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| Wheatear - male |
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| Common whitethroat |
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| Whinchat |
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| Whinchat |
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| Whinchat |
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| Dunnock |
Well, OK! The dunnock isn't a new arrival but he's OK!
Showing posts with label wheatear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wheatear. Show all posts
Friday, 19 April 2013
Spring has tentatively sprung!!
Although it's still rather cold, there are signs that Spring is in the air. Here are one or two new arrivals at Canons Farm.
Well, OK! The dunnock isn't a new arrival but he's OK!
Well, OK! The dunnock isn't a new arrival but he's OK!
Saturday, 23 April 2011
Israel trip with Birdfinders - Day 3.
Day 3. Thursday, 24 March, 2011
Next to our hotel was Shulamit Park, a magnet for migrants. On other days, several of the others had gone birdwatching even before breakfast. I decided to go as well today. The park is planted with many trees, and the lawns are watered every day. At the top of the central mound, where the winos sleep, there is a very attractive bottlebrush tree which attracted most of the migrants. Wryneck, eastern olivaceous warbler, eastern Bonelli's warbler, blackcaps, lesser whitethroats and Spanish sparrows were all in evidence. However, I was not in the park. A small heron had been seen in the marina and I got up before 6 AM to see it before it flew away. I saw it only briefly and distantly and against the light of the rising sun. It was a striated heron.
After breakfast we left at 7:45 AM as usual and drove to kilometre 33 to look for Dunn's lark. On arrival at this desert site there was a solitary car. Nearby, a photographer had set up a hide and a small battery driven water fountain to attract the birds. I wondered what he thought of 16 birdwatchers suddenly descending on his remote watchpoint! In the event, we only saw desert larks, a bar tailed lark, a woodchat shrike and a flyover short-toed eagle. We also flushed a large Cape hare, which bounded off into the distance.
We moved on to Yot Vata. On a nearby site of acacia forest we hoped to find Arabian warbler, one of the "big five" most wanted birds. Arabian warbler is a very localised bird, but it is resident and sedentary. At first we saw eastern Bonelli's warbler, hoopoe, a couple of very nice blackstarts, etc before the Arabian warbler eventually appeared and showed well for several minutes. We also saw a scrub warbler and a gecko, and some people saw a couple of sand partridges in the distance. Flyovers included a black stork and booted Eagle.
Next stop was the Yot Vata sewage ponds where we found our first cattle egrets, reed warbler, squacco heron, woodchat shrike and, further on, citrine wagtail and Dead Sea Sparrows. A little further on we heard our first turtle dove and a masked shrike performed for several minutes nearby. On the way back an amazingly confiding wryneck performed on the path in front of us.
It was only a short hop to the cafe at Yot Vata where we had lunch, followed, for me, by the now traditional large ice cream! As it was fairly warm, we went up into the mountains to the Shizzafon sewage ponds. These were sewage ponds with a difference! There wasn't much water and the ponds were landscaped with attractive vegetation, bushes, reeds, etc. Here we enjoyed squacco herons, linnet, bluethroat, citrine wagtail, Northern wheatear and a solitary white stork.
Having found no hooded wheatears we made our way back to the fields at Yot Vata. This yielded several firsts for me including a small number of Cretzschmar's bunting, an ortolan bunting, large numbers of white wagtails, greater short-toed larks, bimaculated larks, desert wheatears and yellow wagtails. There were also smaller numbers of red-throated pipits, water pipits, Siberian stonechat, woodchat shrike, masked shrike, and kestrel. One kestrel caught a quail and proceeded to eat it on a roll of straw in full view! Finally, a couple of tawny pipits were another first for me. A fitting end to another good day!
Next to our hotel was Shulamit Park, a magnet for migrants. On other days, several of the others had gone birdwatching even before breakfast. I decided to go as well today. The park is planted with many trees, and the lawns are watered every day. At the top of the central mound, where the winos sleep, there is a very attractive bottlebrush tree which attracted most of the migrants. Wryneck, eastern olivaceous warbler, eastern Bonelli's warbler, blackcaps, lesser whitethroats and Spanish sparrows were all in evidence. However, I was not in the park. A small heron had been seen in the marina and I got up before 6 AM to see it before it flew away. I saw it only briefly and distantly and against the light of the rising sun. It was a striated heron.
After breakfast we left at 7:45 AM as usual and drove to kilometre 33 to look for Dunn's lark. On arrival at this desert site there was a solitary car. Nearby, a photographer had set up a hide and a small battery driven water fountain to attract the birds. I wondered what he thought of 16 birdwatchers suddenly descending on his remote watchpoint! In the event, we only saw desert larks, a bar tailed lark, a woodchat shrike and a flyover short-toed eagle. We also flushed a large Cape hare, which bounded off into the distance.
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| Bar-tailed lark |
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| Cape hare |
We moved on to Yot Vata. On a nearby site of acacia forest we hoped to find Arabian warbler, one of the "big five" most wanted birds. Arabian warbler is a very localised bird, but it is resident and sedentary. At first we saw eastern Bonelli's warbler, hoopoe, a couple of very nice blackstarts, etc before the Arabian warbler eventually appeared and showed well for several minutes. We also saw a scrub warbler and a gecko, and some people saw a couple of sand partridges in the distance. Flyovers included a black stork and booted Eagle.
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| Arabian warbler |
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| Geckoey thing |
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| Masked shrike |
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| Black-eared wheatear |
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| Wryneck |
It was only a short hop to the cafe at Yot Vata where we had lunch, followed, for me, by the now traditional large ice cream! As it was fairly warm, we went up into the mountains to the Shizzafon sewage ponds. These were sewage ponds with a difference! There wasn't much water and the ponds were landscaped with attractive vegetation, bushes, reeds, etc. Here we enjoyed squacco herons, linnet, bluethroat, citrine wagtail, Northern wheatear and a solitary white stork.
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| Citrine wagtail |
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| Black-winged stilt |
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| Northern wheatear |
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| White stork |
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| Cretzschmar's bunting |
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| Desert wheatear |
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| Ortolan bunting |
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| Tawney pipit |
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| Kestrel with quail (alive when we first saw it)!! |
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Wryneck becomes writheneck - a sad story
David Campbell and I decided to go to St Margarets at Cliffe today hoping to see large numbers of migrants amassing on the South cliffs before launching themselves off to faraway countries. It was very quiet. A wheatear, a chiff-chaff and some magpies were almost all we saw.
Wheatear
The pager showed a wryneck 'at Samphire Hoe Country Park'. Hardly the most precise directions. We were 20 mins away so decided to go. The park is 89 acres or something and we had no idea where to start. The chap in the office suggested the path at the back that runs alongside the railway at the base of the impressively high white chalk cliffs. We wandered down there, met another birdwatcher searching for it. He went off on another path.
We saw some stonechats and had almost reached the end of the path when we saw a bird fly from the bank to the top of a nearby bush. The wryneck! I got one shot as it flew away! I put out a message with a precise location. In the meantime a young stonechat with a bug stuck to its bill posed on the bush.
Stonechat
The wryneck came back about 10 minutes later but dropped down before I could get another shot. The man who had gone on another path was back now. It flew again and he saw it. It flew to a distant bush on the other side of the railway and we watched it for 6-8 mins. Then it flew and we lost it until David picked it up again on the path in front of us about 25 metres away! I took some photos before a group of walkers sent it over the fence.
Wryneck
About 6-7 other birders came to see it and they all did while it was feeding at the top of the bank.
Wryneck
We heard a train aproaching. The wryneck flew towards his distant bush on the other side of the track. All eyes followed it as it flew straight into the front corner of the approaching train. I and several others heard the impact and we all gasped. Was it killed by the train! We didn't know for certain that it had been killed but we were all pretty sure that it had. One woman burst into tears, bless her, at the shock horror. We were all affected at seeing such a lovely creature die.
I jumped over the fence to the path by the side of the track to see if I could find a body. I looked hard but there was quite a high wall between the path and the track. I couldn't see a lifeless wryneck but the train could have carried it for quite a way.
We waited another 15-20 mins but it didn't re-appear. We feared the worst and walked back to the car. We had to tell the newly arriving birders that the wryneck was no more.
We went to Bough Beech reservoir on the way home and the highlights were 3 green sandpipers, 2 snipe, bucketloads of pied wagtails and a grey heron fishing.
Snipe
It was a day that was initially joyful for having seen the wryneck but tinged with sadness at its likely fate! A memorable day shall we say. That's life!
Wheatear
The pager showed a wryneck 'at Samphire Hoe Country Park'. Hardly the most precise directions. We were 20 mins away so decided to go. The park is 89 acres or something and we had no idea where to start. The chap in the office suggested the path at the back that runs alongside the railway at the base of the impressively high white chalk cliffs. We wandered down there, met another birdwatcher searching for it. He went off on another path.
We saw some stonechats and had almost reached the end of the path when we saw a bird fly from the bank to the top of a nearby bush. The wryneck! I got one shot as it flew away! I put out a message with a precise location. In the meantime a young stonechat with a bug stuck to its bill posed on the bush.
Stonechat
The wryneck came back about 10 minutes later but dropped down before I could get another shot. The man who had gone on another path was back now. It flew again and he saw it. It flew to a distant bush on the other side of the railway and we watched it for 6-8 mins. Then it flew and we lost it until David picked it up again on the path in front of us about 25 metres away! I took some photos before a group of walkers sent it over the fence.
Wryneck
About 6-7 other birders came to see it and they all did while it was feeding at the top of the bank.
Wryneck
We heard a train aproaching. The wryneck flew towards his distant bush on the other side of the track. All eyes followed it as it flew straight into the front corner of the approaching train. I and several others heard the impact and we all gasped. Was it killed by the train! We didn't know for certain that it had been killed but we were all pretty sure that it had. One woman burst into tears, bless her, at the shock horror. We were all affected at seeing such a lovely creature die.
I jumped over the fence to the path by the side of the track to see if I could find a body. I looked hard but there was quite a high wall between the path and the track. I couldn't see a lifeless wryneck but the train could have carried it for quite a way.
We waited another 15-20 mins but it didn't re-appear. We feared the worst and walked back to the car. We had to tell the newly arriving birders that the wryneck was no more.
We went to Bough Beech reservoir on the way home and the highlights were 3 green sandpipers, 2 snipe, bucketloads of pied wagtails and a grey heron fishing.
Snipe
It was a day that was initially joyful for having seen the wryneck but tinged with sadness at its likely fate! A memorable day shall we say. That's life!
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