Remember, 4 is a very good age

Ringing has been excellent the past two days at the JBO with today 195 birds spread over 23 species and yesterday 185 of 20 species.

We had a Spotted Flycatcher on both days and also few Pied Flycatchers were ringed. Yesterday there were 3 adult males Collared Flycatcher around at the ringing site, but none were caught. This morning however, we ringed two females Collared Flycatchers. Barred Warblers have been ringed in reasonable numbers which is really nice :D Also we ringed about 5 Thrush Nightingales on both days.

Another highlight from today was a pretty Icterine Warbler. A Spotted Crake has been present at the small pool for a few days already, but today was the first time it showed really well. It was bathing for a few seconds in the pool. I forgot to mention that there was also a Corncrake around for a few days.

 The JBO with the city center of Jerusalem on the background.

 Ringing at the JBO

Groups of kids come every day and get educated on bird ringing!

 Icterine Warbler (Hippolais icterina)

Yael with the Icterine Warbler

Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa striata)

Some Pied Flycatcher wings:

 Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), male

 Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), male

 Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), female

 Collared Flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis), female

Wing of the Collared.

Some wings of Barred Warblers:

 Barred Warbler (Sylvia nisoria), adult female, though the tertails (inner one moulted) and greater coverts (very worn) intrigue me..

 Barred Warbler (Sylvia nisoria), adult female

 Barred Warbler (Sylvia nisoria), young male, note the 3 inner moulted primaries.

Remember, 4 is a very good age! (as Roni likes to say it!)

Ringing at the lowest place on earth

The time for my alarmclock was set at the ridiculous time of 3:20, to get ready for some ringing at the Dead Sea with Ron (Haran) & Ron (Efrat)!

At 4:00 they picked me up in the city and around 5:00 we arrived at the ringing site.The ringing site is a  special place, several springs stream (with hot water) from the mountains in to the Dead Sea.

After putting up 8 nets we could witness a beautiful sunrise. It was amazing to witness sunrise in such a wonderful place. A really special happening! I enjoyed every minute of it.

 Sunrise

The ringing site

Loads of birds hopped from bush to bush, mainly Blackcaps, and eventually ended up in our mistnets. It was mainly Blackcaps, Blackcaps and again Blackcaps! But next to that the variety was also pretty good. I got a ringing tick: we ringed 2 Clamarous Reed Warblers. Furthermore we ringed some Great Reed Warblers, 3 Cetti's Warblers, Eastern Orphean Warblers, Eastern Olivaceous Warblers, 1 Dead-Sea Sparrow, 2 Ortolan Buntings, Tree Pipit and another highlight was a Barred Warbler. At the end of the morning we had caught 233 birds with 8 mistnets, incredible! 187 of them were the 'Kippa' Warblers as I like to call them.

 Cetti's Warbler

 Clamarous Reed Warbler

 Clamarous Reed and Great Reed Warbler

 Never posted a photo of a Bulbul before, so here it is!

These rule out all the Sylvia's for sure!

Birds around included White-breasted Kingfisher, quite a few Fan-tailed Ravens and Tristram's Grackles.

After the ringing we visited a place in the northern Dead Sea area where we saw 5 Namaqua Doves, what a lovely little doves with their long tail!

 Namaqua Dove

Ringing with Ron & Ron

Atricapilla take over

Massive migration last night with as a result many birds around. The Heligoland traps worked amazing with trap 7 being the star trap, every round we had at least 30-40 birds in the trap. In the early morning Bram and Chris had a Levant Sparrowhawk escaping from a mistnet. I still haven’t seen one though..

The end result is 901 new and 60 recaptures. So a total of 955 birds today! One of the best days ever here at Eilat! Amazing….!

The Blackcaps was our main bulk species but we also had lots of good variety. Many Ortolan Buntings, a Hoopoe, quite a few Masked Shrikes, Rufous-tailed Bush Robins, a Bee-eater, a Pied Flycatcher, 2 Barred Warblers and the most interesting bird was a probable hybrid Collared x Pied Flycatcher!

Yesterday we had over 500 birds with a nice Little Crake caught in our toilet!

Next to massive passerine migration, raptors were exploding as well. A few thousand Steppe Buzzards passed through, as well as a good number of Steppe Eagles, Lesser-spotted Eagles, 2 Imperial Eagles, 1 Bonelli’s Eagle and the first Honey Buzzard of the season.

And just now Bram and Yuval brought a nice Scops Owl back from the traps. Nice dessert for the day!

 Common Bee-eater (Merops apiaster)

 Yes, Great Reed Warblers (Acrocephalus arundinaceus) bigger than Little Crakes (Porzana parva)

 Barred Warbler (Sylvia nisoria), adult female

 Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), male

 Probable hybrid Collared (Ficedula albicollis) x Pied Flycatcher

Masked Shrike (Lanius nubicus), adult male