Another snake

it seems the most interesting thing inside our ringing patch at the moment are the snakes. i saw an unidentified snake on friday, it again looked like a Racer (Coluba sp) but was too quick for me to take in much detail. This migration will almost certainly go down as one of the worst on record here in Sde Boker, as the low winter rainfall, we received around 30mm, compared to our 90mm average, failed to green the area enough to make it an attractive proposition to migrants. We managed 19 new birds in two sessions. We did capture our first bluethroats and a nice Ortolan bunting to add to the growing (slowly) species list. what is really amazing me is that there are no blackcaps around, i have only ringed 6 birds and have seen about the same number, with only 3 birds arriving in the last week, i would have expected around 40 birds by now. lets hope the rest of this week brings us better luck!

Bluethroat ssp cyanecula

Lesser whitethroat