Massive attack

This morning I returned to the same water cistern in the Negev Mts. I first visited two weeks ago. This time my team included Yosef, Re'a and Elon. We had yet another fantastic ringing session, and the water hole was so busy with many hundreds of birds coming in to drink. On the one hand, the wind was blowing pretty hard which reduced the effectiveness of our nets, but on the other hand it was bloody hot so many birds were very thirsty which must have brought us unusually large numbers of birds.
Our total for the morning (till 09:00!) was 257 birds!! The main species were a mind-boggling 160 Desert Larks, 42 Hill Sparrows (only two adults, all the rest juveniles), 32 Trumpeter Finches (down from 92 last time), 18 Rock Martins and a few other bits and pieces.

Hill Sparrow

This number of Desert Larks is unprecedented in Israel, and must have resulted of the heavy heat. Also, the total of 42 Hill Sparrows is the highest one-day catch ever in Israel, beating 36 ringed at IBRCE in April 2004.
This is such an amazing site, and shows very interesting population dynamics. I am sure long-term monitoring will produce many more interesting results in the future.
Some good birds were seen in the area - 6 Black-bellied Sandgrouse flew over, a pair of Common (rare in Israel!) Ravens were possibly visiting a nest nearby, and a late 2cy male Montagu's Harrier seen nearby.

Trumpets and petronias

This morning I went ringing in a water cistern near Mitzpe Ramon, deep in the high Negev mountains. I went there with a dream team - Yosef, Eyal, Elon and Darren. Our aim was to begin a long-term monitoring scheme at this important drinking spot discovered by Noam Weiss during our Nizzana atlas project.
We arrived very early, set the nets up and waited for the birds to start coming in. We enjoyed some mammal life at first light - two Wild Ass and a Golden Jackal.
Very quickly we understood this was going to be a busy morning, and our nets began to fill up fast. The most dominant species was Trumpeter Finch - 92 birds caught, most juveniles but quite a few bright males like this one:

Second in totals was Hill Sparrow - 31 birds, again mostly juveniles. This was our main target species for today. Noam had many hundreds coming in to drink last week, but it seems that there has been already a large departure, and many of our birds had good fat scores. Nevertheless this is an excellent catch, probably the largest one-day catch ever in Israel.

Hill Sparrow - juvenile

It was interesting to note that almost all adult had an arrested moult - 1-2 primaries, 0-3 secondaries and all PC. In this bird P1 and P2 are unmoulted, as well as S1 to S3 and all PC.

Hill Sparrow - adult

Another species caught in large numbers was Corn Bunting - 16 birds. This is a juvenile, showing a bobolink-like head pattern.

The site itself and the whole area is just fantastic. It has this special atmosphere of high altitude regions, pleasent weather, fascinating geology and plants, and it has an almost Mt. Hermon-like feel to it.

Apart for the main species, we had a good selection of seldom-ringed desert species. We had several Rock Martins:

We also ringed quite a few Desert Larks:

Anyway, I hope to return to this excellent spot soon. It doesn't hold so much water every year, but it must be a good site every year at least in spring.

Nizzana

This morning I continued the atlas work in the Nizzana region. I worked a box deep in the desert SE of Ezuz. Last week's rain added more life to the ecosystem, and all the plants and birds seem very happy.
Desert Lark is one of the most dominant species in the region. This bird was gave an injured bird performance to drive me away of its nest:

Other interesting breeding species were one MacQueen's Bustard, a pair of Bar-tailed Larks, 3 CCCoursers, three species of sandgrouse, and a few Desert Wheatears. Bird of the day for me was a singing male Pale Rock Sparrow (too distant for photography). Still many Spectacled Warblers around, in families:

Apart for an abundance of Short-toed Larks, migrants were rather few. This bright Masked Shrike was nice though:

Still many Tawny Pipits around:

Judean Desert

Yesterday (27/12/09) I had a meeting at Neot Hakikar, so I took the morning to check Wadi Mishmar in the Judean Desert. I primarily went to check whether the Kurdish Wheatear that took up a territory there last winter had returned, but there was no sign of it. Actually there was nothing unusual, the only birds of note were 2 Spectacled Warblers, 1 Cyprus Warbler heard, and several Trumpeter Finches. So I had some time to study and photograph the common desert species. This Blackstart was very cooperative:

Of course many Tristram's Starlings were hanging around the car park, waiting for leftovers. this is a female:

As I got my breakfast out, these inquisitive Arabian Babblers came to check me out. This is a male with a juvenile. They actually had some luck with a piece of bread I dropped on the ground.

Other birds of this group went for the traditional desert cuisine - grub a-la-acacia.

And after food it's time for some social interaction. This one is for Amotz Zahavi:

After I walked away from my car, the whole group went to check it out:

This Desert Lark was nicely back-lit:

And this is a badly-exposed image of a white-crowned Wheatear in the strong desert light: