Global Big Day, 11 May 2024

Yesterday was Global Big Day and World Migratory Bird Day. Global Big Day is organised by the Cornell Lab, in association with Swarovski Optik and Global Birding. My team, Champions of the Flyway, included the original trio - Jonathan, Re'a and me. It was good to be back in the game with this team. In Global Big Days we normally take the northern route. This year, because of the war, the northern route is more challenging. For example, Mt. Hermon is off limits currently. Also the northern sections of the Hula Valley and the Upper Galilee are not safe now. We planned our route for yesterday staying away from trouble, hoping that it will be a relatively quiet day on the non-avian flying object front... 

We left early and arrived at the entrance to the Hula NR to try for owls. Nothing. A pre-dawn drive through Agamon Hula was quiet, Barn Owl was the only decent bird or mammal. Disappointing start. At dawn we were positioned by the lake and started our daytime birding. The lake itself was quiet because the water level is very high. Still, there was a small flock of terns that flew over the water including Gull-billed, Little and Common, and our first Marbled Ducks. 

Global Big Day under fire! We're in the Hula Valley, enjoying great birds but keeping an eye open for other flying objects too...#globalbirding #birdsuniteourworld pic.twitter.com/859aGiHgue

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) May 11, 2024

The big trees west of the lake were actually quite good with many Golden Orioles and other migrants in the mulberry trees - Great Reed (in the pic below), Barred and Garden Warblers etc. 

The most surprising observation however happened shortly after Jonathan mused over the possibility of finding an African vagrant. We spotted a large bird flying low towards us over the reedbed - what's this!? Bloody hell - a turaco! One of the smaller species, schalow's-style flew quickly over us and disappeared. Obviously an escape but totally crazy to see this bird flying around here.

We continued birding through the open fields picking up some stuff including Lesser Gray Shrike. Nice to see large flocks of migrant Turtle Doves in the fields. More Marbled Ducks were spotted in the canals - I love them.

Because Re'a is an Odonata expert, on top of being a top birder, we did pay a little bit of attention to critters. Re'a recommended that I take a photo of this Levant Clubtail because it is endemic to our region, and because it is so pretty:

Overall birding was slightly quieter than we had hoped for but at least the weather was OK (the day before it was awfully hot) and there were no sirens. We left Agamon Hula at 07:30 with 74 species, semi-pleased with a half-decent list to start the day.

Our next destination was the Petroleum Road running along the western slopes of the Golan Heights. I became more familiar with this region after the discovery of breeding Yellow-throated Sparrows there in 2022. It was so excellent up there. Many quality species, lots of migrants - especially raptors. Highlight was a pair of Yellow-throated Sparrows that eventually gave themselves up after quite a long search. 

Other great birds added to our list were Upcher's and Eastern Orphean Warblers, Eastern Black-eared Wheatear, Cretzschmar's Bunting, Roller, both cuckoos. We really enjoyed birding there. We did have to keep an eye open for rockets and missiles - we made sure to stay away from the danger zone in the far northern end of the road, close to the Lebanese border.

Upcher's Warbler singing

Check that magnificent dark tail

Woodchat Shrike - high density including fresh juveniles

We then drove to some sites in the Golan Heights, picking quality stuff along the way like Black-headed Bunting, Calandra Lark, Little Swift, Great Crested Grebe, Griffon and Egyptian Vulture. 

When we arrived in Susita it was already very hot. The site was developed recently, including a better access road, carpark and cashier for those wanting to walk into the site... INPA who manage this national park and developed it thought it would be a good idea to stick a huge metal horse on the mountain top. The local Long-billed Pipit agrees with that and is using it as its favourite singing spot - can you see it?

We then headed down towards Bet Shean Valley. It was getting really hot and the fatigue was kicking in. Cold drinks and ice cream were necessary to keep us going. When we arrived in Kfar Ruppin, with around 100 species in the bag, it was already properly hot. Check the video here.

Global Big Day update!#GlobalBigDay #globalbirding #birdsuniteourworld pic.twitter.com/jf3mKYkqyv

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) May 11, 2024

Kfar Ruppin and other fishponds in the area provided us with some species of shorebirds and other waterbirds. It was a bit frustrating - there were very large numbers of Ruff, Wood Sandpiper, Little Stint and Ringed Plover, but the variety mixed in among them was minimal. Still we had hundreds of Collared Pratincoles, Temminck's Stints, Whiskered Terns and more. Dead Sea Sparrow is a local specialty and was well appreciated. I love those blackish hind-trousers the males have:

And that was that. I must admit that after several years of doing big days, our motivation to do a full full day, including afternoon and evening, has dwindled a bit. We are content with the amount of effort we put into this mode of birding. We ended the day with a respectable 131 species - see our eBird Trip Report here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/235300

Our daily total is quite OK, given the difficult date for this event here in Israel. Migration slows down, quite dramatically, after May 7th-8th. Also it becomes much hotter by the day. The current date, the 2nd weekend of May, suits better northern countries (North America and northern Europe) but is much more difficult in southern latitudes. The current date choice reduces the level of interest in Global Big Day here in Israel because many birders are already in post-migration mode and couldn't be bothered to go out and see few birds. 

I call here the organisers of Global Big Day and World Migratory Bird Day to consider moving next year's event one week earlier, to the first weekend of May. With climate change that should be a good date even in northern North America and Scandinavia, and certainly a favourable date in the Mediterranean Basin and Middle East for example. 

Hey Jonathan and Re'a - it was another blast of a day, so much fun birding with you guys. Till October 12th, Go Champions!

Global Big Day May 2022

Another Global Big Day done and dusted for Team Champions of the Flyway: Jonathan, Re'a and me. This time it was a bit different. Several factors affected our decision to focus more on quality rather than on quantity: 

1. Late date, May 14th, meant that here, in more southern latitudes, migration is almost over (hey eBird! Next year at the beginning of May, please!).

2. The late date translated into higher temperatures. We were unlucky with a serious heatwave hitting Israel. Morning weather was OK but from noon weather switched to quite horrible.

3. Stamina, or rather lack of: After several years of doing die-hard big days for Global Big Day (see our recent effort in October 2021, for example), we (I?) lacked motivation to rock it in full blast for a full 24-hr effort.

Re lack of stamina, we met up at 02:30 and headed north. First stop was in the Hula Valley, where the pre-dawn session produced three owls: Tawny, Scops and Barn, plus quite many Eurasian Nightjars. We also encountered four different Jungle Cats; one of them, in the picture here snoozing on a wheat bale, had a GPS-collar on, attached by INPA researchers.

Can't believe I took, downloaded and edited this photo of A Eurasian Nightjar

At dawn we were joined by Nadav. Together we birded around the Agamon Hula park, which was OK but lacked migrants. Still, we got lots of good stuff, including Marbled Teal, Black Francolin, Golden Oriole, Lesser Gray Shrike, Dead Sea Sparrow and many more. Jonathan was responsible for social media.

I was responsible for birding 😉

This Red-backed Shrike looked very posh in the early morning sunlight:

Most interesting birds of the morning were Rosy Starlings. It is a scarce bird in Israel. Typically, in Mid May, small flocks of Rosy Starling arrive to Agamon Hula to feast on mulberries. Several small flocks were reported in recent days, and indeed there were starlings around. At first light we had a few singles flying over, then we bumped into several small groups, all very mobile. 

We left the Hula valley with 80 species, not bad I guess. Originally we had managed to obtain a special permit to visit Bul'an Valley in the highest section of Mt. Hermon, one of the most amazing sites in Israel for breeding birds, home to White-throated Robin, Asian Crimson-winged Finch and other wonderful and rare breeding species. See an example of how wonderful it is in this post from June 2019. This valley is normally off limits due to its proximity to Syria and security sensitivity, but for important survey work special permits are granted. Our original plan was to collect there valuable breeding data, not in big day manner, so we obtained the permit and were joined by INPA staff. The visit to Bul'an Valley was planned to be the highlight of our Big Day. Plans don't always materialise. When we reached the military checkpoint to the upper platform, we were refused entry. We were together with INPA staff but nothing helped. We wasted 1.5 valuable hours of morning birding at the gate, trying to negotiate with the military, without success. By the time we gave up, our motivation levels received a serious blow. We continued to bird around the lower cable station and drinking pools, and in fact connected with the Hermon specialties - Syrian Serin, Western Rock Nuthatch, Upcher's and Eastern Bonelli's Warbler, Rock Bunting, Eastern Black Redstart. But all of this birding was done with a soundtrack of our complaints and negative talk after the unplanned change in plans.

#GlobalBigDay2022 update from @SPNI @flywaychampions #israel@global_birding @JMeyrav @SwarovskiOptik @RockjumperTours @BirdLifeIsrael pic.twitter.com/i6F00u74hS

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) May 14, 2022

When I do Big Days my focus is on finding birds so my senses are devoted to that, and there is little time to spend on photography during such a whirlwind of a day. Therefore my photos from this Big Day are few and, well, not great. 

Syrian Serin on the beautiful bloom of the hawthorn Crataegus azarolus

Short-toed Eagle

This year there was more snow than normal, later into spring, so spring development of plants, arthropods and breeding behaviour of birds seems to be late. There were certainly fewer butterflies than I'm used to this time of year. Frayer's Fritillary was the commonest:

Clouded Yellow

After we were done on Mt. Hermon we headed down to the Golan Heights, picking up specialties and stuff along the way, including Chaffinch (very localised breeder), Calandra Lark, Great Crested Grebe (only a handful of pairs breed in Israel), Black-headed Buntings.

Calandra Lark looking away - they breed here in vineyards

After midday the weather deteriorated fast. The temperatures rose to 42 degrees, and the wind was horrible. We likened the weather conditions to the hot wind coming out when opening an oven door on turbo mode. It was really nasty. A stop at Susita was close to torture, though somehow we added there Long-billed Pipit and Blackstart. That was the end of our Big Day - we were quite exhausted by the heat, and found shelter in the air-conditioned car.

Our total for yesterday was 122 species, 16 eBird checklists. Our lowest score ever on a Big Day. Yet we saw some good birds; additionally, any day with a visit to Mt. Hermon is good a good one. And as always, we had lots of fun - thanks to my mates Jonathan and Re'a, and Nadav who joined us for the Agamon section.

I created a Trip Report for yesterday's Big Day effort. I really enjoy this new feature by eBird - very useful and well designed. The link is here.

Till October Big Day, over and out.

Global Big Day May 2020

Yesterday was eBird's Global Big Day, this year coinciding with World Migratory Bird Day. While most of the biding world is still under some kind of lockdown regulations, here in Israel there has been a serious relief of travel restrictions in recent days. Therefore, Team IGBD reunited for another run - Jonathan, Re'a, Nadav (far northern section) and me.
We had developed a plan, quite similar route to what we did in 2019, bar one change - we decided to skip the desert bit, shorten driving distances by staying only in the north. It was a great plan, but what we had not planned was the weather. Weather forecast for yesterday looked a bit windy after 10:00 but nothing too dramatic. Eventually, weather was our main challenge yesterday.
We left home very early to arrive in Hula Valley well before dawn. It took us some searching but before dawn we already had a few owls, including Tawny Owl. When we got to Agamon Hula the wind was already blowing very hard. With the dry air and soil, the wind blew up red dust into the air, creating very difficult birding conditions.

Our most productive hours of dawn went by frustratingly quietly as birds kept a very low profile. We managed somehow Marbled Duck, Golden Oriole and a few other species but the total tally was much lower than expected. Also, because of the fierce wind, the birds and I were not in photography mode at all. Only these European Bee-eaters posed briefly in soft, overcast light.

We left the Hula Valley and headed up towards Mt. Hermon that looked quite clear at the time. What a mistake. By the time we got there, dust storm turned into torrential rain, gale-force winds, 6⁰ C. Horrible birding conditions. We did our very best but saw little. Only in late morning, when we descended to lower elevations, we started seeing and hearing some birds. Eventually we left Mt. Hermon with almost all specialties (Syrian Serin, Sombre Tit, Western Rock Nuthatch etc.) in the bag, but very few species altogether, hardly any migrants. It was almost noon, and we hadn't even reached 100 species yet - quite a blow.

Our next stop was in the northern Golan Heights, where things improved a bit, though the weather was still far from ideal. Black-headed Buntings showed nicely, and Calandra Larks were in flight song over some fields.

Singing in the rain

Black-headed vs. Corn, with raw 'behind the stage' soundtrack. Translated from Hebrew:

Jonathan: No way I can film this handheld (we were sat inside the car, YP)

Yoav: Shhhhhhhh....

Jonathan: Oh, both of them together, arrgghhh,

Black-headed Bunting vs. Corn Bunting duel, including original #BehindtheScenes soundtrack of #GlobalBigDay yesterday in Golan Heights @JMeyrav @BirdingInIsrael @Team_eBird @CornellBirds @SPNI pic.twitter.com/0HWYqBxIPb

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) May 10, 2020

We continued down towards Lake Kinneret, where improved weather conditions aided us in a productive midday visit to Susita - Long-billed Pipit, Little Swifts, Blackstart and others showed quite efficiently.

In the early afternoon, Kfar Ruppin in Bet She'an Valley was OK (Little Bittern, Pratincoles and few raptors on migration) but other sections of the valley were quiet.
We ended the day on the Mediterranean Coast, at Ma'ayan Tzvi and Ma'agan Michael. The pond that hosted the Three-banded Plover was still shorebird-productive (17 Broad-billed Sands etc.) but several common species were missing. Frustratingly, Ma'agan Michael beach was totally devoid of shorebirds. We had to settle for a romantic sunset, decorated with hundreds of terns flying over the sea.

Our last new bird of the day was Long-eared Owl, a squeaky juvenile back in central Israel.

Our day total was 137 species. Quite poor compared to 164 last year. However, I think that despite the challenging weather conditions we did rather well. We certainly did our best, and on paper our route was good. Next time we might try another combo though.

Huge thanks and kudos to my team mates, Jonathan, Re'a and Nadav. The tough conditions didn't turn our spirits down, and it was a blast, as always. Thanks also to Swarovski Optik Nature for their ongoing support. Here's to GBD2021!

Saturday morning birding

Managed a couple of hours of birding this early morning before my family woke up. Checked Tsor'a fields, which was my local patch some years ago when I lived nearby. The site hasn't changed much, only many more Mynas, like everywhere in Israel. Early in the morning the weather was still OK. The alfalfa fields were packed with rubbish birds (Cattle Egrets, Jackdaws, Mynas etc.) and fair numbers of Yellow Wagtails. The alfalfa fields held few other migrants, but the surrounding scrub and adjacent reservoir were a bit more productive. Highlight was a Black-headed Bunting that delightedly popped up when I was enjoying a flock of Spanish Sparrows. This is the classic time of year for this scarce autumn passage migrant.

Black-headed Bunting - 1cy (hatched summer 2018) - adults moult in India and are very worn now; partial moult of 1cy (note moulted inner GC) is visible:

Spanish Sparrow - female

Spanish Sparrow - male

Willow Warbler

All in all numbers of migrants were relatively low, but now back in Israel I appreciate the relativity, and celebrate the migrants I did encounter today. Full eBird checklist here.

On the way back home I enjoyed another change in Israel's avifauna - a casual roadside Black-winged Kite. Once I twitched them hard and far; now they are almost as common as kestrels.

Back to my autumn local patch

The alfalfa field near Bet Kama is very good between late August and late April, when there are wagtails and pipits around. Today was my first visit to the field after several months - short morning visit with my dog Bamba. The alfalfa is flowering now and full of insects, and had lots of birds in it. Especially impressive was a flock of about 800 Yellow Wagtails. Other birds included 1 Tree Pipit, 1 Whinchat, 10 Isabelline Wheatears, 20 Zitting Cisticolas, 1 Marsh, 2 Sedge, 2 Savi's and 5 Willow Warblers. Highlight was an adult Black-headed Bunting. Looking forward to ring there, maybe next week.

Black-headed Bunting

Zitting Cisticola

'feldegg' Yellow Wagtail

Isabelline Wheatear 

Short-toed Eagle

Hermon day 2 - no Hermon!

Late last night we got the bad news from the military that for security reasons the whole mountain will be closed off to the public today. That was very bad news for us as we already had a big team assembled for an early start. As we were unable to survey the mountain, we decided to check another interesting habitat, the open grassy slopes of Mt. Keta, below the small community of Nimrod. This site held a small population of Bimaculated Larks until some years ago, but they seem to have become extinct as breeding birds in Israel nowadays. Despite trying hard we found none. Nevertheless it was good up there - very good density of Cretzschmar's Buntings (10 pairs), 11-12 Black-headed Buntings, one Long-billed Pipit and lots more. Beautiful scenery too.

Hoping for a more productive day on Mt. Hermon tomorrow.

Black-headed Bunting

View from Mt. Keta

Hermon day 2 - Irania

Today I went with my team to survey Mt. Dov, which is a part of Mt. Hermon rarely visited by civilians. This is an extremely sensitive military area, and we were very lucky to get the chance to survey the rich habitats there. The military patrol escorting us was very cooperative and helpful, which was very good.

The first couple of hours in my box were extremely good with lots of birds and many species, and I documented lots of breeding activity. As everywhere in the lower elevations of Mt. Hermon, most dominant species were Lesser Whitethroat and Sombre Tit. I was happy to see two Black-headed Buntings - fresh arrivals, and always great birds to see:

Other highlights included Syrian Serin, Rck Nuthatches, Cretzschmar's Buntings, several Eurasian Cuckoos and Balkan Warbler. Again several breeding pairs of Red-backed Shrike - here is a female:

Migration was much more evident today, with lots of Blackcaps, Willow Warblers and three Golden Orioles on the ground, and massive raptor migration overhead, consisting mainly of Steppe and Honey Buzzards, Lesser Spotted and Booted Eagles, Black Kites and Levant Sparrowhawks.

Just as we were about to leave we spotted a male Irania (White-throated Robin) - I saw it only briefly but heard it singing. I was very happy to find this rare breeder so early and rather low.

Other animals included again Levante Fan-fingered Gecko, a huge Medium Lizard (Lacerta media) that disappeared before i was able to photograph it, and feces of Wolf and Beech Marten.

Many thanks to Dudu for his help and company.

Mystery Chiffchaff update: this afternoon Noam and Amir Ben Dov returned to the site where we had them yesterday. They found a staggering 10 singing males, and had better views that what we had yesterday.I cannot open Amir's RAW images on my computer, so his much better images should be online in a few days. Looking good.

Family holiday birding

Went down to Eilat with the family for a long weekend. It's holiday season in Israel, so lots of people on the road and everywhere practically, but we managed to have a very good time. During the three mornings I spent there I managed to squeeze in two hours of birding, before the family woke up and I got the terminating phone call from my wife: "good morning, we're up!". That means I was under a real pressure of time each morning to get something done before I had to go back, and most of the birding was done before sunrise. As a result, in this post the photographic quality is lower than I usually present here.

Friday morning started off at the IBRCE, said hello to the guys and enjoyed this sweet Scops Owl they had just caught:

Drove off with Re'a to KM20 saltpans that were packed full with shorebirds, mainly Little Stints and Ringed Plovers with many hundreds each. We scanned the large flocks very fast but the best we came up with was one Broad-billed Sandpiper. In this image the focus escaped to the Little Stint on the right, sorry, didn't have the time to check the images on the camera: 

Both at MK20 saltpans and later on at KM19 sewage farm lots of marsh terns present - mainly Whiskered Terns but fewer white-winged and one black.

Whiskered Tern

Saturday morning I went to check Yotvata. As I drove in I was happy to see a large flock of about 40 Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters thrashing a beehive near the cafe. Most were juveniles. 

The southern circular field was swarming with birds and I had a really good time there. While I was birding got a call from Re'a that they had just caught a Common Rosefinch but I decided to give it a miss and continued birding. In the field there were about 1000 Greater Short-toed Larks, among which I heard one Lesser Short-toed; many tens of Tree and Red-throated Pipits, with fewer Tawny and one Richard's Pipit; many wheatears (isabelline, nothern, desert and black-eared), many whinchats and Red-backed Shrikes, tons of hirundines; one Black-headed Bunting; Barbary Falcon and several harriers (marsh, pallid and montagu's) cruising over the field - great fun.

Black-headed Bunting

The sewage ponds were very birdy too but nothing special. This juv. Collared Pratincole appeared for a brief visit (still before sunrise): 

In the late afternoon I got another call from Re'a that they were watching both a Purple Swamp-hen and White-tailed Lapwing at KM19, but I was busy with the family so could not go for these good birds. Took a chance and hoped they'd wait for me till the next morning. 

So Sunday early morning I first had a quick look at north beach that had very little apart for the resident Brown Booby and 3-4 distant White-cheeked Terns. Then I headed off to KM19 sewage tanks. The tanks are full of fish and had loads of gulls and herons, but no sign of the chicken or the lapwing...

Armenian Gull - this must be 1cy but how on earth do they get so bleached and worn in such a short time?

A small flock of five Spoonbills was fresh in:

  

Only bird of note was one Citrine Wagtail.

So to conclude, not a bad family birding holiday. Eilat is always fun. This is not a classic period for birding in Eilat - still very hot and not too many common migrants hopping all over the place like in spring, but still some sites were good and some quality too.