Orrible January

January out here in the desert is not a great time for ringing, Firstly its damn cold, the nets have been frozen a couple of times when i've been out to them, its also wet this is the wettest month of the year, its rained at least 4 days and one of them was on a scheduled ringing morning, bummer. But the biggest factor is there are very few birds around! still we caught a few and managed to ring the 100th species for the greater Sde Boker region ( all be it the 99th for my main station in the pistachio plot) and what a beauty it was two, a 2cy male great spotted cuckoo. so due to the lack of activity and Chris not sending me the latest photos yet heres some from late last year.

Southern grey shrike

yellow wagtail



Isabelline Wheatear



Saharan horned viper

Black eared wheatears

White breasted kingfisher

Blackstart

Palestine sunbird

yearly summary

finally back online after nearly six weeks without internet. the year ended as it began with a slow trickle of birds into the nets, although one of these was a first for me and the site. A common kestrel was entwined with a southern grey shrike in the net, the shrike a bit worse for where, but i'm pleased to report has been seen in its usual hunting spots since. also of note was a black redstart from 2007, a young blackcap with a hungarian ring, and a young male black redstart that i first thought was of the semirufus subspecies but on reviewing the photographs i now believe it was of the eastern race phoenicuroides.
we finished the year with a total of 2565 birds plus a further 621 retraps of which two were foreign birds (turkey and hungary ) and a further 32 were returning wintering or breeding birds or local birds over 1 year since they were first ringed. all in all it wasn't a bad first years ringing for me, and heres to more birds in 2012.

RBF for sure!!

After last weeks Taiga/Rb flycatcher we had a definite Red breasted flycatcher on wednesday morning. the bird had a much lighter bill with the pink underneath covering a much larger area and the rest being more yellowish. the upper tail coverts were clearly lighter than the tail. the tertials showed small white wedges that did not extend into the outer web. the measurements for the two birds were

Taiga/rbf
P2 < wing tip 7.15mm
P2 = P6
P3 and P4 longest
P1 < P2 28.85mm
wing 71mm
tail 55mm
Bill to skull 12 .91mm
bill depth at back of nostrils 3.43mm

RB Flycatcher
P2 < wing tip 5.26mm
P2 = P6
P3 and P4 longest
P1 < P2 28.19mm
wing 68mm
tail 51mm
Bill to skull 12 .56mm
bill depth at back of nostrils 3.19mm

the photographs were taken by chris with his canon but unfortunately did not come out well and do not show the clear differences

Taiga by the tail?

We had a little bit of excitement here on sunday, when after a good mornings catch, Chris, a ringer over here from the US of A doing a post doc, fetched what i first thought was a 1cy red breasted flycatcher out of the bag. i immediateley told him to hand it over as the senior ringer i was not going to let a ringing tick get away from me. So after ringing i began to examine the bird more thoroughly i first noticed the dark bill then checked the tail coverts which were black, excitement was starting to build now, so i rebagged the bird and took it to my house to take photos and make a few calls as i needed more expert help and was soon joined by Barak, Meidad and Yoav. After many photos and a comparison with a bird from the shetlands i was thinking that it was probably a rbf after all as our bird seemed a little warmer in its plumage than the shetland bird.We were joined by Oz in time to release the bird and play some calls in an attempt to entice some voice from it but it promptly disappeared into the gardens. Later that evening however i received an email from Yoav with some very interesting links (which can be viewed at Yoav blog http://nubijar.blogspot.com/ ). After reading them and looking at the photos here i am a lot more optamistic now. But only time will tell and its in the hands of people with a lot more knowledge about this species than me.

When September ends

with september drawing to an end, the migrants started arriving here in much larger numbers and variety. We had a couple of firsts for the plot, i had ringed yellow wagtails around Beer Sheva, but never here, so was nicely surprised when 4 birds were brought to the ringing table. the other new bird was a ringing tick for me, quickly moving the apprentices out of the way when a scops owl was captured. this was my third tick of the month after ringed plovers and curlew sandpipers we had caught when venturing out to Nizzana. Other good birds for the month were 3 1cy ruppels warblers a couple of savis, a great reed, creztchmars bunting, a couple of wryneck, which are always fun to ring, and 11 black eared wheatears. We had only previously had a couple of these birds and always in the spring so to get so many here was really exciting.
the Orphean warblers seem like they have finally come to an end with a grand total of 90 birds of which only 2 were adults

Political Conscienceness

Migrants are in the air

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Well back to the ringing numbers havent been great the last week but there are signs it is starting to take off here with the number of species present begining to rise rapidly. We have caught the first  blackcaps, savi's, masked shrike, both nightingales, and a first ever for the station a Cettis warbler. Also what i believe is a juvenile Pied flycatcher. I have not got a lot of experience with this bird ( insert nought there, so would be grateful for any comments).

Balkan warbler aka eastern bonellis warbler

Various poses of a Pied flycatcher?

Savi's  warbler

Sooty Falcon Survey- Part One

In the last couple of months Darren has been updating the blog with summer birding manly during ringing operations here in Sde Boker. While He was jollying here I was busy running Birding Camps for children and preparing for some of the future activities. Trying to set up a Birding Center can be a little demanding and can mean not as much time as one wishes in the field.
Lucky for me, one of the tasks we set for this year was to study the current distribution of the Sooty Falcon, Falco concolor, one of the Negev specialties. So that means back to the field!
In order to do that, we decided to look back at previous breeding surveys. With the help of the IOC (Israel Ornithological Center) and NPA (Nature and Parks Authorities) we got hold of history breeding data and soon realized that information was pretty much undecided. Until the late 70's the Sooty Falcon was treated as a rare breeder in The Judean Desert and Eilat. A first survey showed that the species is more common than thought and a raptor survey conducted in 1980-84 suggested a population size of 70-100 pairs all over the deserts of Israel . But indication were made that lots of potential sites haven't been checked. Since then local counts have been conducted but no general population estimations have been done. The Sooty Falcon arrives back from his wintering grounds in Madagascar and southern Africa in April-May. It raises the chicks in autumn, timing it exactly to the peak of the bird migration (August-October). A study on some of the pairs breeding near Sde Boker showed that 95% of its diet is based on migratory birds. By late October all the birds have gone their way back to Africa.
We divided the Negev to different geographic areas and marked all the historical known nests in each and every one of them. Looking at the nests distribution we decided to focus on two areas which consisted most of the breeding sites even though some of them haven't been studied therally; the Cliffs of Zin River and the area east of Ramon Crater. These areas are vast, containing huge cliffs, all potential breeding sites for the Sooty Falcon. The way to do it, we learned, was to spend as much time as possible in the area, no short- cuts! After two weeks of working the Zin Cliffs, covering most of the cliffs we found four definite breeding sites and three potential ones. We've decided to return to this area later when the chicks will be older and noisier, hence easier to spot.
Encouraged by these results we set for our very big challenge; East of the Ramon Area. While the Zin Cliffs are pretty easy to reach by a normal private car, the Ramon-East area is very remote and can be reached only by 4X4b vehicles. If we want to find the birds we need to spend time there, mainly mornings and evening which means camping for at least two nights… Life is hard.

So off we went! Barak and I were joined by Tomer from Hazeva Field School and Yael. Scanning in the evenings and hiking during the days, especially mornings (day temperatures exceed the 40c°), we found at least 3 pairs with a potential fourth. On the second day during our lunch break a pair of Sooties was air-displaying along with an immature bird (probably 2nd yr) above our heads, so close we could actually hear the wwwooosshhh as they cut through the hot air. After that they sat 20m above our heads and cleaned themselves, beautiful!! We couldn't help but wonder if this second year bird has migrated all the way from southern Africa or stayed here after fledging last year, interesting.
Camping in this stunning part of the country was absolutely a pleasure. Barak learned the secrets of the pojke and we all learned a thing or two about the gorgeous Sooties and how to find them. Apart from them we had a nice wildlife list; Sinai Agama Agama sinaita, Ibex, Hyrax, Golden Spiny Mouse, Brown Hare, Sinai Rosefinch, two pairs of Egyptian Vultures and about 300 White Storks.
This survey is still ongoing and we have plenty of work ahead of us. I'll keep updating about our progress here in our blog .
I want to thank NPA's Ben and Yoram for logistic support.
Meidad