To tick or not to tick, that is the question

On Sunday a farmer working his fields in Urim area, south of the famous powerline, photographed a young Northern Bald Ibis. The news was released only the next day. In the photos a blue ring could be seen but the code was not readable. I searched for it on Monday, without success.

Fast forward to this morning - a different farmer working near Gvulot, about 10 km away, photographed a/the ibis again. I went into 'Fast Response' mode, met up with Amir and within a few minutes we relocated the bird (first spotted by Amir) - my heart stopped. We watched it from a fair distance, feeding along the edge of an irrigated peanut field. It walked and foraged in our direction, until it reached a reasonable distance and turned around, offering us wonderful views in harsh light conditions. The ring code was read - BLV. We left the bird in peace, knowing that hordes of twitchers are on the way.

I communicated with Mustafa Çulcuoğlu who coordinates the work at the ibis colony in Birecik, and confirmed that this bird is from Birecik. Mustafa kindly provided information on BLV. It hatched this summer in natural conditions. BLV is part of a cohort of 15 young ibises that were released and allowed to migrate on July 8th. The rest of the colony gets trapped every year before migration, to prevent them from finding their inevitable death flying past the gun barrels of the Middle East.

Amir, Rami, Rony and I visited the Birecik ibis colony in 2012. It was good fun back then, and we met Mustafa - he still remembered us today!

Birecik street scenes

So, there's a dilemma here, whether to tick this bird or not. 'BLV' originates from a natural population, its parents are wild, and it hatched this summer in natural conditions. It follows traditional migration timing and maybe route. However, this colony has been manipulated by humans (for their safety apparently) for a few decades already. It feels somewhat awkward to tick this bird. Let's wait and see. In any case, it was a wonderful bird to see. So rare and special.

A bit more information about the Northern Bald Ibis: Until the 1990's the Northern Bald Ibis was wiped out from almost its entire range, from Morocco to the Middle East. It was classified as Critically Endangered, and its global population was less than 70 birds! Since the late 1990's the Moroccan population is faring better, now numbering close to 1000 birds. While the Syrian population became extirpated completely, the Turkish population is steady of slightly increasing, due to the efforts by Mustafa and his team and colleagues in Turkey. Now, it is classified as Endangered (this link provides further information about its conservation and ecology).

In Israel, until the 1970's and early 1980's there were a few records of migrating birds, probably originating from Turkey and Syria. All this ended just before I started birding. In January 2007, the superhuman Carsten Rohde found three unringed birds in the Jordan Valley, but the news came out too late and they were never seen by anyone else. Therefore, I have never seen a proper Northern Bald Ibis in Israel (for a few decades there was a small population of free-flying birds around the Zoological Gardens of Tel Aviv University, but they obviously don't count). That's why I was keen to see this Negev bird. Putting aside the silly game of listing, it is great to see some Turkish birds migrating again. I hope that their flyway will become safer for them in the future.

To write or not to write, that is the question

This post is somewhat unusual, because in recent years I refrain from reporting about my routine daily birding. I go birding every day, but I don't write a new blog every day. In the early years of my blog, I reported almost every time I was out: I saw this, I missed that. Looking back, it's good fun to read and remember, but I'm not sure how much interest there is in this kind of content anymore. Nowadays, I focus here on major events or on events with a broader context rather than standard illustrated birding reports.

This morning's birding session was not different than many others. Like every morning, I was out at dawn, aiming to get some birding done before it gets too hot and I need to start work. My routine birding includes a few good sites within 15-20 minutes from home, that I check in rotation. This morning I chose Yavne 1 ponds. It's a nice little wetland within a horrible industrial zone on the outer edge of the Tel Aviv megapolis. These ponds are used to infiltrate treated water into underground aquifer storage. They are good for autumn migrant shorebirds, and I was hoping to get some shorebird action. Indeed, it was pretty good, with relatively large numbers of common shorebirds, for this region and time of year. This site isn't easy to work, because viewing conditions are not ideal, and birds seem to be quite jumpy and mobile there.

Which shorebird species can you spot in this photo? (annotated answer below)

168 Little Stints were especially enjoyable, all adults. Also fine numbers of Marsh, Wood, Green Sands, Ruff. eBird checklist here.

There were some ducks too, including four Garganey

Both videos were taken through Swarovski ATX85 using my phone and a Swarovski phone adapter.

The reason why I decided to share this morning session is that it was not about birds only. Additionally, the report contained too much information to share in an independent social media post. Bamba and I had two encounters with Wild Boar, one from at very short distance (scared the s&%t out of Bamba) and another from a fair distance, downwind from them, so they were chilled. Also encountered Mountain Gazelle (there's a relict population here, trapped between several motorways) and Golden Jackals.

There were a few individuals of this huge, beautiful antlion, Palpares libelluluoides - wingspan of close to 15cm!

So, should I write such casual report, or not? Interested to get feedback from you, my loyal readers who got this far down.

More Eilat birds and butterflies

 The rest of the week in Eilat was enjoyable. I did some scuba diving with my son, and continued to visit North Beach twice a day, dawn and dusk. I must admit that I had expectations for some extra rarities - with such effort (8 sessions in five days) I was hoping for a new rarity to show up (Crab Plover?), but nothing exciting happened. Still, I was pleased with the great action, especially of terns. The Great Crested Tern continued to show well as it flew back and forth across the bay, very close sometimes:

Bridled, Lesser Crested and White-cheeked Terns continued as well. Also the/an Arctic tern flew across a couple of time - still I haven't managed to photograph this species in Israel!

Lesser Crested Tern

White-cheeked Terns

The regular White-eyed Gulls did their thing:

Two Western Reef-Egrets (and three littles) in the adjacent canal:

At 45 degrees daily it's hard to think about butterflies in Eilat, but even in the harshest midday conditions Eilat has some on offer. One day I paid a quick visit to a concentration of a butterfly I haven't had the chance to photograph before - Arabian Sapphire. It's a wonderful little 'blue', mouse-white with two splashes of colour at the rear end. I really enjoyed them, nectaring on flowering acacia and baccatus:

Also Desert Bath White enjoyed the acacia

En route bumped into a lovely herd of Onager while driving through Hameishar, in beautiful golden light:

bergii

I am spending a few days in Eilat now. My elder son is taking an Open Water Diver course. I am escorting him, and between marine activities and work I manage to get some birding done. Main focus in on North Beach, that is in good form - in fact best I have seen it in many years. There's lots of seabird activity, especially in the morning. Biggest star is a Great Crested Tern, it's been here for a few days now. It's a big rarity in Israel, not even annual; a welcome year tick for me, and also a photo tick. As they always appear in Israel, it's a worn non-adult in non-breeding plumage. BTW it most probably belongs to ssp. velox that breeds in the Indian Ocean north into the Red Sea.

This morning when I arrived at dawn, I found Avi already there, and the bird was there too. It was perched near the Jordanian border, at a spot without good access, so views were a bit distant.

Every now and then, it flew out west across the bay, at some distance, for fishing. Then it headed back east to its perch.

It normally U-turned with the city and the mountains as a background - I find these photos more pleasing aesthetically, despite the bird being farther away:

Here it demonstrates why some people still call it Swift Tern - it has such long wings and is extremely aerobatic:

Other cool terns are Bridled, Lesser Crested and quite many White-cheeked.

The famous underwater observatory in the background:

Cory's Shearwaters are present in exceptional numbers. Others reported up to 35 in previous days, I saw max. 18. Still very cool.

eBird checklist from this morning here.

I am here for a few more days - stay posted!

Falcon-fest

 Over the last few weeks, a spectacular concentration of Eleonora's Falcons and other falcons has been discovered on Mt. Meron. First noted by Ohad Binyamini on June 17th (during a butterfly walk), it was soon established that the falcons are there to stay (for the time being), and that their numbers are unprecedented in Israel. Eleonora's Falcon is rare in Israel, despite breeding so close in the Mediterranean, in Cyprus for example. In recent years, small numbers were recorded in the northern Golan Heights and Mt. Hermon, but never more than 3-4 together. This year something special was discovered.

At 1208 m asl, Mt. Meron is the second highest mountain in Israel, beautifully forested in thick, evergreen Mediterranean scrub. The unprecedented numbers of Eleonora's reported there in recent days, up to tens together, lured me to go there yesterday. I left early, met up with Jonathan, and we arrived to the mountain when it was still cool - 17 degrees! 31.5 less than what I had experienced in Eilat a few days earlier. The mountain was coated by a thick cloud, the cicadas were still inactive, and as a result early morning falcon activity was very low. However, when the sun finally came out, many falcons started zooming around us, feasting on flying cicadas. Quite fantastic. First ones and twos, then threes and fours, then wonderful sights of 15-20 together. Unfortunately, the most impressive views were distant and in harsh light, so my photos aren't the best, but I can't complain. They are such impressive falcons - powerful, fast, amazing aerobatics, so beautiful. Most birds I saw well were 2cy (hatched 2020). Only one or two dark morphs were seen, and not very well. Hard to estimate the total numbers, must be several tens.

Dive!

Catch that cicada!

Dark morph

Tricky individual (approaching Hobby), slim build, lightly-streaked underneath, but still dark trailing edge, buff cheeks and pale cap, some rufous on flanks.

So what's the story this year on Mt. Meron? Is it really something novel, new? Or is this an annual event, that went unnoticed up till now? I heard rumours that the cicada flight this year is unusual, but have not seen data. In Israel, major phenomena can still go under the radar, due to the lack of observers in some parts of the country. So let's wait until next year to figure this out.

With the Eleonora's there were at least six Hobby, a few Lesser Kestrels and many Eurasian Kestrels. No sign on the Sooty Falcon seen here in previous dats. 

3 European Honey-Buzzards were seen, also an interesting phenomenon this year. They do not spend the summer here! To my eyes, most surprising and impressive was a displaying male European Honey-Buzzard - never seen this before in Israel. Too distant for photos. So beautiful however, gliding with raised wings flapping rapidly. There are no known breeding records in Israel. Could they be breeding in the region?

General birding was not too exciting, quite many Eastern Bonelli's Warblers, one Chiffchaff (local breeder or dispersing from Mt. Hermon?), and a few other bits and bobs (eBird checklists here and here).

Mt. Meron is famous for its butterflies too. It was quite difficult for me to divide my attention between the falcons and the butterflies. Still I managed to find Levantine Silverline that I really wanted to see (thanks Nitay for the intel), and photographed a few others. Levantine Silverline is one of the rarest butterflies in Israel, found only on Mt. Meron and in another relict population near Hadera on the Med Coast. Like other Apharitis/Cigaritis butterflies, they have an extraordinary life history linking them with ants: Adults lay their eggs on ant trails. Ants carry the eggs into their underground nests, nurture the caterpillars and collect honeydew that the caterpillars secrete. When the caterpillars turn to cocoons, the ants carry them to the nest entrance. When the adults emerge, they crawl out of the ant nest and into the open. Fascinating.

Levantine Silverline

Tawny Silverline

Southern White Admiral

Small Copper

Holly Blue

Freyer's Grayling

Brown Argus

Wall Brown

Thanks to Jonathan, Nadav and Inbal for a great morning!