American dream

This morning I had some time before a meeting at Ma'agan Michael. I had two targets in mind: Crab Plover - they are seen at MM in July about once every 20 years, typically for 10 minutes, so my odds were pretty high. I also thought that for 4th of July it would be neat to find an American shorebird. Eventually I had neither (surprise!) but it was a sweet morning session nevertheless. There were some early returning / failed breeder shorebirds, gulls and terns, many herons and egrets, a dead Green Sea Turtle on the beach, etc. eBird checklist here - 62 species, including an escape Black Swan... Dream come true.

Purple Heron

Miserbale-looking Lesser Black-backed Gull - probably fuscus; in the background Yellow-legged and Slender-billed

Marsh Sandpiper - only a month ago had them on their Kazakh breeding grounds

White-winged Tern among two of many colour-ringed Little Terns, by Yosef Kiat in Atlit (H59 from 2 July 2019, E1B from 4 May 2018)

This recently-fledged Little Tern, carrying ring H39, did some interesting movements in three days

Champions of the Flyway 2016

Champions of the Flyway 2016 is behind us and now there's some time to look back. It has been an amazing 48 hours of adrenalin and birds and emotions. I will begin with a quick back-log of March 28th. Had some time in the morning for a quick look in Yotvata. The fields were alright with some nice migrants. Best was an Oriental Skylark and a female Siberian Stonechat.

Siberian Stonechat

It was associating with this Whinchat:

Two Montagu's Hrrriers hunted low over the fields:

Booted Eagle

Desert Finches 

Steppe Buzzard in nice early morning light

The sewage ponds were relatively empty, maybe because there are Egyptian Geese there now:

 Black-headed Yellow Wagtails

Marsh Sandpiper - so pretty in summer plumage

Photo-bombed by Black-winged Stilt

With Little Ringed Plover and Green Sandpipers

Several Masked Shrikes there as well

When leaving I stopped to witness the incredible raptor passage overhead. I counted some for fun - I had 2000 Steppe Buzzards and about 400 Black Kites in 15 minutes, also 40 Steppe and two Eastern Imperial Eagles. Ming-blowing.

On the race day itself (March 29th) I was out with the teams. In the early morning I went up to the stunning Seifim Plains. 

I spent some time there and had quality birds - Temminck's, Lesser Short-toed, Bimaculated and Bar-tailed Larks, Cream-coloured Courser, Rock Thrush, Spotted Sandgrouse etc.

Desert Wheatears 

Big numbers of Northern Wheatears and Tawny Pipits:

Hen Harrier

 Martijn from Dutch Knights with Rock Thrush:

Meidad and his team Sooty Falcons

Checked a few small sites further north that had many migrants - Collared Flycatchers, Ortolans, Wrynecks, Nightingales etc. Neot Smadar held nothing unusual.

Black-eared Wheatear

Namaqua Dove - always pretty

supecilliaris Yellow Wagtail

Ofira park held a sweet selection of migrants that included:

Cretzschmar's Buntings

Wryneck

In the afternoon focused more on the busy sites of KM20 saltpans and north beach. Like and outdoor BirdFair almost. So many friends coming and going - tried to help them to collect the important species quickly - Greater Sandplover, Brown Boobies etc.

After all the teams finished before midnight Itai, Jonathan and me sat on the lists until very late. The results are all over social media. Anyway congratulations to the winning teams Arctic Redpolls and Jehova's Chickens for their fantastic efforts. Well done all teams for the awesome fundraising to help HOS prevent illegal killing of birds in Greece - a record breaking $67,000! The ceremony event was incredible with huge support and power, and hope in the form of the brilliant children that took part in the race and did very well. My appreciations goes to my friends and colleagues Dan and Jonathan for their professional dedication to this great event. Till next year!

The gulls are back

Beware: this is going to be a long post, which is surprising bringing into account the crap images. I appologize to all the gullophobes, but from now until March this blog will be flooded with gull stuff.

This morning I had some time between meetings to check the Ashdod ponds. Eventually this was not enough, as the ponds were packed with birds. On the way in I saw some Baltic Gulls sat near the rubbish dump, in classic poses:

In the ponds themselves I had 50 adult Baltic Gulls in one group:


All gulls were in a similar moult stage, with P1-2 or only P1 replaced, all the others unmoulted:

Among the baltics I had one juv. Armenian Gull and my first Siberian Gull of the season - a large, powerful bull:

It showed the typical suspended moult of this form. It had P1 to P6 moulted, and P7 to P10 unmoulted. Interestingly, its right wing was much more worn than its left wing (see worn primary tips in above image). It is quite difficult to see the moult in this image but I checked it well in the field.

What a beast!

I was happy to find our first ring of the season, CV21 which is back again for its fourth year, this time earlier than ever. Here is an image of it from last year.

There were tons of waders, with hundreds of Ringed Plovers, Little Stints and different tringas.

Ringed Plover - 1cy

Many of the stints were juveniles, with their crisp rufous-fringed plumage.

Little Stint - juvenile

There were about 10 Temminck's Stints, this adult already in full winter plumage:

I tried really hard, and scanned the waders again and again and again, but could not produce anything more interesting than single Broad-billed and Curlew sands, and a Turnstone. No sharp tails, no buff breasts, no long toes, no red necks...

Among the tringas, Marsh Sands showed in pretty good numbers, about 15:

I even tried to turn this Squacco Heron into an indian pond but even that didn't work:

There were good numbers of Turtle Doves on the move, many coming down for a drink in the ponds.

Good numbers of passerines were present too, mainly Yellow Wagtails and Willow Warblers. This is an adult male feldegg which is still the commonest form:

And this is a 1cy feldegg (note the difference in greater coverts pattern from the adult above):

Shorebird migration gaining speed

This morning I checked my 'local' patch - the Ashdod ponds and seashore. At the seashore no Crab Plovers this time but 15 Yellow-legged Gulls at sea were interesting. We know so little about our YLG's.
At the ponds shorebird numbers are building up, and at last I had triple-figures of migrants today, and this without a single Calidris!
As usual, Tringas were the bon-ton, with about 40 Redshank, 50 Wood, 40 Green and 5 Common Sandpipers. Among the scarcer species were one good-looking Spotted Redshank, one adult Greenshank and one adult Marsh Sandpiper. Two Little Ringed Plovers were new arrivals. No Spotted or Buff-breasted Sandpipers either this time...

Spotted Redshank

Marsh Sandpiper
Greenshank

Black-winged Stilt