Champions of the Flyway 2016

Champions of the Flyway 2016 is behind us and now there's some time to look back. It has been an amazing 48 hours of adrenalin and birds and emotions. I will begin with a quick back-log of March 28th. Had some time in the morning for a quick look in Yotvata. The fields were alright with some nice migrants. Best was an Oriental Skylark and a female Siberian Stonechat.

Siberian Stonechat

It was associating with this Whinchat:

Two Montagu's Hrrriers hunted low over the fields:

Booted Eagle

Desert Finches 

Steppe Buzzard in nice early morning light

The sewage ponds were relatively empty, maybe because there are Egyptian Geese there now:

 Black-headed Yellow Wagtails

Marsh Sandpiper - so pretty in summer plumage

Photo-bombed by Black-winged Stilt

With Little Ringed Plover and Green Sandpipers

Several Masked Shrikes there as well

When leaving I stopped to witness the incredible raptor passage overhead. I counted some for fun - I had 2000 Steppe Buzzards and about 400 Black Kites in 15 minutes, also 40 Steppe and two Eastern Imperial Eagles. Ming-blowing.

On the race day itself (March 29th) I was out with the teams. In the early morning I went up to the stunning Seifim Plains. 

I spent some time there and had quality birds - Temminck's, Lesser Short-toed, Bimaculated and Bar-tailed Larks, Cream-coloured Courser, Rock Thrush, Spotted Sandgrouse etc.

Desert Wheatears 

Big numbers of Northern Wheatears and Tawny Pipits:

Hen Harrier

 Martijn from Dutch Knights with Rock Thrush:

Meidad and his team Sooty Falcons

Checked a few small sites further north that had many migrants - Collared Flycatchers, Ortolans, Wrynecks, Nightingales etc. Neot Smadar held nothing unusual.

Black-eared Wheatear

Namaqua Dove - always pretty

supecilliaris Yellow Wagtail

Ofira park held a sweet selection of migrants that included:

Cretzschmar's Buntings

Wryneck

In the afternoon focused more on the busy sites of KM20 saltpans and north beach. Like and outdoor BirdFair almost. So many friends coming and going - tried to help them to collect the important species quickly - Greater Sandplover, Brown Boobies etc.

After all the teams finished before midnight Itai, Jonathan and me sat on the lists until very late. The results are all over social media. Anyway congratulations to the winning teams Arctic Redpolls and Jehova's Chickens for their fantastic efforts. Well done all teams for the awesome fundraising to help HOS prevent illegal killing of birds in Greece - a record breaking $67,000! The ceremony event was incredible with huge support and power, and hope in the form of the brilliant children that took part in the race and did very well. My appreciations goes to my friends and colleagues Dan and Jonathan for their professional dedication to this great event. Till next year!

What a great day!

Not a very inspirational title but it really was simply a great day. Spent it with a group of journalists who are here to cover the Champions of the Flyway. They all write for birding magazines and websites so they are keen birders themselves. It was great to be out with them. In the morning also the Hellenic Ornithological Society team joined us which was fun.

We started off at Uvda Valley. Pretty quiet to start with but eventually we had quite many birds. Habitat looks good after yesterday's rain - lots of water. We had a nice variety of open-country migrants - pipits, wheatears, larks, wagtails etc. Highlights were two Spectacled Warbler families, three stunning male Pallid Harriers, and a possible singing Bar-tailed Lark. This Desert Agama (Trapelus pallidus) was lovely:

Neot Smadar sewage was packed with migrants, mainly Yellow Wags but also a Citrine, Garganey and a few other bits and bobs. 

After lunch I checked this Semi-collared Flycatcher found by Jonathan in the city center - nice male, great bird sadly on an ugly perch:

Then in the afternoon we checked Holland Park. Lots of warblers and the regular desert species showed well. Also Wryneck, Nightingale, a nice flock of Bee-eaters and overhead big raptor passage. This corking male Sinai Agama (Agama sinaita) was my personal highlight:

Balkan Warbler

The evening at North Beach was magical. Constant arrival of birds, stuff going through all the time, lots of quality and variety. Highlights were the two long-staying Brown Boobies, 9 Oystercatchers, Arctic Skua. Also the expected White-eyed Gulls and Western Reef Egret. Flocks of Spoonbill and Glossy Ibis came in off the sea. Massive raptor passage overhead, including single Lesser Spotted Eagle and Montagu's Harrier. Huge duck flocks (mainly Garganey) circling the gulf. Great stuff.

Oystercatchers

Spoonbills

In the evening at IBRCE we had the opening ceremony of COTF. It was a brilliant evening. looking forward very much to the race on Tuesday. Special thanks to Noam, Tzadok and the IBRCE team for hosting the event.

Israel at last

I am so glad to be back in Israel. Came here with my family for a two-week visit. First day was devoted to friends and family but I was so happy to see all the birds around. Just casual stuff but lots of things - Long-eared and Scops Owls, Great Spotted Cuckoos, Pallid Harrier, Lesser Kestrels, Serins, Savis's Warbler, Quail etc. - all common migrants but such a difference compared to my regular experiences in the UK. Highlight was the Rough-legged Buzzard that thankfully stayed and stayed for me, sitting just along route 6 yesterday afternoon. Israeli tick! I was in a great hurry so no time for images. Returned again this morning but no sign of it. Unstable weather meant few raptors.

In the northern Arava I tried for the Red-billed Teal. I checked three sewage farms, and it was in the third. It was very jumpy and flew off just as I got out of the car to scan over the fence, 200 m away. Israeli tick - well, not quite sure about its origin but we'll see. A fine bird anyway. Here I think it is with a hybrid duck thing:

Also there a flock of 6 Baltic and 2 Heuglin's Gulls, and a White-throated Kingfisher.

In the Arava it was raining quite heavy so little passerine activity. At KM76 Rueppel's Warbler, two Lesser Kestrels and a large flock of 400 Spanish Sparrows, until I had to escape from the torrential rain.

Wet Lesser Kestrels

Spanish Sparrows

Down at Eilat it was pretty windy but nor rain. At IBRCE ponds two Gull-billed Terns and some Whiskered Terns:

Caspian and Gull-billed Terns, Slender-billed and Black-headed Gulls

Whiskered Tern

In the afternoon a very large movement of migrants was apparent around the city. Huge numbers of hirundines were grounded, as well as thousands of yellow Wagtails. At the ditch behind the cowshed three Citrine Wagtails and a Spotted Crake. 

Sand Martins and Barn Swallow

In the evening Leica Birding organized a great event - good to get the Champions of the Flyway show rolling, and great to meet so many new and old friends.

Looking forward to tomorrow!

Spring has not sprung yet

At least here in Norfolk. Enjoyed the relatively nice weather today walking in Winterton Dunes. However I did not enjoy the birding too much, especially while getting all the spring reports coming in from Israel to my phone. I was obviously over-optimistic hoping to find a first wheatear or martin, but had practically nothing. Too many people and too few birds. Even common birds were few. I was so desperate I even photographed this cracking male Mallard:

Eventually found myself photographing the most beautiful dog in the whole world:

On the way back home dipped on the Green-winged Teal at Cantley. Great day.

Ring and chog

Had a very nice trip down to the southwest. Lest Norwich Friday morning. My first stop was at Bray GP (Berks) for the Ring-necked Duck that took up residence there. The bird was showing staright away in the pit by the M4 with some Tufted Ducks. Great looking bird! And a WP tick for me... 

 Ring-necked Duck

The bird was lovely but I did not enjoy watching it - this pit is fenced off and surrounded by trees, so I had views of the duck mainly through branches. But there was lots of passerines there - many Redwings and few Fieldfare, and bird numbers of Siskin and Lesser Redpoll. But I had no time to linger there - I had another ringed bird waiting for me.

My next stop was at Blashford Lakes (Hampshire), where I met up with Dave, my host from CHOG. We didn't have to wait long for the Ring-billed Gull to arrive to the roost. We had OK scope views but photography was very difficult - combination of distance (maybe 300 m?) and dim light. Anyway, even in these terrible record shots it is sort of identifiable - heavy bill, pale mantle tones, faint white tertials crescent:

Ring-billed Gull - adult

And in this image it is possible to see the limited white mirror on P10:

Another fine gull there was this 2nd-winter Caspian Gull:

Also 3 Med Gulls joined the roost. This site was really good - Slavonian and two Black-necked Grebes, Goosanders and Goldeneyes, pretty good. And the gull roost is impressive.

In the evening I gave a talk to CHOG in Bornmouth, so quite many friends from Hampshire Bird Club joined as well. I really enjoyed the talk and I hope the audience enjoyed it too.

This morning I met up with Dave, Dave and Chris. The weather was pretty foul so we opted for seawatching off Milford-on-Sea, or rather watching the sea because there were few birds. We did have a Black-throated Diver and two Red-breasted Mergansers but very little else. A few Med Gulls were playing around on the promenade:

After a couple of quiet hours of watching an empty sea we decided to brave the weather and bird around Keyhaven Marshes. In recent days the marshes held Long-billed Dowitcher and Long-tailed Duck but the weather was so bad that we didn't see much. Even the locals complained about the weather ('near-impossible conditions' they called it).

And then it was the long way back home.

Many thanks to CHOG and especially to Dave for inviting me and for the warm hospitality. 

Consolation prize

I am pretty devastated these days by the Rough-legged Buzzard celebrated by all possible Israeli birders but me. It's the third record but I missed also the previous one back in 2012. So I tried to console myself with some dodgy ducks. Last weekend I tried the Green-winged Teal found by my mate James at Ransworth Broad. I was there with Libby and the weather was horrible and the pushchair had a flat tire, and there were only few teal around, so no luck. This afternoon I tried my luck again, this time the Portuguese-ringed individual on the Blyth estuary. This individual sporting a nasal saddle was ringed in Portugal on 15 January 2015. Driving down the A146 there was a huge pre-roost of several thousand Rooks and Jackdaws near Thurton:

Arriving at Blythburgh, I wanted to hit myself for not checking the tides (Israeli habit - no tide in Israel) - the tide was out and all the ducks were roosting in very distant groups, scattered across the mudflats. I parked by the White Hart Inn and started scanning from the carpark. Took me some time but eventually I got on the bird. Shit views - it was dark and windy, and the bird was very distant. It was just about identifiable with max. magnification of my scope, but hey, enough for a WP tick... I scrambled to get the digiscoping kit together but by the time I was ready the roosting teals woke up and waded down into a depression and out of view. Shit. Not even a record shot. I will try again in better conditions.

So now the teal was in the bag and gone I had some time to look around. In fact I had driven past this fantastic site several times but never had a chance to check. Today it was packed full with birds. There was a huge roost of gull, mainly Common Gulls - around 1500! Including a couple of heinei-type things. Also a Med Gull among them. There were less than 200 large gulls, nothing interesting I could see. Lots of shorebirds on the mud. most impressive was a gathering of 180 Avocets.