Up and down and around

Over the last few days I have been out and about a bit. It is such an exciting time of year to be out birding. The thrill of seeing fresh migrants, first for the season, keeps me going year after year. It never bores.

On Saturday morning (March 2nd) I went birding with Piki to sniff some early migrants in Arsuf, north of Tel Aviv. The habitat was lovely, flowers aplenty. There's a patch of Coastal Iris there, which is endemic to Israel and Critically Endangered. Sexy. 

There were quite many wheatears about, including an outstanding total of four Desert Wheatears. They are scarce or even rare migrants along the Med coast. Looking so beautiful in the early morning sun, with an atypical green background.

Flushed from its favourite perch by the powerful Isabelline Wheatear

Tuesday morning (March 5th) I had a meeting at the Jerusalem Bird Observatory. The secret in scheduling morning meetings is to start at a time that leaves sufficient birding time beforehand. Before the meeting I checked two sites in Jerusalem that are hosting fine birds. First, Jerusalem's Botanical Gardens, the same site that hosted Israel's first Chinese Pond-Heron in 2021. In the past few weeks a very cooperative Redwing has taken up residence in the gardens and has become a bit of a celebrity, mainly because it is showing so well, unusually for such a scarce and shy bird in Israel (normally). Indeed, it showed on its favourite Pyracantha bush. In my case it was actually a bit shy and didn't show very well but I can't complain. 

Next stop was Australia Gardens, on the slopes of Mt. Herzl. It's actually a section of the Jerusalem Forest, afforested with non-native pines and cypress trees. However, now when everything is lush and flowering, the habitat looked quite attractive and indeed there were tons of birds there. Gabriel Cedar and Shalem Kurman, to excellent young birders, found there a flock of Olive-backed Pipits a couple of weeks ago. OBP is a very rare winter visitor, though this past winter has been quite good for them. In any case such a flock in central Israel is very welcome. Straight away I heard the pipits giving their tiny 'pip' call but it took me a while to locate them. Eventually I had nice views of them flying between the trees, occasionally dropping down to the ground to forage. However they were difficult to photography well.

Listen to the amount of birdsong in this sound recording:

From the highest peaks of Jerusalem to the lowest place on earth. Later that evening I joined a group of researchers from Tel Aviv University working on Pallid Scops-Owls. We trapped and ringed three individuals, and heard another one or two, in one corner of a date plantation near the Dead Sea. Discovered to breed in Israel less than a decade ago, it still is fascinating to see Pallid Scops-Owls in such densities. Very special birds, in special settings.

Only few hours after the night shift had ended, I found myself in Kfar Ruppin, admiring our newest restored reservoir, in partnership with the kibbutz. It's a large, amazing reservoir, always so attractive to birds and other wildlife - a great and welcome addition to our Start-Up Nature project. Yesterday morning the reservoir was packed with birds, as always. A flock of pelicans graced the reservoir, tons of ducks, shorebirds, raptors, passerines. In two and a half hours I saw in the reservoir and around it 104 species, so much quality, check the eBird checklist here.

I went live on Facebook when I was there (until I was interrupted by a local guy who asked for some photography advice):

Redwing and Bullfinch

Short. Simple. Beautiful.
Joined a wee morning session with UEA ringing group. We had a few Redwings (super birds), a Bullfinch (a personal favourite) and not much else.

Redwing

Bullfinch

#invismig kind of night

Last night was pretty special here in Norwich. Land-locked Norwich does not experience much active migration. But somehow, moon and weather conditions last night (and in the night ebfore too) were just right, and lead to active nocturnal migration over the city.

After dark I was at home busy with routine family duties. But when messages on Twitter and on our local Whatsapp group started pouring in, I deserted my parental roles and headed out to listen.

I immediately started picking stuff out of the dark. At first I was joined by my son Uri, then he moved in and I stayed out. I also communicated with Dougal that lives across the road from my house, so we helped each other out increase our garden year lists. We whatsapped or tweeted out everything we heard, to help others in our friendly little competiton - Norwich Garden Bird List. Most dominant call of the night was Redwing. They were calling almost constantly. During the two hours I listened last night, I must have heard more than 50 calls. One can only guess (or use a radar...) how many birds actually passed over central Norwich last night. It is very cool to imagine these Redwings over the coast 30 minutes later, and then arrive in Norway the next morning after a night of migration over the North Sea. The Magic of Migration.

Especially in the earlier part of the evening there was very active movement of ducks. It is cool how vocal they are on the wing! Wigeons were especially vocal, but last night I also heard Teal and Mallard. I am not sure whether these birds were true migrants, or just local birds moving between forgaing and roost sites. 

Later on at night, myself and other observers (listeners) had nice shorebird movement. I had four shorebird species last night (!), three of them new to the garden list: singles of Ringed Plover, Redshank, Oystercatcher and Snipe. Over UEA there were also Green Sand and Curlew. Again, I am not sure if these are active migrants or just birds moving around between wetlands. The nearest wetland to my home that might hold these species (Earlham Marshes) is about two miles away, so I was really happy to get these.

Other birds calling last night were several Grey Herons, a Moorhen - another garden tick (check their funny calls on xeno-canto), and the local Tawny Owl singing from a park about 300 m away from my park.

Check also James Lowen's brilliant account of last night.

Sibe Accentor

Like half of the UK, I left home early with my Norwich mates Dave, Phil and Mikee and headed towards Spurn. Thanks to road closures on the A16 we got there about an hour after dawn. During the first hour when we were still on the road there was positive news of the bird but negative news about the scene - the words 'henious' and 'carnage' were used by some people on site broadcasting back to us. But when we got there we found the scene exceptionally well run by Spurn Bird Observatory staff and volunteers. We got on the bird quickly and it showed so well, as mega rarities always should. What a stunning little bird.

It was in fact a lifer for me - I guess for many others too.  At first the light was poor, so after we had our first satisfying views we decided to do some birding and return later if the light improves. Birding at Spurn was not easy today. An estimated 1400 birders dispersed into the limited birding sites of the peninsula. I felt rather claustrophobic with all the birders around. But it was fabulous nonetheless. The were tons of birds about - constant movement of birds in the air and on the ground. Mainly thrushes - literally thousands of Redwing (including Icelandics) and Song Thrushes, smaller numbers of Fieldfare and few Ring Ouzels. Some fields were just carpeted with thrushes. Many hundreds of Goldcrests and Robins in the bushes too.

 I love Fieldfares

There was a good choice of other juicy rarities about - Several Dusky Warblers, Pallas's Warbler, Olive-backed Pipit, a few Little Buntings. But I tried to stay away from the CROWDS and avoided seeing those rarities. I didn't see much myself but enjoyed birding very much. We did have what might have been a new Little Bunting, and heard one Yellow-browed Warbler, added Sibe Chiffchaff, Firecrest and Shore Lark, not bad.
Before heading back home rather early we went for seconds of the accentor - much fewer people and I could invest just a little more in photography. Light was still shit and the bird wasn't really posing. It showed down to 5 m but was constantly feeding on the ground and never posed nicely like the Shetland bird. But I really can't complain. A great bird, and this October is a special month to be remembered.
Good to meet lots of friends on site - in fact the entire Birdfair was there. And I wanted to thank again the stellar team of Spurn Bird Observatory for their excellent job making sure that the bird is not disturbed (it didn't bother about humans at all) and that all visitors left satisfied.

The queue

The bird was in this garden in the back

Shetland day 6 - many non-sibe thrushes

Woke up early in the morning and the weather conditions were ideal. Walked out with Pierre and immediately we had a flock of Redwings overhead. We both said: today is a day for a Sibe Thrush. We were so right and so wrong. 

We headed off to spend the day on Whalsay. In the morning the weather was quite nice - sunny with a moderate easterly wind, but during the day the wind picked up considerably (now there is a gale outside). We first checked the famous plantation - it had a few Redwings, a Brambling and little else. When we returned there around noon it was packed full with fresh migrants - several yellow-brows, many Goldcrests, Pied Fly and a few others.

Redwings - when it was still sunny

The plantation

During my week on Shetland I probably saw more than 100 birds but I just cannot have enough of these stunning little sibes:

Yellow-browed Warbler

Goldcrest

We then continued checking iris beds, crop fields and gardens all around the garden. The wind made birding more difficult. We came up with nothing of real interest. Another Pied Fly, Whinchat, Lesser Whitethroat etc. I had three flyover Redpoll thingies and a flock of about 30 Twite: 

'Shetland' Wren

Hedgehog - introduced like all mammals on Shetland. Rather sinister-looking.

Whalsay

Around noon news broke of a Siberian Thrush on Fair Isle. Classic. Pierre immediately started calculating how to get there on time before the winds were too strong, and to get off on time for his connections to Corvo. After a few phone calls we figured out that flights for the day were cancelled because of the wind, and anyway the bird wasn't really playing ball over there. So we gave up the idea and continued birding in more leisure. We finished up on Whalsay and went on to check some sites on the east coast. More thrushes, yellow-brows etc. but that's it.

Today was my last full day on Shetland. It was a good day despite not seeing anything rare. By the sound of the wind outside I doubt if I get any birding done tomorrow morning before I head back home. We'll see. Good night.

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: