Sometimes it works...

This morning I left early to try for a Caspian Plover west of Hatzerim, that had been found by Olga Chagina a few days ago. I may have left home too early because when I arrived it was still dark. At least I saw some Jerboas driving in. This is the same area where I had the Dotterels a few weeks ago. When there was enough light I started scanning the plains. And the plains were very plain. For those who know this site, when it's quiet, it's VERY quiet. I spent more than an hour working the area carefully, and saw very little on the ground. A lovely flock of Lesser Kestrels that were hunting for beetles off the ground or low bushes were the main point of interest. A Merlin was darting across the plains too. Up in the air, many Greater-Short-toed Larks and Tawny pipits were on the move. But no plovers were to be found whatsoever. I started to lose hope and headed back out. On the way out I spotted in the distance a flock of Cream-coloured Coursers. I edged closer, hoping that shorebirds show solidarity with each other. Hey, what are these smaller, darker plovers? Are they? Yes! Not one but four Caspian Plovers!

I stayed put. The birds started moving closer...

Eventually offering brilliant views. I knew others would try for them, so I didn't apply pressure on them and kept a safe distance; not quite close enough for proper photos to be taken, but I guess I can't complain...

As far as I could tell, the group consisted of two adult males, a young male, and a female.

Caspian Plover - female

Caspian Plover - 2cy male and adult male

They were too quick for my poor digiscoping skills

Caspian Plover is one of my favourite birds. Sadly, they have become increasingly rare in Israel, reflecting their negative global population trend. I remember that as a kid in the 1980's, flocks of tens were seen each spring. Now, in some years there isn't a single spring record nationally. In 2020, the only bird was one that hung around in the Bet She'an Valley in autumn. So I was very pleased to see a small flock. In the afternoon, birders who revisited the area had seven! This flat, dry desert plateau seems to be a real magnet for dryland plovers. In recent weeks, besides the Dotterels and Caspian, also Greater Sand-Plover and Kentish Plovers were seen there.

I must pay respect to the local hosts, CCCs:

In great contrast to the first quiet hour, this area where I found the plovers was actually very productive. Several large lark flocks were on the ground, containing also a couple of Bimacs. There were plenty of Tawny Pipits and wheatears too. FOY Whinchat was very welcome.

On the way out, at the edge of the cultivated zone, I bumped into a stonking, uber-friendly Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrush. He was really something special. Thank you mate.

More photos in this morning's eBird checklist here.

Eilat Festival day 4 - the day of the black beauties

I had so much fun today. At last the weather changed last night, and today a dramatic change in birds on the ground was evident. We started off early at KM76. The place was just packed with migrants - dominant species were 400 Short-toed larks, 50 each of Northern and Isabelline Wheatears, 30 Tawny Pipits, and 30 Cretzschmar's Buntings. Goodies included two Asian Desert Warblers, 6-7 Bimaculated Larks, Desert Wheatear, 5 Spotted Sandgrouse, Rueppell's Warbler and more. There were huge numbers of Painted Ladies on every bush, and all the birds were having a feast on the butterflies. Here's a murderer Asian Desert Warbler brutally destroying a butterfly:

Asian Desert Warbler

Painted Ladies - so many in one frame!

Desert Wheatear

Cretzschmar's Bunting

Rueppell's Warbler (out of focus, sorry)

 Blue-headed Yellow Wagtail

Very satisfied we left KM76 and headed over to Yotvata. While having breakfast at the cafe, we received a call from our Finnish friends Mika and Erkki that they had just found a Black bush Robin at Neot Smadar sewage. Without thinking twice we quickly packed up, deserted our plans for birding in Yotvata and headed there. By the time we got there the Finns had already found a second bird, 100 m away from the first one! We got on to both birds very quickly, and the whole group had great views of these charismatic birds. I am really pleased we saw them during the festival. They are really one of the festival's iconic birds, and of course it was a lifer for most of our clients. I wasn't able to take any proper photos with 50 birders walking behind me. Maybe I'll improve tomorrow.

Black Bush Robin - bird # 1

Sorry, out of focus again, but this image shows nicely the Tristram's Starling-like wing pattern:

 Black Bush Robin - bird #2, a brighter individual

After we all had enough of these black beauties, we headed back to Yotvata. While driving south i got a phone call from some Dutch birders (sorry guys - didn't get your names) who informed me of a third bird in that beautiful canal south of KM20 saltpans. Amazing!

We spent some time looking for Arabian Warbler near Yotvata without success. Just as I called the group back to the minibus, I heard a male singing. I looked back and a few clients who were near me had great views of a male singing from a treetop! Unfortunately not all the group managed to get good views. We will try again tomorrow.

After short siesta, we headed out again in the afternoon. First checked the saltpans where we had two Siberain Gulls, four Gull-billed Terns and the White-tailed Lapwing was showing nicely in the southern end of the ponds. Yet another quality bird today.

White-tailed Lapwing  

Before dark spent some time at north beach, nothing special or new. Good night.

Eilat Festival day 2 - difficult morning, good afternoon

This morning I led a tour for the festival. We started off at the IBRCE. On the lagoons we had some gulls and shorebirds, and a Caspian Tern. At the ringing station it was very very slow, but still we had a nice selection of migrants, including one Balkan Warbler. Thanks to the ringing team for their efforts and for not wearing pink T-shirts today.

Then went up to the mountains. We had unstable weather today which meant we had zero raptor migration. From the mountains I looked back down into the valley and the weather looked awful down there with so much dust in the air, so I decided to stay up in the mountains for some desert birding. We arrived at Uvda Valley when it was pretty hot already. A nice green patch produced some migrants, and two breeding pairs of Spectacled Warbler. But most fascinating was a large flock of locusts that settled on this green patch. They have already transformed into the adult, yellow form, and indeed we saw many locusts mating. This is pretty bad news for farmers but good news for migrants that will have many caterpillars to feed on in a couple of weeks... 

Then we walked across the desert a bit to look for some larks, but saw few birds. I had distant flight views of two Bimaculated Larks, and heard a Lesser Short-toed Lark, but my clients weren't able to connect with any of these. We say quite many Water and Tawny Pipits, and eventually we had some low-migrating Steppe Eagles and Steppe Buzzards but in very small numbers. For me as a leader it was a pretty tough morning but if I read the description above it seems like a pretty good morning.

Adult Desert Locust

In the afternoon checked the very productive canal north of the cowsheds. I had a pretty good time with three Citrine Wagtails, including a cracking male, two Little Crakes, White-tailed Lapwing (I briefly saw the other one south of IBRCE so there are two for sure), Caspian Stonechat, some Savi's Warblers and quite many common migrants such as Bluethroats, Lesser Whites and Chiffchaffs.

Citrine Wagtail

 Caspian Stonechat

Bluethroat

Windy slopes

This morning I went to survey the slopes of Mt. Amasa, near Arad. It's the southern tip of the central mountain range of Israel, and it's quite high - about 900 m ASL. This is a very interesting ecotone, where the Mediterranean zone and the desert and steppe habitats of the northern Negev meet. This leads to an interesting bird community - Mediterranean, steppe and desert species. It is very interesting to find two true desert birds - Scrub Warbler and Desert Lark in such a high altitude habitat - a week ago there was snow there!

Anyway, when I arrived on site at first light the wind was so strong I could hardly open my car door. I almost left the door closed and drove back home, but eventually decided to give it a try. For the first two hours I saw almost nothing, as the wind was blowing so hard. But later on the wind slowed down considerabely and I saw quite a lot of stuff. The most obvious and noisy birds on the barren slopes were Rock Sparrow - I had about 50 birds, many in pairs already. They are very vocal and mobile, but eventually I managed to get one semi-decent shot:

Rock Sparrow

As in all steppe regions of Israel, Spectacled Warblers were present in good numbers. All pairs were busy building nests and displaying.

Spectacled Warbler - male

Many wheatears were present. Finsch's were in good numbers - about 20. It was nice to see Eastern Black-eared and Finsch's side by side as in Hebrew they're called Summer and Winter Wheatears respectively.

Eastern Black-eared Wheatear

Finsch's Wheatear 

A few male Long-billed Pipits were holding (distant) territories:

Long-billed Pipit

After the wind died migrants started showing in very large numbers with some good stuff. Especially impressive was swift migration with tens of thousands going through in an endless stream. In this stream I saw all four spcies - common, pallid, alpine and little. In the foothills large flocks of Greater Short-toed Larks were flying around, mixed with a handfull of Bimaculated Larks. There were tens of Cretzschmar's Buntings around, and I found a very mobile group of 5 Cinereous Buntings. Didn't manage to get even a record shot of them. This is typical habitat and date for them but good birds neverthless.  Apart for that some more nice migrants - 2 Eurasian Crag Martins, Rueppel's Warblers, Tree and Tawny Pipits, Common Redstart (not Ehrenberg's - pretty early record) etc.

Cretzschmar's Bunting - male

Festival update - day 5 - Blyth's Pipit!

Yesterday I led the very-full-day Nizzana tour. We left Eilat very early and arrived at Nizzana in the early morning. We scored both MacQueen's Bustard and Cream-coloured Courser very easily, with terrific scope views for everyone at the 'theatre' - quite a few groups of birders were watching the same birds on the raised platform along the Nizzana -Ezuz road.
We continued to bird the area and saw much good stuff. We had a pretty hard time with sandgrouse though, as the birds don't come to the traditional drinking spots due to the heavy winter rains leaving puddles all over the desert. We saw a few tens of pin-tails, and heard spotted.
On the way out we had good views of 'lilith' Little Owl and this cracking male Rock Thrush:

We made several stops on our way south, and added some good species to our festival lists. A late afternoon stop at Hameishar hit the jackpot though. The place was very birdy, with huge numbers of wheatears and larks present. Just as we walked out of the car we flushed a Thick-billed Lark that flew north and never stopped. We had many good migrants there, including Quail, Bluethroats, Water Pipits, Bimaculated Larks and a single Lesser Short-toed Lark.
A small flock of wagtails included this pretty male Citrine Wagtail - a funny place to see it.


As you can see, I like this take-off shots:

On our way back to the vehicles we came across an interesting pipit. A first glance showed that it was either a Blyth's or Richard's. We had very close but very brief views of this skulker, side-on and front, and everything I could see fit well - small bill, pale lores, neatly streaked cap and mantle, shortish tail. When the bird flew it a perfect blyth's call: a yellow-wagtail like call, higher pitched and clearer than richard's, followed by two soft 'chup-chup's. The shortish tail was obvious in flight. We lost the bird as it crossed the road and out of site, and we had to leave to Eilat.

This is a mega in Israel, with three accepted records. I have to be cautious and call it a probable, as I did not photograph it, did not have perfect views and did not see all the fine details, such as median-coverts pattern, hind claw length, but I feel pretty good about this bird. I hope other birders manage to relocate it.

Festival update - day 3

This morning I went birding with Jonathan at Yotvata, which held many good birds during the last few days. Yotvata was quite birdy, more than most other sites.
There were about 50 Lesser Kestrels hunting over the circular field:

We had a few Woodchat Shrikes:


Among the many hundreds of Greater Short-toed Larks we had about 15 Bimaculated Larks.

Greater Short-toed Lark

We saw the Pied Wheatear which has been around for a few days. It is a fine male, very clean and neat. It was performing very nicely:

And here it shows the extensive white rump:

After breakfast I noticed there was massive migration over the hotel, with thousands of buzzards and kites, mixed with good numbers of other species, mainly Steppe Eagles, but also some booted and lesser spots, Short-toed Eagles, Black Storks, and Marsh Harriers. All of the following images were taken from my balcony:

Steppe Eagle (4cy)

Booted Eagle

I had one 2cy Eastern Imperial Eagle:

In the afternnon I led together with Jonathan a tour targeting the Nubian Nightjars south of the Dead Sea. We made a couple of stops along the Arava that produced a male Cyprus Warbler and fantastic views of Arabian Warblers - a couple interacting and feeding a recently fledged juvenile.

At Neot Hakikar, we had superb views of four nightjars that concluded a terrific day.

Nizzana and nightjars

Weather was terrible today in the south, with a mighty and dramatic sandstorm blowing the whole day. I was stupid enough to try an atlas box near Ezuz, and ended up with seeing relatively few birds. The slightly sheltered wadis had some birds, but the open hills were totally empty. However I had some good migrants, including 1 Oriental Skylark, 15 Bimaculated Larks, and an Eastern Black Redstart (probably ochrorus). Among the local birds worth mentioning were 1 MacQueen's Bustard, and a pair of Bar-tailed Larks.
I did not manage to locate two Cyprus Wheatears seen yesterday, one at Nizzana fortress and another near Zohar junction. I can blame the weather for this...
I was very pessimistic about chances for nightjars this evening as the sandstorm was blowing in full blast down at Neot Hakikar. I met up with Gonzalo et al. (Spain) and Miguel (Belgium) and we gave it a try anyway. After a bad start we eventually had terrific views of three birds at point blank range.

Nizzana bird atlas

This morning I surveyed one box for our bird atlas of the Nizzana region. I spent the morning east of Ezuz and had a great time. Migrants were rather few but the breeding species were in good numbers and must be enjoying the results of the huge rainfall there - caterpillars everywhere...
Of the more exotic stuff that I did not photograph, I can mention 2 MacQueen's Bustards, many Pin-tailed and Spotted Sandgrouse, one pair of Bar-tailed Lark, and 2 pairs of Lesser Short-toed Lark. I had some good migrants too - 1 Goshawk, 1 Bimaculated Lark, 1 Redwing, 1 Eurasian Cuckoo and many other bits and pieces. Quails are worth noting with many tens in the early morning.
Spectacled Warblers were very active, and I found about 15 active territories. This female was rather kind:

Scrub Warblers are common but always very sweet and very difficult to photograph. This individual was a bit nicer:

I had several pairs of Desert wheatears:

While watching this pair, I noticed they were followed by an Asian Desert Warbler, which is a familiar interaction. But then another warbler joined in, and soon the male (I presume) started courting the apparent female - he sang his head off, performed prolonged song flights and chased after the female. I have never seen such behavior of Asian desert Warblers in Israel before. I don't think they will breed here; I rather think that they got horny watching the wheatears copulating and collecting nesting material, and decided to practice a bit before returning to their breeding grounds. They're such excellent birds nevertheless:

I had one pair of Cream-coloured Coursers. I can never stop photographing these beauties: