Saturday, March 16, 2024

Spring bliss

This morning was one of those mornings that demonstrate best (to me at least) why I am a birder and how rewarding being a birder can be. I visited Mt. Amasa, at the southern tip of the Judean Mts. This is one of my favourite birding sites in March - the habitat is beautiful, the landscape is stunning, and birding is magnificent. The open, rocky slopes, now covered with flowers, attract juicy migrants, and support healthy populations of quality breeding species. For me, a mid-March visit to Mt. Amasa is really one of the highlights of my birding year in Israel. I know the sites there very well, and I could predict almost precisely what and where I would see. It made no difference - it was a beautiful morning, albeit a bit short (family stuff...).

I met up early with Barak (in the photo above), Avi & Ron. At first we checked around the ruins of Tel Krayot, then descended to the adjacent Wadi Tov. It was a bit cold early on but soon the sweet warm sun lit up some beautiful birds for us. Check out this handsome 2cy male Woodchat Shrike, likely a migrant (not quite in breeding habitat), glowing in the soft early morning light:


There were really nice numbers of Cretzschmar's Buntings, several flocks moving through and quite many hopping on the rocks. They do breed here but despite some males bursting into their sweet 'Si-si-seee' song, I think they were mostly migrants.

Male

Female

Using the ruins and boulders as breeding sites, there were good numbers of Rock Sparrow, Blue Rock-Thrush and Eastern Black-eared Wheatear, all seen in advanced breeding activity. Wait for it and turn your volume up:


Down by the wadi there were more Sylvia warblers in the scattered bushes, including Rueppell's, Eastern Orphean and Eastern Subalpine. I have seen brighter subalps before - still a very neat bird.


There were many redstarts about - lots of wintering Western Blacks still here, one cracking male Eastern Black (likely semirufa), and several Commons, including three male Ehrenberg's. Barak talking in the background:


Twas also fun watching several Wrynecks rockhopping. Always fascinating birds.


There were many common migrants around. I enjoyed that immensely. A few scarcities weren't seen this morning (Cinereous Bunting, Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrush) - next time hopefully. More images and videos in the eBird checklist here.

Thursday, March 7, 2024

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):


Thursday, February 8, 2024

White Wagtail mystery

In May-June 2019 (pre-covid, pre-war, another era) I led a Rockjumper tour to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan (read the tour report here). Our first morning session was spent in the mountains above Tashkent. We drove up to Hotel Beldersay and birded the forested slopes above the hotel. It was a brilliant morning, the scenery was stunning with the backdrop of snow-capped mountains and lush valleys. 

Birding was exciting, as expected for a first morning in a new destination, in fact a whirlwind of new and beautiful birds. Our excellent local guide Timur and I worked hard, picking up new birds continuously and showing them to our clients. Highlights from that morning included White-winged Woodpecker, White-capped Bunting, Yellow-breasted (Azure) and Turkestan (Great) Tit, and a flyover Red-footed or Amur Falcon - both would be rarities for Uzbekistan. Check my eBird checklist here

Because I enjoy studying geographical variation of familiar birds, I was facinated by golzii Common Nightingale and althaea Lesser Whitethroat. I also paid attention to White Wagtails up there. There were several wagtails in the hotel gardens, busy in breeding activity including song and display. Several individuals looked like typical Masked Wagtails - Motacilla alba personata, with a pale grey mantle, and a clear-cut contrast between the black nape and grey mantle. I like Masked Wagtails very much as they are a distinct taxon that is a rare vagrant to Israel, most recently in February 2023.

Masked Wagtail Motacilla alba personata, Hotel Beldersay, Uzbekistan, 17 May 2019

Other wagtails up there were distinctly different. They had very dark, almost black backs. In fact, the upper back was concolorous with the black nape, lacking the clear contrast of personata. There seems to be some variation between the individuals I saw, perhaps individual variation or related to different light conditions or photo/editing artefacts. Yet this dark mantle, lacking contrast or unclear contrast, is consistent and apparent in all the photos I kept.

White Wagtail ssp. Motacilla alba ssp., Hotel Beldersay, Uzbekistan, 17 May 2019


Anyone who has led tours knows how intense the work is. Indeed, I was very busy that morning and eBirded in haste, entering a wrong subspecies for these strange wagtails - Black-backed. Of course had I looked up White Wagtails subspecies properly this mistake would have been prevented, but I didn't. My bad.

Fast forward to yesterday, I received an email from eBird, rightly questioning my observation of White Wagtail (Black-backed). Clearly the subspecies I noted was incorrect, so I edited the checklist and for the time being I left these wagtails without a subspecies. This is where it's getting interesting. Today I did look at different White Wagtail taxa and their ranges. Curiously, alboides - 'Hodgson's' White Wagtail, looks superficially similar to the Uzbekistan birds I photographed, but its mantle is proper black all the way down, unlike the birds I saw in Uzbekistan that had dark grey backs. Or is it? Looking at alboides images on eBird, most have proper black backs, like this one, while quite a few birds have dark grey backs, not dissimilar to the birds I photographed, like this one. Looking at this gallery, surely there is some confusion in separation between personata and alboides, especially on their wintering grounds.

I found on eBird another image of a dark-mantled bird from Hotel Beldersay, a few days before I visited there - possibly one of the individuals I had:

Maybe this one also is dark-backed, from Tashkent City, but the light conditions are harsh and there might be some contrast between nape and mantle:

According to Birds of the World, alboides is 'Partly resident in southern China and northern Laos, west to northern Myanmar and northeastern Pakistan'. The eBird map looks like this:


The map above of White Wagtail subspecies distributions was extracted from a cool article based on a study by Semenov et al. (2018). The bottom line of the study (if I understand correctly) is that despite very little genetic variation, different White Wagtail subspecies show highly distinctive morphologies. What is relevant for me, at this moment, is the 'holistic' range map of different taxa, which apparently overlaps with the eBird map (based on actual observations). Both range maps don't show an extension of alboides into Uzbekistan. However, compared to other parts of the world, that region of Central Asia between Pakistan and Uzbekistan is somewhat understudied. I can imagine an extension of alboides northwest through Tajikistan towards Uzbekistan that went undetected. Certainly, Tajikistan is an under-birded country. Looking through White Wagtail photos on eBird from Tajikistan, I couldn't find any photos that clearly show dark-backed individuals. 

It is interesting that I saw two distinctively different plumages of White Wagtails breeding at the same location. I present here a very hypothetical speculation: Perhaps, if personata and alboides do get in contact somewhere in that region, birds produced from that mix could look like the birds I photographed? This could explain the intermediate mantle pattern. Or perhaps there is an east-west cline from black-backed alboides in the east to pale-backed personata in the west, and everything in between? Surely, deeper study needs to be conducted to understand what is happening here - my speculations are totally tentative, based on nothing. Proper documentation across the proposed contact zone, DNA material collection and analysis are some directions to be explored. In any case, using the late Martin Garner's phrase, always learning! I am very happy to learn from people with more experience than me and different insights - looking forward to hearing from you.

Friday, February 2, 2024

Ma'agan Michael

On Wednesday I had a day at Ma'agan Michael with meetings and stuff. I had little time for birding before and between and after the meetings. I'm still hoping to get Great Shearwater this winter - my IL bogey bird (nine records...) therefore I spend any time I can scanning the sea. That early morning at MM the wind was blowing from the wrong direction and there was lots of rain, so seawatching conditions weren't good. But the sea and the skies and the rainbow were dramatic and beautiful.

Because I had nothing better to do I spent my time checking gull legs. All I could find were two Slender-bills ringed by Yosef in Atlit. This one was ringed in April 2020.

With Sandwich Terns:

Pallas's Gulls are developing their black hood and are looking damn sexy:

Later my team joined me and me met up with a TV crew. We dragged them seawatching with us which was fun in the masochistic way:


The sea didn't improve much birdwise, still we had a couple of Med Gulls, a Parasitic Jaeger and an Arctic Skua.

Mediterranean Gull

Parasarctic Jaekua

Over the sand dunes flew around many swallows hawking for insects. One bird almost gave us a heart attack until we figured out it is a partially-leucistic Barn Swallow:


In one of the fishponds four Little Gulls were hanging out. They are such adorable birds, these wee gulls, with their little bills. The adult plumage is very attractive with that dark underwing:



Those snowy wingtips 💗


I find the first plumage very beautiful too



Fluttering over the water like a Wilson's Storm-Petrel


Saturday, January 27, 2024

Scope or camera

This morning I went seawatching with Piki, Rony, Yotam and Sharon. The wind maps looked promising, there was little rain in the forecast so our hopes were high. We arrived at the seawatching spot south of Jaffa, and very quickly realised that even though the wind was excellent, blowing from the correct direction in good force, the sea was quite empty. Well there were gulls, and some more gulls, but we were after proper pelagic species. After a long time we had our first and only Yelkouan Shearwater, then a Peregrine flew over, and we were getting a bit underwhekmed. But we kept on scanning, periodically escaping from torrential rain showers into the car. After a long while Piki shouts: storm-petrel! It took us all a long time to get on it, during which Piki said he thought it was 'something else'. Eventually we all got on it, quickly realising it was a very small storm-petrel, with a large white rump, flying with a very light, buoyant flight action, very different from the powerful shearwater-like flight of Leach's (we all had clear memories from Storm Barbara last year). I think I was the first to call it European Storm-Petrel. We then had great scope views of it as it passed south in quite a slow flight at medium distance, keeping low between the big waves. We talked to each other, pointing out the ID features we could get. We saw the square-ended tail, but I was struggling to see the 'smoking-gun' feature, the white underwing bar. I then faced the eternal dilemma for seawatching. My camera was at hand, but the bird was already flying away. Should I switch to the camera, fire off a few horrible shots that may or may not even show the bird? Or stick to the scope and use the final possible view of the bird before it disappears to get that underwing pattern? I opted for the scope, knowing that European Storm-Petrel is still a big rarity in Israel and a good photo would be important, but that smoking-gun feature is even more important. Then the bird banked properly, showing us it's beautiful white underwing bar - bingo! A few more wing flaps and it was gone, disappeared south. We jumped in the air, and hugged - it was an Israeli tick for all of us, a much-wanted one, one that was on our radar for a long time. 

News of more storm-petrels from other seawathcing spots kept coming in, those that were identified were Leach's. We had very brief views of a storm-petrel sp. but couldn't get anything on it. A few Arctic Skuas went past and it was time for us to leave, wet and cold but super stoked and happy.

eBird checklist here.

The only photo I did get, a Peregrine:

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Uvda Valley

Nice morning yesterday in Uvda Valley. The habitat looks promising - earlier rains produced a fresh, lush carpet of annuals. Surely this area will attract many migrants soon and support good breeding populations. 


There were lots of mammals on the plains when I arrived in the half-dark. Dozens of Asian Will Ass and a few Dorcas Gazelle were enjoying the tasty grass. This is the start of the rutting season now, and the gazelles were active. These two males were playing around:


Then everything went quiet - a majestic Arabian Wolf trotted across the plains. It was a beautiful female, in thick winter coat. Breathtaking.


I was after the Pied Wheatear that had been found by Avner a few days ago. Pied Wheatear is a good rarity in Israel during migration - it's just about annual. Spring 2012 will always be remembered for the huge extended arrival of Pied and Cyprus Wheatears in southern Israel - they were everywhere! Luckily, the late and still sorely missed Martin Garner was here to enjoy the exceptional birding - check this old blogpost for example. In any case, I am not aware of any previous winter records of Pied Wheatear in Israel - they should be much farther south now, in South East Africa. I was very keen to study this plumage that I am not very familiar with. The bird was showing very well, certainly enjoying the early arthropod productivity developing now. It kept picking up insects all the time I was watching it, foraging very actively. What an interesting, subtle bird. Warmer-toned than I had expected it to be. Still showing a solid dark mantle and faint mottling on breast.





Avner also found nearby another Menetries's Warbler - it seems to be a good winter for them. How many more are lurking out in the desert undetected? Compared to the performing Nahal Ketura bird, this one is a real nightmare. During the time I watched it I had only a couple of brief views. It was also pretty quiet, hardly called at all. My poor photos demonstrate that.




There were lots of birds moving around - big numbers of Spotted Sandgrouse filled the air with their flight calls, some Temminck's and Bar-tailed Larks busy feeding and getting prepared for breeding, Desert Wheatear, Tawny Pipits, stonking male Pallid Harrier cruised over the plains - good fun and an excellent morning overall. eBird checklists with pied and menetries's here and here.