Knocking on October door...

The end of September is knocking on the IBRCE ringing station´s door, providing us 70-100 birds just during the morning rounds consisting some twenty species or so... 

Reed Warblers still leads the top-ten but those days in which atmospheric pressure push down to the ground Sand Martins, Barn and Red-Rumped Swallows so one can find every mist net with more than ten of them just before the first (out of three) Manolo´s breakfast... Marsh Warblers are nowadays a never absent species which have made myself an accurate expert on the extremely slight science of its identification (I've already seen five…) Great Reed and Sedge Warblers are the other Acrocephalus that occurs most often like the Sylvia Warblers (Garden and Orphean Warblers, Lesser and Common Whitethroat as well as Blackcaps) and Savi´s Warblers as well. Willow Warbler is still the only  Phylloscopus ringed, watched and heard and no way to forget the Shrikes: Masked and Red-Backed, which gently improve our skills in taking birds out of the nets. Some others, like Scops Owls, Golden Orioles, Wrynecks or Citrine Wagtails just seems to be special guest stars from time to time and almost everyday some new species introduces itself in the Helgoland traps or the mist nets, as happened with a Bluethroat on Thursday the 27^th: A beautiful adult male was the first of, hopefully, a nice amount. 

ON the next day Friday 28^th Namaqua Dove was the new kid for the station (at least for this autumn) with the addition of being a tick for Ron, his very first ringed one... One  just couldn't deny noticing the broad, proud smile on his face (good luck and nice birds in Canada).

On Saturday 29^th nice numbers, up to 100 and even better species like a yakutensis Willow Warbler (a Siberian subspecies) and a second Common Rosefinch was a sort of sign for make an afternoon´s ride for birdwatching. 

 Yael, Ron, Rea, Manolo and I headed North, looking for something (almost) unbelievable from the promising fields of Yotvata where many hundreds of Short-toed Larks, few Lesser Short-toed Larks and a single Richard's Pipit were reported recently by Yoav and Itai, across the yellow sands of Samar and the stinky waters of K19 Sewage, where we ended the day with a new species for me (more beers and ice-creams…) an adult White-Tailed Lapwing (unlike the juv' bird which was reported earlier from Yotveta sewage) and a brightly coloured Purple Swamphen. Sadly  the light was not enough for a long shot like it was, but I tried to supply my lacks in the Photography world with my notebook and a ball-pen… 

But just for confirm myself that my camera had a flash, I tried to do a night foto. Here is, the amazing Middle Eastern Short-fingered Gecko, Sthenodactylus doriae… and another day was done.

J.R.