First pulli of the season

This morning (after the many millimeters of rain in the early morning) I went with Tim to ring some nestlings. We checked a few nestboxes of Great Tits of which I knew the pulli would be old enough to ring. The result was 22 Great Tits, not bad for just a few nests. One nest contained 10 chicks, pretty nice. Further birds of note that we observed were 2 singing Wood Warblers, 2 singing Firecrests and a female Goshawk.

 Great Tit (Parus major), pulli of 7 days old.

Nest of Great Tit with 10 pulli inside.

In the afternoon I went to Zuidbroek, a new neighbourhood/business area with some waste land. The area can be quite nice sometimes with some migrants around. There were quite a few pairs of Lapwings around, but there was no sign of any Little Ringed Plovers, which really suprised me since I've always seen at least 3 pairs around here, too bad.. Last year there was also a pair of Redshanks, but I haven't seen any of those here yet.

Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus)

First migrant I had was a male Wheatear, Zuidbroek is always a good place to see them during migration. A little bit later I had 3 more on a cropfield on the northern side of Zuidbroek. At some sand hopes there were at least 8 Sand Martins present. They had made nests already in a steep sand heap.

Sand Martins (Riparia riparia)

The best birds were two singing Icterine Warblers, one showed itself pretty well. Getting good views on those is pretty hard, let alone taking photos. I managed to get a proper shot of one of them though. Here I also had my first singing Garden Warbler of the year.

Icterine Warbler (Hippolais icterina)

As always, there was a pair of Kestrels and Buzzards present.

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!)