Wild night out

esterday afternoon we pulled on our rubber boots and headed off to the canal east of the IBRCE. We noted some waders concentrations there during the last week or so.

This site was once a highly productive ringing site with some excellent firsts for Israel caught.

While we spread our nets across the  canal  the birds seemed eager to have a shiny new ring and before all nets were erected we had 2 Temminck's Stints in bags.

Somehow they always look so gloomy in hand…

To our joy more canal specialities were to follow- a Spotted Redshank! This species is seldom ringed in Israel and was a new hand species for all of us.

3 of its cousins were caught, all in a beautiful summer plumage:

2 Little Ringed Plover also respected us with their presence. Again a species which is considered quite "hard to get" in hand, in Israel.

Bram and Roni working on the birds…

To sum up the session-a long legged guest!

The bunch...

The last few days of day ringing also provided us with some nice birds- some Eastern Orphean Warbler:

A flock of 4 Arabian Babblers was caught today. This is the male with it's diagnostic pale eye-

And for comparison 1 out  of 3 females ( I guess he is heaving a lot of fun…. )

Cretzschmar's Bunting is allways a nice bird.

 This Great Reed warbler is probably of the nominate race…still waiting for the XXX to show up!

Long Eared Owl from the morning traps round.

A male Palestine Sunbird was a great celebration for the euro guys

AKA Orange tufted –

Rosemary & Ian from Britain joined us for 11 days, Welcome aboard! Together with Teun they found today a Cyprus Wheatear at k76!

I will not be at the IBRCE for 2-3 days and Itai will send update if anything good shows up.    

Ahoy mates! welcome aboard...

Hi all,

Sorry for the long time with no post. On Thursday I joined Avi Meir and Itai for a morning pelagic tour off Eilat's north beach and got to view and process all the 550 frames only now…

Anyway, watching gulls up close in the soft early light was a real pleasure, especially compared to seeing the same birds far away and through heat waves as I'm used... thank you Avi for the invitation and amazing opportunity!

Black Headed Gulls were in abundant!

Our beloved White Eyed Gulls also played it!

This huge Heuglin's Gull got his respect as the biggest boy around.

And with Eilat in the background.

Slender Bills are on the move…

And looking better than ever!

Had some doubts with this one, any help?

A Sandwich Tern joined the party.

The sea is really coming in to life. During the last week the first Skuas were seen, hundreds of Slender bills, and Baltic gulls passing, 4 Pallas's Gulls yesterday, and some more Sandwich and Common Terns around. Ducks flocks are seen daily with most being Garganys, Shovelers and Pintails. Tapio & Arne of Finland had a flock of 10 Oystercatchers yesterday's afternoon. One of the largest flocks ever recorded at Eilat!

Sylvia Warblers are everywhere with  Ruppell's caught daily among the Lesser Whitethroats.  Subalpine Warblers were seen at Holland Park, IBRCE, Evrona during the last week.

Some Beautifull birds caught at the IBRCE- a Woodchat Shrike

And a male Ehrenberg's Redstart.

Among the non feathered creatures, the reptiles are warmed up and went into action! Some Saw-scaled Vipers(Echis coloratus) seen active.

This amazing little Sand Geko(Tropicolotes nattereri) was found by Teun and Bram while fixing traps. It's hard to believe, but this is an adult!

More news will hopefully be posted soon!  

5TE0049!

You probably wander why should I open my post with this rather boring female Spanish Sparrow …

Well, the bird itself isn't much of a story, but a foreign looking ring on it's leg alarmed me as I approached it this morning while in the net!  As I finished extracting it , read the ring and immediately  realized It is an Israeli ring which doesn't belong to the IBRCE!

 5TE0049 was ringed by Yoav at Ezuz(Western Negev) on the 18^th October 2010! This bird was probably on it's way to southern Israel for the winter and nw probably already heading north…

Other than that ringing this morning was interesting especially because of the first CE(Constant Effort) ringing at our new CE site- a large Salvadora persica bush with Moringa and Acacia scrub around.

The air was full of ticking calls at first light and as expected many Sylvia warblers were caught. Yes I know…it is another Ruppell's Warbler, but I just love these birds...

A migrating flock of Penduline Tits was calling in the reed. I "invited" them in, and these two replied. Roni was pleased with these sweet couple!

This amazing 2^nd cy male Bluethroat  of thessp. palidogullaris was a nice treat

Seawatching in the last two afternoons produced mostly ducks( Pochards, Ferruginous Ducks, Pintails, Wigeons, Shovelers & Teals), maybe tomorrow's south wind will spit out something good!

Swifts and more

The last three days provided good visual migration, with some surprises.

During Thursday to Saturday a total of 30 Little Swifts were noted migrating , most of them over the IBRCE, with a max. count 18 on Saturday! This is a new daily record for Eilat and the southern Arava . Seasonal record being 32 birds we expect to get this one renewed as well…

Raptors passage gaining speed with 300-350 Steppe Eagles and tens of Steppe Buzzards daily. An adult Eastern Imperial Eagle passed us today.

Itai and Roni in action

One of many...

Out in the sun!

More and more passerine species are seen around with the first Eastern Olivaceous Warbles seen today.

A nice male Cretzschmar's Bunting yesterday was a lifer for the Dutch team…

  Sylvia warblers are taking their place as the main group of birds hopping in the bush.  The first Subalpine Warbler was reported by Limor Malul at Holland park yesterday. After a terrible spring for that species last year I demand  to get many this year as a compensation! Ruppell's Wablers are doing well with males seen at almost any vegetated spot around; at least  6 at Holland park today by barak!

This 2^nd cy male was ringed yesterday:

Yael, Roni, Bram & Teun had 3 Oystercatchers flying around the north beach, and also 2 Kentish Plovers & a Sandwich Tern. Barak, Roni and I had two more Oystercatchers and some 70 Slender Billed Gulls at the same place this afternoon.

Other migrants around : singles of White and Black Storks, 16 Common Cranes, 20-30 Green Sandpipers, 3 Squacco Herons at Anita's lake…  

Shahar and Barak had amazing numbers of larks at the southern Arava and also a Black Bush Robin & Cyprus Pied Wheatear at Yotvata- for more rarities updates from Israel you should check the new Israel rare birds map- http://www.israbirdcenter.org/rarebirds/1pagerare.htm    

A big storm is rolling in up north- I wander if any impact will be felt in here…floods? Vagrants?   

Larks and more larks

During the last week I had the pleasure of driving around the Arava and the southern Negev highlands for meetings and some other activities. In between, when ever I had some time, I birdwatched in different locations.

Overwhole Spring is becoming evident throughout with Ruppll's and Cyprus Warblers jumping in many wadies, Trumpeter Finches are very attractive especially when standing next to the many blooming Spiny Zilla (Zilla spinosa) and Steppe Eagles and Steppe Buzzards passing in greater numbers (mostly around Eilat, but seen also furthur north).

On Monday morning, en route to Hatseva, I stopped for a while in the area of K 76-77. Not far after I stooped at the site, I had some Trumpeter Finches calling from the ground and when scanning around, a group of 5 Thick-billed Larks where seen running around. After a while the birds took off flying to the east across the Jordanian border. When they landed I could see that the ground is moving, so I checked with the scope and surprisingly the first 2 birds were 2 Dunn's Larks foaraging on the plain. Together with them was a a group of Skylarks, many Desert Larks and also few Lesser Short-toed Larks. Unfortunatly the all group was foraging over the border fence so I could not get closer to get even some record shots.

After this around Hatseva, 2 Cyprus Warblers and Oded Keynan is reporting that the Pale Scops Owl that was wintering at the SPNI field school is still present and that there is another one on K152 where there are also at least 6-7 Cyprus Warblers.

On Thursday together with Limor Malul and Roni Vaisanen we traveled in the southern Negev highland where in Ovda Valley at least two groups of Thick-billed Larks (one comprised of some 100 birds), This was a long waited 'lifer' for Roni (and not the last for the day)!

We open a new contest, count the Thik-billed…

Also around: 3 Asian Desert Warbler and no less than 5 species of Wheatears (Mourning, Isabeline, Desert, Hooded and White-crowned).

We than drove down, back to K 76-7 where we met with Shachar Alterman who found earlier this day a Black Bush Robin around Yotveta and 4 Brittish birders. We scanned the plain in vein for the Dunn's Lark, but we" had to settle" with 7 Bar-tailed Larks and another 6-7 Temminck's Horned Larks (another long waited life bird for Roni!!) but again just over the Jordanian fence…

As we dorve back through Lotan, we added the first Black-eared Wheatear for the season and the 6th Wheatear species for the day, we then met with Yifat Delsoz, a young birder who had in her camera a photo of a huge dark raptor taken some 10 days earlier in Lotan. In the field she identified it as a Cinerious Vulture and both the description and the photo (see below) confirm that.

Back at the IBRCE Park the guys report of some good Eagle passage and I'm sure that Re'a will report soon so stay tuned…


P.S. as you can see these are only record shots! for much better ones of the birds around Eilat you can follow the link on the side bar: Avi Meir's Photo of the week.

It's right on time

Last Monday Tammo and Fabian made their way back to Holland, after a week at the IBRCE and southern Israel. Thank you guys for the help and good time. Hope to see you back at Eilat!

 Fabian runs a great birding blog- http://fabianmeijer.blogspot.com/. Trip repot and photos will be available soon-check it out!

I was up north for the last two days for non-birding stuff(A Gogol Bordello show…), but found  time for some birdwatching as well- on Tuesday I joined Yoav for the Nizzana Atlas's first day of the season. We had some good specialties,  for the whole report visit Yoav's Blog-http://nubijar.blogspot.com/.

A cameraman in action!

Back at the IBRCE this morning ringing was slow due to strong wind. Nevertheless the first Balkan warbler Was ringed-

The guys having a moment with the warbler

We were proud to host our national bird!

The first good passage of Steppe Eagles took place with some 350 bids, most of which were flying low overhead and gave great views. Among them some 15 Steppe Buzzards and a Black kite- the noose carpet  is almost ready!

Bram and Teun spotted two little Swifts among some pallid and common , great find! Photos will be posted on their blog -  eilat2011.blogspot.com.

Itai had two Excellent lark days at the southern Negev and Arava- he will post the summary later.

Tomorrow a new day!

More migrants

The Passerines migration is not really in full steam yet, but during the last two days we have still enjoyed some nice birds at the IBRCE. Yesterday we caught the first Isabelline Wheatear for the season and today we had another one.

 A nice male Rüeppell's Warbler was also caught this morning and soon we expect many more Sylvia warblers to come and jump around inside the bushes.

The biggest surprise, though appeared when Tzadok came back from Ovda airport with Kamen. 

Yesterday i received a report from the INPA rangers about a big raptor that is attacking people on the Ovda compound (with 3 people injured so far). I asked Tsadok to try and catch it today, and surely he did...

As they came back, they had the most beautiful adult Long-legged Buzzard with them! What a nice pale morph bird.

Thanks to Roni, Toun, Bramf and Kamen for helping us so much!

March has started and soon we should have new birds arriving daily, so stay tuned!