As we enjoy last week of preparations
till the beginning of Spring season 2014, we do lots of maintenance-works. In
between, there are groups visiting the IBRCE Park and therefore ringing has to be done! (Don’t worry,
we handle this tough situation).
Numbers are still pretty low with no
more than 30-40 birds when we do open our nets. Variation, on the other hand,
is nice for these earl dates. We already get some migrants, right after
crossing Sahara desert, right after escaping from some hunters in Egypt among local species such as House Sparrows Passer domesticus דרור בית, White-spectacled Bulbuls Pycnonotus
xanthopygos בולבול
צהוב שת, Graceful Prinias Prinia gracilis פשוש and males of Sardinian
Warblers Sylvia melanocephala סבכי שחור ראש that are fighting all the way into the nets.
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One of the local species
Arabian Bubbler Turdoides squamiceps זנבן ערבי |
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| Arabian Bubblers Turdoides squamiceps צמד זנבנים |
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The first to come from Africa are the Swallows and Swifts (just as described in our last Blog-post).
Usually, during migration we are ringing every morning and also few evenings
every week. The evenings are devoted for swallow-roost-ringing mainly. But, on
8/2, even before we had the chance to start with our spring program we had a
special catch- Pale Rock Martin Ptyonoprogne obsoleta (wing 119mm) סנונית מדבר. As they fly high up there is
no chance to get these unbelievably fast Martins but this one most likely got
into the net since Yoav Perlman and I talked about catching this species only
two days before.
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| Pale Rock Martin Ptyonoprogne obsoleta סנונית מדבר |
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| Pale Rock Martin Ptyonoprogne obsoleta סנונית מדבר |
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| Pale Rock Martin Ptyonoprogne obsoleta סנונית מדבר |
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| Pale Rock Martin Ptyonoprogne obsoleta סנונית מדבר |
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One round later we were pretty sure we have
a big rat at the end of the Heligoland trap (there are usually no rats in the
desert so it was weirder than you might think). It wasn't a rat, yet not too
different from one: female Little Crake Porzana parva ברודית קטנה.
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| female Little Crake Porzana parva ברודית קטנה |
In addition we had two first Sedge
Warblers Acrocephalus schoenabaenus קנית פסים, two Reed Warblers Acrocephalus
scirpaceus קנית קטנה and
usualties.
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| Sedge Warblers Acrocephalus schoenabaenus קנית פסים Reed Warbler Acrocephalus scirpaceus קנית קטנה |
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| Sedge Warbler Acrocephalus schoenabaenus קנית פסים |
On the 12th we had one last
ringing before opening the season officially (on Sunday, Feb 16th we
start ringing daily! Stay tuned!). It was a rather short session but we still
had two Common whitethroats Sylvia communis סבכי קוצים.
Sunday it is all starting for real!
I don't know what about you, I'm excited
about having one more spring at the IBRCE. Just at the edge of north-east Africa, when millions of birds are crossing, rushing towards breeding grounds making
one of the toughest journeys on earth.
Yael,
Head ringer and guide, IBRCE
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