25 July 14 - Photospot6 - Palearctic Wheatears

I wonder how many Birders living in the Western Palearctic don't have a soft spot for the Wheatear group. Living in Dorset, we only really see Wheatears as migrants with the very occasional bird hanging onto into the Summer suggesting they might occasionally breed. But I like seeing them as it means that when I see them, there will also be other migrants on the move. Also all the Wheatear species are great characters. The only regular species we get in the UK is the Wheatear (I don't do the trendy name of Northern Wheatear), with another 5 species having appeared once or more as vagrants. They are White-crowned Black Wheatear, Pied Wheatear, Black-eared Wheatear, Desert Wheatear & Isabelline Wheatear. Fortunately, I've managed to see them all over the years, including the only record of White-crowned Black Wheatear: which I suspect will remain high up on the wanted list of many twitchers who weren't twitching in the early 80s for many years to come.

I have been lucky this year to see a number of different Palearctic Wheatear species in Gujarat & Rajasthan parts of India, Morocco & the Western Sahara, Israel & Croatia. They have all appeared on this blog in various posts (or are new Croatian photos), but I thought I would bring them all together in one post, as I'm sure I won't be the only person who thinks the Wheatear group are great. So sit back & enjoy. The backgrounds are all bright & sunny, which goes with the current UK weather. Ironic as when I started writing this post it was bright & sunny and as I come back to put the finishing touches to it, I can hear the rumble of thunder.

White-crowned Black Wheatear: Adult. Eilat Mountains, Israel (10 April 14). This photo had the approval of the local Israel army checkpoint guys

White-crowned Black Wheatear: 1st Winter bird. Aoussard Road, Western Sahara (8 Feb 14). The black crown with a single white crown feather indicated this was an immature bird. The tail pattern was checked & found that the black was primarily on the black central tail feathers & did not have the strong T shape (that the Black Wheatears have)

Black Wheatear: Dakhla Bay, Western Sahara (11 Feb 14). The brown plumage & broad T shaped tail pattern, confirmed the identification

Wheatear: Aoussard Road, Western Sahara (12 Feb 14). A nice bright male showing off its tail pattern

Wheatear: Ne'ot Smadar, Israel (12 April 14). Female

Wheatear: California Farm, Swanage, Dorset (2 May 14). Guess I had better sneak in a shot from the UK

Eastern Pied Wheatear: Desert Coursers, Gujarat, India (15 Jan 14). Also known as Variable Wheatear as there are 3 distinct colour forms across its range. This is the picata form

Eastern Pied Wheatear: Desert Coursers, Gujarat, India (16 Jan 14). This is the picata form 

Eastern Pied Wheatear: CEDO, Gujarat, India (20 Jan 14). Male of the picata form transforming into adult plumage

Eastern Pied Wheatear: Tal Chappar, Rajasthan, India (25 Jan 14). This is the opistholeuca form & would normally winter in Northern Pakistan, rather than Gujarat

Red-rumped Wheatear: Male. Tan-Tan, Morocco (6 Feb 14). This is the moesta subspecies which occurs from Western Sahara to Egypt

Red-rumped Wheatear: Female. Tan-Tan, Morocco (6 Feb 14)

Black-eared Wheatear: Beit Yatir, Israel (8 April 14). Male. Eastern melanoleuca subspecies

Black-eared Wheatear: Male. Amran Pillars, Israel (10 April 14). Eastern melanoleuca subspecies

Black-eared Wheatear: Male. Velji Do, Croatia (5 May 14). Eastern melanoleuca subspecies

Black-eared Wheatear: Female. Velji Do, Croatia (5 May 14). Eastern melanoleuca subspecies

Persian Red-tailed Wheatear: CEDO, Gujarat, India (20 Jan 14). This is the Red-tailed chrysopygia subspecies. Note, the pale grey upperparts & slim, weak build for a Wheatear. This bird was wintering on a small Kopje (a small stony hill on the sandy plain)

Persian Red-tailed Wheatear: CEDO, Gujarat, India (20 Jan 14). It occurs from Transcaucasia to Afghanistan & winters in Pakistan & NW India. This is the Eastern of the two species (the Western xanthoprymna species being the one that occurs in Turkey and is now split as the monotypic Kurdish Wheatear

Desert Wheatear: Desert Coursers, Gujarat, India (16 Jan 14). This is the atrogularis subspecies (which is combined with the nominate deserti by some authors)

Desert Wheatear: CEDO, Gujarat, India (20 Jan 14). This is the atrogularis subspecies

Desert Wheatear: Aoussard Road, Western Sahara (8 Feb 14). This is the homochroa subspecies which occurs from Western Sahara to Egypt

Isabelline Wheatear: Tal Chappar, Rajasthan, India (24 Jan 14). Note, the upright stance & heavy bill

Isabelline Wheatear: Tal Chappar, Rajasthan, India (25 Jan 14). Note the black tail, uniform pale upperparts, black alula, and heavy bill & head

Unfortunately, there are a few gaps here. I did see a Hooded Wheatear, but right next to the Israeli-Egyptian border & an Isreali road checkpoint. The army guys on the checkpoint weren't worried about us being there, but were insistent no cameras were used along the border. They did check my camera earlier that day, but fortunately, they were happy with the White-crowned Black Wheatear (above) & didn't look further. As for the other gaps, hopefully I will get to fill some of those in the next few years & maybe give me the opportunity to republish this post.

5 May 14 - Birds Of The Croatian Hills

It was another early start to get up to the Velji Do road in the hills above Cavtat, Croatia to get the most out of our long weekend there. We dropped Ken & Gav at the viewpoint to walk along the road as the rest of us headed to the small village of Velji Do. This gave me some time for general photography around the village, while the Andy & Edge heading off in various directions for some general birding.

There are a few great trees by Velji Do village

Wood Warbler 

Subalpine Warbler: Male of the Eastern albistriata subspecies. Ironically, one reappeared at Portland Bill on the day we left for Croatia

Subalpine Warbler: Female

Subalpine Warbler: Female

Spotted Flycatcher: They were fairly commonly encountered

Black-eared Wheatear: Male. This is the Eastern melanoleuca subspecies

Black-eared Wheatear: Female. There was a pair around the village, but it took some time to get close to them

Cirl Bunting: Male. This is the nominate cirlus subspecies which occurs from the UK to the Mediterranean & North Africa, but is replaced by nigrostriata on Corsica & Sardinia

Wall

Dalmatian Wall Lizard: Mating pair. They looked superficially similar to Sand Lizards (which also occurs in the same habitat on the Adriatic coast). Males have a green mottled back and this intense orange throat

When we all met up, we decided that as it was much colder & windier than the previous morning, we would drop down to explore the valley bottom next to the airport. This proved to be a good decision as it was a lot more sheltered & pleasant there. We found a small minor road crossing the valley bottom & made a number of stops along that road.

The minor road across the valley bottom

The hills above Cavtat: The Velji Do area is further to the left & off the photo

Yellow-legged Gull: Adult. The nominate michahellis subspecies breeds on the islands in the bay

Spotted Flycatcher

Golden Oriole: Male. Despite being commonly heard, this was the only one that showed itself long enough for a photo

Spanish Sparrow: Male

Heading back into Cavtat for a late breakfast, I spotted a party of Alpine Swifts hawking over the hillside next to a block of flats, on the edge of town. Having dropped the others at the accommodation, I headed back for an impromptu photo session.

Alpine Swift: This is the nominate melba subspecies

Alpine Swift

After a late breakfast, we quickly packed & moved all the bags into one room, which we were allowed to keep until the evening. Again another sign of how helpful Antun & Natasha were. We then headed into Dubrovnik for early afternoon to do the tourist thing.

10 April 14 - Finding A Rare Wader

It was another early start as you can never have enough early starts when you're on holiday. First stop was back to Eilat's North Beach to see if we could get better views of the White-cheeked Terns. In one word - No: didn't even see them.

The lads on the beach

Squacco Heron: At least this bird was around to photograph

Squacco Heron

Indian House Crow: There was one or two around

It was fairly quiet, so we quickly headed onto the km 20 saline ponds. Scanning the Waders on the Southern pool showed there was a interesting pale Phalarope feeding with the main group of Waders. Was waiting to get a chance to have a look through one of the scopes (didn't take a tripod for my small scope which was in the car anyway), when Simon called it as a Grey Phalarope. We all had a look at it & didn't think too much of the record, other than it was a new bird since we were there the previous day. At that point, Itai arrived & we mentioned it and I was a little surprised when he said he was about to send out a rare bird alert on it: as it's a vagrant & description bird for Israel. Not really sure if we found it or not, as there had been some other birders there when we arrived, but they had moved on, by the time we got to the Grey Phalarope area.

Grey Phalraope: I'm not sure how many records there have been, but sounds like it's no more than about 30 records. The Israelis call this Red Phalarope (following the American name), but the British name is clearly more appropriate for this bird

Red-necked Phalarope: This is the common Phalarope with several present on each visit

It was a quick dash back to the hotel for breakfast, before they stopped serving it. Feeling refreshed, the next stop was the car park next to Dolphin Reef for another look for the Little Green Heron. After a while, both birds appeared, but too far away for a photo. While we were waiting, we watched some White-eyed Gulls on the Dolphin Reef pontoon.

White-eyed Gull: Adult. This Gull has a restricted range of the Red Sea & the Gulf of Aqaba to Yeman

We headed off on the Eilat Mountains road to look for the Hooded Wheatear that was around an army checkpoint on the road. It doesn't take long for the scenery to get very arid. The soldiers on the checkpoint were fairly relaxed about us birding there, but warned us not to take photos of the Egyptian border fence. We spent about a couple of hours looking around the wider area, but no sign of the Hooded Wheatear.

The mountains are very arid

Looking back to Eilat

Bird hide: Israeli Army style (small). They didn't tell us we couldn't photograph the gun emplacements (but the photo was taken through the car window to avoid any hassle with the army)

White-crowned Black Wheatear: Fortunately, this bird was sitting on a road sign near the border fence, but sufficiently far enough away to get away with a photo. When the army checked the camera, they were impressed with the photo & didn't ask to look at the other photos so I got away with the bird hide photo

Selfies are all the rage these days: Proving I'm not too old to take one (badly)

Late afternoon saw us heading off to the Amran Pillars. A scenic site a few kms further north of the km 20 water tanks & on the West side of the road, but didn't see a lot of birds there. After that we headed down to the fresh water tanks at km 19 to look for Lichtenstein's Sandgrouse, but there were a lot of other people there along with a local nature tour group. The Lichtenstein's Sandgrouse did appear, but right on last light.

Amran Pillars: The pillars are tucked away at the top of this dried wadi

Amran Pillars: The geology is fairly complex here

Amran Pillars: Finally the Pillars

Sand Partridge

Black-eared Wheatear: Not the first bird seen in Israel keeping a careful eye on the skies. Not surprising with the numbers of Raptors moving North