The best show in town

 Sorry for neglecting my blog recently. Busy weeks, lockdown, lots of stuff going on. I have been out daily to marvel at the spectacle of migration, up in the sky and on the ground. It has really been great. However, to my eyes, one of the best shows Israel has to offer is the congregation of fresh-looking desert birds, post post-breeding moult, at desert springs. A while ago I went with Amir to Ein Salvadora, a famous little spring north of Ein Gedi. It holds water year-round, in stunning location, with soaring cliffs and the Dead Sea in the backdrop. It's a tiny spring, just a few drops of water trickling out from a crack in a wall, concealed behind a large Salvadora persica bush. That's enough to attract birds and mammals from far afield. It's not an easy site for photography - one needs to keep a fair distance away from the spring in order not to disturb the animals, and the drinking spot is in deep shade, red light reflecting from the surrounding sandstone rocks.

We climbed up the mountain trail before dawn, to position ourselves at an appropriate spot as soon as birds started to arrive. And they did, in big numbers. All quality. All so pretty and fresh. Those arriving in biggest numbers were Trumpeter Finch - fantastic breeding season for them all over the Israeli desert, so many youngsters around. Hundreds came in to drink, arriving in flocks, normally first perched on the rocks above the spring before descending to the water.

Another dominant species was Striolated Bunting - hundreds came in to drink too. Most were young birds, demonstrating the excellent breeding season they had. 

Sinai Rosefinch is another highly-prized specialty of this site. It is scarcer, and shier, than the other species. They spent more time perched up on the walls above the spring, and chose secluded spots for drinking. Again, most were young birds, adults, especially males in lower proportions. Still, out of the 75 birds in total, quite a few were pink jems.

Trumpeter and rosefinch

Desert Lark came in to drink in hundreds too:

Overhead, a Barbary Falcon cruised above the cliffs, a pair of Common Ravens kronked around, and a lone Long-legged Buzzard circled.

Kronk-kronk!

A large herd of Nubian Ibex came down to drink and hung around the spring. The herd included a dominant bull, showing off his swagger, dominating younger males and chasing after females:

Soon it became too hot for animals and humans, we headed back down to our car and back to civilisation. It certainly felt better up by the spring.

Double rosefinches

This morning / last night I went on a special operation with some friends in the remote Negev. I left home just after midnight (no sleep). We travelled for a couple of hours before leaving the paved road and driving into the Negev desert. It was quite a tough and long 4X4 drive, after which we walked into the dark for another hour, carrying too much gear. Eventually we reached our destination - a beautiful and remote waterhole, that attracts lots of birds.

We quickly set a few nets up and waited for the birds to come in and drink. We covered only a very small section of the fairly large waterhole, so we didn't really disturb the birds coming in to drink. Before dawn we caught one Botta's Serotine. During the first hour it was mainly Trumpeter Finches that came in to drink, and later on Sinai Rosefinches took the lead. We also ringed 10 Rock Martins and two baby Sand Partridges. They perform an outstanding moult. They start flying at an age of one week or so; So they grow their first set of remiges very quickly, and start moulting them in several, very rapid cycles. This bird here hadn't finished moulting P1 & P2 yet, and had already started moulting all over again - check the inner primaries:

Botta's Serotine (Eptesicus bottae)

We ringed four Sinai Rosefinches - only juveniles. Such plain but neat birds.

One of 16 Trumpeter Finches we ringed. Again, most were juveniles but we did catch some brighter males.

Rock Martin

Ringing was not too massive so I had some time to try and photograph. Light conditions at the waterhole were awful, but still I like the results - really nice reflections:

Sinai Rosefinches - mainly juveniles but some males too:

Some trumpeters in here too:

Making lots of noise:

 Drinking was really massive and didn't really slow down until we had to leave at 10:00. I didn't count properly but I estimate something like 200-250 Sinai Roosefinches, and 300 Trumpeter Finches. Superb.

Finally one male rosefinch sat close enough:

 Active post-breeding moult

Scenic gorge

And the gorge from above

After we were done it was the same long way back home; at least it wasn't in the dark.

Many thanks to Yosef, Meidad, Ron, Darren, and Amir for the help and company.

Dead Sea birding

Spent today birding with my good friend Gert Ottens. We started off early and headed to Ein Gedi field school where a Kurdish Wheatear has been showing on and off for the last couple of weeks. Today was its day off. We met Gal Shon there, and together we searched the field school and its vicinity for a couple of hours but found nothing. The only semi-interesting bird we had among the commoner desert species was a female Blue Rock Thrush.

Little Green Bee-eater - so much more beautiful than a bloody wheatear!

Seawatching over the Dead Sea produced zero Fea's Petrels.
The rest of the morning was spent at Wadi Mishmar that held four large flock of Lesser Israeli Hikers but very few birds; some noisy Trumpeter Finches were the only reason for joy.
Then we decided to try our luck with Buff-bellied Pipits near Kalya, where we found two unringed birds (Ron ringed one there last month). They kept their distance from us so no images but we had good scope views.
A quick look at Tsor'a on the way to ship Gert back to his wife by train produced one Quail.

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.

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: