of the season. The desert is very green as a result of good rainfall - looking forward to another good breeding season.

Pallid Harrier

Yesterday afternnon went rapror-ringing in the NW Negev with my brother Gidon, my elder son Uri and Gidon's son Shachar. Dream Team. Wind was very strong and lots of dust in the air, so raptors kept low and few. Still we managed to catch some buzzards and kestrels; best was a young Long-legged Buzzard - rufous morph. While we were waiting for a buzzard to get caught, Uri asks me: "Dad, what's this white bird near us?". I was sure it's a Cattle Egret but wow it was a fantastic Pallid Harrier feeding on a small bird - very close to us. What a bird. Unfortunately it was sat just by an ugly tarmac road that I did my best to crop out...

Pallid Harrier - male

  

Too close for a jump-shot

Long-legged Buzzard

Russian Common Gull, Ashdod, 6/1/10

After seeing  heinei-type at Titchwell, Norfolk, UK a couple of weeks ago, I started learning more about its ID. Martin Garner, Chris Gibbins, Jan Jorgensen and Mars Muusse were very helpful with this (thanks guys). Common Gulls are generally scarce in Israel. Until the late 1990's some tens wintered at Shifdan (Tel Aviv sewage works, that since had been converted from open ponds to a modern facility) and other gull hotspots on our Med coast. In recent decade numbers have dropped considerabely and nowadays we have normally less than 10 wintering in Israel every winter (my estimate). Shirihai mentions in his book (The Birds of Israel, 1996) that heinei is rare in Israel and few individuals with characters belonging to this taxon occur at Eilat and on the Med coast. I think that today we should be able to identify the better, and I am sure that based on its breeding range we should have many more heinei's in Israel.

On 6 January 2010 I birded with Amir, Ehud and Sassi at Ashdod. We found this very tame adult Common Gull on the beach, and at that time we were quite happy just to find one and didn't consider its subspecies at all. As it is a rarity I took some shots of it - to date the only Common Gull I have photographed in Israel. Looking back at the images, this bird certainly looks good for heinei.

Mantle tones: remember that even in mid-winter sunlight in Israel is much stronger than in NW Europe, so I guess that in Europe mantle tone of this bird would look much darker. But still it's dark enough - check the flight shot below. 

Wing pattern: when perched, note that P10 to P8 are black all the way to the PC, giving a solid black wingtip. In nominate birds much grey is present on P9 and P8. In flight, note that also P7 has extensive black on outer web, almost reaching PC.

Russian Common Gull Larus canus heinei

Note the important feature - prominent black band on P5, quite michahellis-like:

Many heinei have pale eyes in winter, but not all. This is a dark-eyed individual; don't know what proportion of heinei show dark eye but according to Chris Gibbins this is not unusual.

Certainly worth to keep an eye open for these guys in the future, also in earlier plumages. I wonder if there are any heinei records from Kuwait, UAE or anywhere else in our region?