Eilat Day 2 - migration pulses

Two days, before race day, I went out with some teams to assist with their scouting efforts. In the morning it was Ovda Valley, that at first was rather quiet until we hit the purple patch, which was rather Deep Purple. There was a fantastic mixed flock at one of the flower carpets. It contained many Short-toed Larks, wagtails, Pale Rock Sparrows and wheatears. This buzzing whirlpool of hundreds of birds in the middle of the desert must be a magnet for any passer-by, so it pulled in also singles of Richard's Pipit, Lesser Short-toed Lark, Bimaculated Lark and Citrine Wagtail. The flock was very mobile and I couldn't get any photos of the species above.

Greater Short-toed Larks

A little crop...

Western Yellow Wagtail - feldegg

Western Yellow Wagtail - flava (female), displaying its long hind claw, separating it from Eastern Yellow Wagtail

As is often the case, breeding lark species avoided the crowds and retreated to unknown quieter productive spots. I heard only one distant Temminck's and Bar-tailed singing.

There was fantastic sandgrouse activity in the valley, with groups of Spotted and Crowned Sandgrouse noisily flying around constantly:

Spotted Sandgrouse

Crop...

Crowned Sandgrouse

Crop...

Eventually we encountered a small group on the deck. With some patient positioning they walked up quite close - such beautiful birds:

Most wheatears were Northern, with fewer Isabelline and Eastern Black-eared:

Eastern Black-eared Wheatear

Two mobbing Northern Wheatears helped us find this tiny, beautiful Crowned Leafnose Snake (Lytorhynchus diadema):

This Steppe Eagle was literally eyeballing us at stupendously close range - wings clipped in most images...

Israel is probably the only country along the flyway of this majestic, globally Endangered beast, where it is shot by cameras and not by guns. Travel safe my big friend.

Ovda Valley you are glorious! Repping @flywaychampions and @ZEISSBirding here in the Negev and what a pleasure to be a part of something so special. More to come.... #COTF19 #govultures #flywaychampions pic.twitter.com/xzgf2xZYk4

— Mark James Pearson (@Markthebirder) March 24, 2019

eBird checklist here.

A quick stop at Neot Smadar was fairly quiet. The sewage ponds hosted another two Western Yellow Wagtail 'taxa', tentatively identified here - what a headache!

thunbergi

'dombrowski-integrade'

In the afternoon a big storm was boiling. The weather was unsettled, the wind kept shifting, there was a lot of dust in the air - quite dramatic. There were pulses of birds moving through - quite cool. Jonathan and me checked first KM19 and environs, not finding too much in the way of migration on the ground:

Woodchat Shrike

Western Yellow Wagtail taxa #5 - 'supercilliaris-integrade':

We then positioned ourselves at IBRCE and did what most birders do here nowadays - watched the skies and waited for a Crested Honey Buzzard to pass. None did, but IBRCE was pretty good and there were cool birds moving through. A distant group of 28 Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters was beautifully lit by momentary sunshine, 5 Gull-billed Terns, 6 Purple Herons and quite many other raptors.

Purple Herons battling the wind

Marsh Harrier

In the evening the opening ceremony of COTF, hosted by IBRCE team, was as always inspirational and great fun. Still time to donate money to any team here: http://www.champions-of-the-flyway.com/2019-teams/

Ohohoh the sweetest thing

Spent the morning in the Nizzana area. It was a fine morning indeed. Weather was relatively cool early on, with some cloud cover keeping the temperatures down for a couple of hours. First checked some desert habitats - there were loads of Cream-coloured Coursers around, including several families with young, soft chicks. At one point a female that was coursing around with its two chicks stopped and kneeled down, and the babies crawled under her wings. I regard myself as a tough guy but this was really one of the cutest and sweetest things I had ever seen. Mother with two extra pairs of legs sticking out under her wings. Unfortunately it happened too far away for photography. 

Cream-coloured Coursers

Some whetears around - families of desert, Isabelline and Mourning.

Desert Wheatear - recently-fledged juvenile 

Then I went to the Kmehin sewage ponds that were packed with birds. Good local birds included one Purple Swamphen, two Namaqua Doves and some Trumpeter Finches. From about 07:30 large numbers of sandgrouse came in to drink. I had over 600 sandgrouse until 09:30 - about 250 spotted, 200 pintailed, 80 black-bellied and four crowned. I kept my distance from them not to disturb them, so only some flight shots: 

Spotted Sandgrouse - female and male 

Black-bellied Sandgrouse - male

Quite many migrants present already. about 30 Green Sandpipers, and few woods and Redshanks, some Ruffs, and two Squacco Herons.

Green Sandpiper

Squacco Heron

Thanks to Meidad and Itai H. for info and company.

Sandgrouse monitoring

Israel's five sandgrouse species are doing pretty bad. The four species breeding in the Negev (Black-bellied, Spotted, Pin-tailed and Crowned) have decreased by some 80-90% over the last few decades, with pin-tailed probably faring the worst. This trend is possibly a result of continuing changes in land-use in the Negev, resulting in degredation of their breeding habitats. Combined with the continuous decrease in rainfall in the desert in recent decades, and increasing poaching in adjacent Sinai, they are in deep sh*t. Lichtenstein's, breeding in the Eilat region is a different story, but they're probably doing just as bad.

In recent years, NPA with SPNI are trying to better define the conservation issues affecting the Negev sandgrouse community. The Hoopoe Foundation is contributing to this study. Initial efforts include better monitoring at drinking sites, that concentrate most of the breeding community, and spatial studies using GPS transmitters. Hopefully this study will give us some basic knowledge on these elusive and little-known birds.

This morning I joined a large-scale count of all drinking sites in the W Negev. I met up with Gal the local NPA ranger, and together we counted sandgrouse coming in to drink at some smelly sewage pond near Nizzana. During the morning we had 62 Spotted, 33 Black-bellied and 2 Pin-tailed Sandgrouse come in to drink, and another 68 Black-bellied and 56 Spotted that landed to forage on the nearby plains but didn't drink in our pond. I don't have the totals from the other drinking sites yet but from what I've heard numbers were moderate all over.

Black-bellied Sandgrouse - male

Spotted Sandgrouse

While counting the sandgrouse we had few local and migrant passerines. A male Desert Wheatear and a Mourning Wheatear were really interested in what we were doing and fed on ants practically at our feet. Unfortunately harsh light conditions by then made photography difficult. There were single Willow warbler, Lesser Whitethroat, Tawny Pipit, Red-backed, Lesser Grey, Masked and Southern Grey Shrikes in the very few bushes around us.

Desert Wheatear

 Desert Wheatear with Mourning Wheatear in the background

I will post more on the sandgrouse project when we move forward with the research. Good night.

Reflections of my Life

At last, after a long time without being able to get out to the field (family business etc.) I went to Nizzana sewage ponds this morning to count sandgrouse coming in to drink. As they arrive rather late in the morning I had some time to photograph the many shorebirds present in the main lagoon there. I spent the first half an hour of sun lying on my belly in the mud. Most birds kept their distance away from me, and the only birds that approached reasonabely were of the commoner species, but in total it was quite good and I can't complain. The water was very still of course, creating nice reflections with a pretty background. That was quite good because the birds themselves were doing nothing interesting so at least the reflections gave an added value to the images.

Again I discovered how much I hate to lay on my belly in the mud. It is not fun. My back and neck hurt like hell. I promise not to do it ever again (until next time...).

Wood Sandpiper

Green Sandpiper

Common Sandpiper

Kentish Plover - 1cy (taken before sunrise)

Little Ringed Plover - 1cy

The Ubiquitous Spur-winged Lapwing (sorry for slicing the reflection)

One of many Black-winged Stilts

Not a shorebird - Eurasian Turtle Dove 1cy

The sandgrouse show was rather poor. Numbers were lower than I expected: 51 crowned, 33 black-bellied and only 27 spotted. Bad breeding season?

Spotted Sandgrouse

Crowned Sandgrouse

After the sandgrouse show was done I had a look around the ponds. Quite many ducks - 20 Gargeney and six Ferruginous Ducks. Scarcer shorebirds included Temminck's Stints and Marsh Sands. A few feldegg Yellow Wags flitting around in the vegetation.

Ferruginous Duck

Whiskered Tern - adult

Several Common Kingfishers feeding on god knows what:

Just as I was about to pack and leave this large cub Golden Jackal crossed my lens - too close for a complete shot:

And just to pay respect to the Marmalades: