3B Plover revisited

This morning I met up with Jonathan and Piki at Ma'ayan Tzvi and Ma'agan Michael. Following the exciting discovery of the first Three-banded Plover for Israel, several other good shorebirds accumulated in the same dried-up fishpond, which required our attention. Weather was unstable today, and light conditions were not great. First thing when we arrived on site, Jonathan spotted the lover, which was cool as it had been reported missing for about a week now. It showed very well, now perhaps more relaxed after a few traumatic twitching days. Lovely bird, it was great to watch it forage peacefully and even heard it vocalise (crappy sound recording in eBird checklist here).

As we walked quietly along the vegetated bank, a small passerine flicked in the vegetation ahead. It was cool how Jonathan's brain and mine processed what we saw at the same speed, as we both exclaimed simultaneously 'Icterine Warbler!'. Sadly, it was very mobile an we lost it quickly, without a photo. The fishpond indeed hosted good shorebirds, including Bar-tailed Godwit, nine Broad-billed Sandpipers and Collared Pratincole. Broad-billed Sands are so pretty now.

Thanks to Corona Lockdown, we witnessed a very relaxed family party of Wild Boar:

Northern Wheatear is common; this one posed so nicely that it demanded documentation:

Down on the Ma'agan Michael beach, several quality shorebirds showed nicely, including three Whimbrel and two Greater Sand-plovers:

Admittedly, there were few migrant landbirds on the ground. Moving through, however, were fine numbers of hirundines and Spanish Sparrows. eBird checklist here.

Existential thoughts on birding in rubbish dumps

After two brilliant days, birding on our last day in Kaziranga (21 Feb) was hampered by the torrential rain that had started the previous afternoon. We left late in the morning after the rain had paused. We headed over to Diring Tea Estate, the main haunt for Blue-naped Pitta and a few more 'hill' species. We were hoping for good activity after the rain, but in fact it was pretty slow and birds didn't play ball - quite many species were 'heard-only'. Check our eBird checklist here. We heard one pitta right at the start of the trail, but couldn't locate it. No other birds were vocal in the degraded forest. Same for Oriental Scops Owl - three singing birds but we couldn't find any of them. We did add some species but nothing out of the ordinary. And it was nice to bird on foot after sitting in a jeep for so long.

Diring Tea Estate

Nest stop was Kaziranga Beel, a small wetland outside the reserve. Due to the heavy rain access to the wetland itself was flooded, and we didn't see too much there either. At least I could get down to ground level to photograph the small goose flock, in bad light. Good hirundine activity is evident by the photobombing birds.

Ruddy Shelducks and Bar-headed Geese (and Barn Swallow)

Bar-headed Geese are very pretty, aren't they? (and Sand Martin)

We had a couple of Bengal Bushlarks that were new to the trip:

A pair of Oriental Pied Hornbills entertained us by the main road:

In the afternoon we returned to the eastern range of Kaziranga NP. It was somewhat slower than previous days, and we really did not add too much. Two-barred Warbler and Black-throated Thrush were new trip birds. This White-fronted Goose was a good local record:

Indian Pond Heron on a mobile rock

On Feb 22 I started the long journey back home. Before flying out of Guwahati I had time to check the rubbish dump that holds the world's largest concentration of the Globally Endangered Greater Adjutant, the Asian Marabou counterpart. We had scoped them on the rubbish dump from a huge distance after landing in Guwahati a few days earlier, but I was hoping for better views. So I asked my driver to make a quick detour towards the rubbish dump. I thought I'd get views from outside the dump, but suddenly I found myself in the epicentre of disgust and misery. We were surrounded by hundreds of people rummaging through the rubbish, including young children. 

 

 

And I was there to watch and photograph birds. Globally Endangered birds. I have birded in many rubbish dumps and sewage ponds before, but this was something else. My brain was swinging between operation as a wildlife photographer, and feelings of a distressed western tourist just wanting to get away from these horrible scenes. In India one cannot escape from extreme poverty, but this type of extreme poverty is normally witnessed out of a passing train window. I was not expecting a close encounter with those miserable people. In the back of my brain I knew they exist, but my western brain normally avoids thinking about them. In this case, I was walking between those miserable people, carrying optics that cost much more than these people will ever earn, trying not to get my clothes dirty before boarding a flight. I felt so disgusting, and even much more now while I sit in front of my desk in the UK. 

I felt a sense of 'duty' to document the adjutants when I was there, that's why I went there, no? So I fired off some shots in bad light conditions, and asked the driver to get me the hell out of there.

This is the general scenery where the adjutants hang around:

I found it horrible to see people, cows and birds 'working' together on the same pile of rubbish:

Here are my photo objects. Not many birds can be described as ugly. In this particular setting, to my eyes these Greater Adjutants are genuinely ugly.

Huge

With Black-eared Kites - many on the rubbish too

After this distressing and surreal experience, I wanted to cleanse my brain a bit, so returned to Deepor Beel for an hour of quieter birding. Again it was good with large numbers of waterfowl, but nothing too exciting there. 

Lesser Whistling-Ducks

Bronze-winged Jacana

The last new trip bird - my only Brown-headed Gull of the trip:

NL day 1 - American Wigeon!

Left UK this morning - after surviving heavy traffic on the A1 and M25. Just as I landed at Schiphol I got a message from Gert Ottens, who was on his way to pick me up from the train: "Do you want to see an American Wigeon?"... Hell yes! So from the airport we drove more or less direct to the Nederrijn river near Wijk bij Duurstede, where this bird was found on Saturday. We got on to the bird immediately as it was swimming in the middle of the river with some wigeons and goldeneyes. Cool bird, lifer, WP tick and completely surprising - I really wasn't expecting it! Here are some more crappy record shots - distant, no light, rain, wind etc.

American Wigeon - male 

Later on Gert and I went birding in that valley. There were tons of geese about - something like 5000 barnacles and maybe 1000 whitefronts. Very very nice.

Among them we had some Bar-headed Geese - this valley is one of their strongholds in Holland. Category C, I know, but good-looking birds nevertheless.

Bar-headed Geese