Kfar Ruppin

Today was one of those incredible mornings, with the best experience Kfar Ruppin could offer. I started early at the fishponds, had just under two hours to bird. The fishponds were packed with birds; the numbers, diversity and quality were almost overwhelming. There were so many birds (eBird checklist here). There's this one large reservoir, half-empty, that held a fantastic selection of birds, including finding seven Ruddy Shelducks and three Siberian Buff-bellied Pipits (eBird is great but their name, American Pipit (japonicus) sucks), Isabelline Shrike, several Caspian Stonechats.

The ruddies (ducks? geese?) were spooked by an explosion nearby and headed off strongly, to the disappointment of some local birders who were keen to see them. I hope they landed nearby. They provided nice flight views, not the greatest flight shot but gives a taste of the surroundings - alfalfa field with overhanging Black Kites, date plantations.

Reed Bunting is pretty scarce and shy in Israel, so it was nice to get this relatively showy bird, albeit sat on a wire:

Later on at Amud Reservoir, our restoration pilot project, things are looking very good - the reservoir is full of birds (eBird checklist here) and the habitat is great. Photo from this morning by Jay Shofet:

While we were talking about the project to our guests, this monster Bonelli's Eagle flew towards us. I ran to the car to grab my camera and got a nice flyby sequence.

Hit the ground running

How can one complete a Big Year and let go? Lean back? Impossible. New year, new targets (who said 400?). The main lesson learned from 2020's bittersweet performance was to start strong. Not to leave stuff for the final month. Will I (and Jonathan) be able to keep up with the speed? Personally, I am quite knackered, and my work load is huge these coming weeks. But there is no choice, only to push on.

So it's January 5th, lots of good birds around, good weather. Up till now I have done only one quality birding session, on Sunday in Kfar Ruppin. Before and after a meeting (how convenient) there was time for good birding, picking up 'important' and cool species such as Isabelline Shrike (two, here), 6 Oriental Skylark and 7 Siberian buff-bellied Pipit (here) and a nearby Red-crested Pochard (here).

As always, birding in Bet She'an Valley is a blast, with So. Many. Birds. everywhere (how many times can I use NJAudubon's trademark?).

Oriental Skylark

A beast of a young Bonelli's Eagle

Watch this space for more stuff!

Three days

Again, some stuff has piled up on my computer-desk, that needs clearing.
On Monday I had a chance to meet up with Nils who's doing a Big Bat Year, passing through Israel. With two hours to spare, I decided to check wadi Bet Arif near the airport that was actually quite good despite the heat. Migration was on, both on the ground and overhead, and local birds played ball too. Nils even had a mammal lifer (Mountain Gazelle) and a few bird lifers. Rather unexpected was this 2cy Bonelli's Eagle:

Long-billed Pipit

Locally-produced Blue Rock Thrush

eBird checklist here.

Yesterday was Election Day so I had the day off. In the morning I birded with Re'a the alfalfa field and reservoir near Tal Shahar, which was fantastic, as expected at this time of year. Numbers and diversity were really great. Highlights were a Richard's Pipit, Pallid Harrier and 90 species within three hours. eBird checklist here.

Chirp!

This young Peregrine bombed past us, too quick for me to focus

Lots of Savi's everywhere

Alfalfa fields are packed with wagtails and pipits now. In turn, the abundance of potential prey attracts harriers. We had three young Montys (one pictured here) and a blondie Pallid foraging very actively over the field early one before taking off.

This morning I worked with Sivan from NPA north of Ashdod. Highlights were an Oystercatcher and two Whimbrel, and Desert Wheatear among many other wheatears. eBird checklist here.

Not alboxillaris

Northern Wheatears

Lovely Whinchat

Still trying to find out what this dragonfly is

My eBird checklist streak is regaining speed, 35 days now.

Down below - too slow

A couple of weeks ago my mate Meidad found a stunning Wallcreeper inside the scenic Ein Avdat gorge - a site where it had not been seen for over 20 years. Many birders connected with it, but I had no time to make it down south till today. Before a meeting, Amir and I met up with Meidad and we gave the gorge a thorough scan. Soon after walking in we had great views of the local Bonelli's Eagle pair. This species is Critically Endangered in Israel, with less than 10 breeding pairs nationally. I hope this pair will breed successfully this year. The female is a bit young, about 4 years old - hope she masters the skills of successful breeding soon.

The male is a bit older:

Several pairs of Eurasian Griffons breed in the gorge - they were busy mating and collected nesting material.

There are few sites in Israel that are remote enough to claim 'pure' Rock Pigeons - Ein Avdat is one of them. Impossible to tell whether they are actually pure or not - I'm sure the local Bonelli's Eagles and Lanners don't care.

We searched hard but there was no sign of the bloody Wallcreeper. The sole curve-billed species present was Water Rail:

This Grey Wagtail was working the waterfall for small inverts:

Classic Blackstart

Nubian Ibex

Ein Avdat gorge

Luckily, any visit to Ein Avdat is a treat, even without huge birding highlights. Our eBird checklist is here.

Nice day in Extremadura

Spent a nice day birding and working in Extremadura (the perfect combination?). I met up with two local birders from Merida, Carlos and Angel, with whom I will be doing fieldwork later on in spring. They courteously took me around in the morning to some nice sites south of Merida. We first checked an agro-steppe site - Finca Palacio Kemado. It was very cold but pretty good with 6 Little Bustards, several Black-bellied Sandgrouse, Black-winged Kite, many Calandra Larks and few Short-toed Larks, and in nearby open woods we had some early migrants. Highlight for me was a Western Orphean Warbler, and we also had Cuckoo and Whitethroat.

Our next stop was the mountains near Matachel and Hornachos Mts. We kept our eyes up to the sky most of the time as this is a good area for raptors. We had Golden and Bonelli's Eagles, and about 15 Black Vultures, but we didn't find the hoped-for Spanish Imperial Eagle. We had a few Lesser Kestrels as well.

Black Vulture

Pretty scruffy

Thekla Lark

Lots of eagle-food around - Red-legged Partridge

After saying goodbye to the guys, I followed their advice and headed over to Castilla Alange, to look for Black Wheatear. I hiked up the rocky hill to the castle, and walked and searched all over the place, but no bloody wheatear was to be seen. There were some other typical mountain species - 1 Alpine Accentor, 1 Rock Bunting, some Blue Rock Thrushes, Rock Sparrows and Crag Martins. 

Blue Rock Thrush

 

When I reached back down there was again some good raptor action low overhead. Nice to see an adult male Bonelli's Eagle with a 2cy female (his daughter from last year?).

Bonelli's Eagle - adult male

With Crag Martin

Bonelli's Eagle - 2cy female. Interesting how immaculate the plumage is, no wear at all.

And then they interacted a bit - the juvenile chased after the adult: 

 Very close size comparison

Eurasian Griffon

Castilla Alange

How I missed flowering almond trees

Eilat Festival days 6 & 7 - rambo tours!

Got back home late last night - only now I have time to write about the two very intensive but highly rewarding days.

On Monday I led the Dead Sea Rambo tour with Meidad. We left Eilat before dawn, and early morning we arrived at Metzoke Dragot to witness the massive raptor migration there, like Noam had had with his NABU group on previous days. But Mr. Murphy worked extra hard, and we had almost no raptors whatsoever, only some local breeding Eurasian Griffons, Egyptian Vultures and Short-toed Eagles. But there was still some good birding to be done in the area. Nubian Ibex were presnt in good numbers, mainly females and cubs. 

Common desert species such as Fan-tailed Ravens, Scrub Warblers and Trsitram's Starlings preformed well near the village.

Fan-tailed Raven

We then went to the watchpoint overlooking the Darga gorge. We saw two Bonelli's Eagles - an adult male and a 2cy, interacting, flying, landing, collecting fresh nesting material - very good action. On the same hill, as usual, we had a singing male Striolated Bunting. Great stuff.

Striolated Bunting

After a lunch break at Ein Gedi, where we added Rock Hyrax to our mammal list and Bllue Rock Thrush to our bird list, we went to wadi Mishmar. It was hot and rather quiet but still quite a few migrants around.

Noam tipped me off on a purple patch at Heimar reservoir south of the Dead Sea. We arrived there in the afternoon and had a really good time. Very birdy site indeed with some quality stuff. There is a nice colony of Dead Sea Sparrows there - we saw only singing males; I assume the females are on eggs. Such lovely little sparrows.

Dead Sea Sparrow

The bloody camera focused on the wrong bird...

Lots of other good birds there, including Caspian Stonechat, Subalpine Warbler, two Citrine Wags, Clamorous Reed Warbler etc. 

Caspian Stonechat - 2cy male

In the photo above the tail looks completely black, but when he spread the tail much white was evident of TF.

Cretzschmar's Bunting

Before dusk we arrived at Neot Hakikar. We checked a good site where we had three singing Clamorous Reed Warblers. A Golden Jackal was very curious about us. A Pied Kingfisher was hovering against the pink sky. Very special atmoshpere.

Golden Jackal

Pied Kingfisher

After dusk we found Nubian Nightjars very easily and our group enjoyed great views of these rare birds.

Nubian Nightjar

We then headed to a wadi in the Judean Desert where we obtained  a permit to search for Hume's Owls. It was actually super difficult - tough walk in the dark, long search, deminishing adrenalin levels, but eventually presistence and perseverence paid off, and we had breathtaking views of a male Hume's Owl - wow. We returned to Eilat almost 24 hours after leaving, exhausted but very satisfied.

Next morning was one of the most embarassing moments in my birding career. After very little sleep, I woke up at 06:30 from a phone call from two European birders: "we've just found an OBP at imax park". Half asleep I grabbed my bins and camera and headed over. A small crowd assembled, including some of Europe's finset birders. We all watched a perfect Tree pipit, but because we had a pre-conception of OBP, and we were really eager to see a good rarity, we all dismissed the doubts in the back of our heads and said nothing! We discussed the amount of variation in OBP, especially after the bird flew up to a tree and gave a good OBP call, and were all very pleased. Only when I had my first coffee of the morning I understood what an idiot I was after reviewing my images. Lesson learned I hope.

Anyway, later on I checked Ofira park which was better now with Wryneck, two Rueppell's Warblers and quite many other migrants. Around midday there was at last good raptor migration over the city, viewable from my hotel room - my first views of proper raptor migration this week... 

Rueppell's Warbler - adult female

In the afternoon headed north for another rambo tour. On the way out of Eilat got a tip from an English friend  about a day-roosting Pharaoh Eagle Owl just north of Eilat. I found the bird easily thanks to the very percise directions, and later on all Festival tours saw the bird (thanks Chris). Fantastic!

Pharaoh Eagle Owl 

In the afternoon I met the Sunbird group led by Paul French. We checked again the Heimar reservoir site - still very good with little change from the day before. We met up with Jonathan who was with the Festival group, and this time we did the Hume's Owl first, in a different wadi. It worked really well and easy this time - we had extraordinary luck watching a pair interacting, calling, flying back and forth. Wow again.

Then down to Neot Hakikar. Nubian Nightjar was easy again; in and out in a few minutes. Quality birding.

That ended my role in this year's festival. Many thanks to all the festival guests - it was a real pleasure to meet you guys. Special thanks to the festival organizers and co-leaders - Dan, Itai, Jonathan, Meidad, Noam and Yuval.