6 Sep 18 - Local Ortolan

After another early Autumn of Birding around my local patches & not finding anything, a couple of days ago I went to the Northern end of Portland to look for a couple of Ortolans. It was a very pleasant afternoon & evening of looking in one of the quieter ends of Portland. But, there had been no sightings of the Ortolans since the late morning on that day, frustratingly followed by another brief couple of sightings the following morning. Well you can't see all the Birds you look for. It has been many years since I last saw an Ortolan in Dorset, as I have only made one other equally unsuccessful attempt to chase them on Portland in the last twenty years. However, I did see quite a few in Israel at Beit Yatir, Yotvata & Kfar Ruppin Kibbutz in 2014, so I've not been particularly worried about chasing them in the UK.

Whinchat: It is always a good start to see something interesting by the Renscombe car park

This morning I was out Birding again to St Aldhelms. I park at the Renscombe car park & generally walk down the main track to St Aldhelms Head. I always spend some time Birding in the weedy rough ground & checking the trees by Trev Haysom's quarry, now known to many national Birders as the Two-barred Greenish Warbler trees. Then I move onto St Aldhelms Head to check the quarry ledges & bushes at the Head. However, on the earlier trips this Autumn, the Head has been fairly quiet & the best Birding has been the rough ground by Trev's quarry. This morning I decided I was going to focus my time exploring & waiting in that area. This area is the top of a South Westerly facing valley which seems to act as a funnel for Birds to follow to the rough ground. There was a scattering of the usual suspects throughout the morning in low numbers: Whinchat, Wheatear, Spotted Flycatcher, Tree Pipit & Redstart, as well as, some of the commoner Warblers. This morning it was clear watching the top of the valley that migrants were moving up the valley, with some feeding in the area before moving on. I was glad to confirm my feelings for this being a good spot to focus on. Then I picked up what looked like a Bunting grovelling at the base of some Brambles. It was just a bit too far for the binoculars & I had left the scope at home. I couldn't get closer from where I was standing. So, I picked up the camera to get some photos. Looking at the photos on the back of the camera, I was really pleased to see a pale yellow eyering & yellow moustachial stripe: Ortolan.

Ortolan: The pale yellow eyering, long pale yellow moustachial & streaky breast are spot on for an Ortolan

Ortolan: To give an idea why I turned to the camera for help. This is the uncropped photo with the effective 13x magnification that the Canon 7D & 100 - 400 mm lens produced. The Ortolan is clearly visible (not) just to the right of pale stone in the centre of the photo. I am happy to go out Birding without the scope, but I am rarely seen without the camera. It is fairly heavy to carry, but I've got used to its weight & today it proved its worth

I looked again & couldn't see it on the ground. But the ground was uneven & it was likely to have just moved out of view. I decided to walk back to the gate where I could walk into the field (as there is a public footpath through the field). I walked to the Brambles, but all I saw fly up were the group of Linnets & another group of House Sparrows. I don't think it went up with either group & it clearly wasn't by the Brambles. All I can assume was it had moved while I was walking back to the field entrance. After twenty minutes of unsuccessfully looking, I saw another Birder. He was a visiting Essex Birder, James. We spent another couple of hours looking for the Ortolan, but still drew a blank. All very frustrating, but I'm pleased to have found a local Ortolan & at least get some presentable photos to submit the record.

Ortolan: After grabbed the first quick photos (above), I scanned again with the bins & saw the Bunting had popped up from a small rut. I then grabbed a few more photos, now I could definitely see the Bunting through the camera

Ortolan

Ortolan

Ortolan

Ortolan: To encourage me to Bird locally after moving to Dorset in 1996, I started a Ten Mile from the house list which includes all of Poole Harbour, Wareham Forest & the Purbeck coast from Tyneham to Durlston. This brings the Ten Mile list up to 283. There are still a handful of scarce but near annual migrants to Durlston that I could pick up if I spent more time on the coast, rather than in my Poole Harbour patches

Ortolan: There have been several records of Ortolans at St Aldhelms Head in the 1980s & 1990s when the Head was regularly watched by local Birders, Peter Williams & ex-local Steve Morrison. Steve believes this might be the first record for St Aldhelms for about 20 years

Ortolan: This was the final decent photo. In the next photo it was partly obscured as it dropped back into the small rut. I will be back at St Aldhelms tomorrow just in case it hasn't moved far

Ortolans have had an interesting status in Dorset in the last few years. They used to be regular from the end of Aug to early Sep at Portland in the 1980s & 1990s, but were always scarce elsewhere in the county. Since that they appear to have become scarcer. There was only one record for Poole Harbour seen by Nick Hopper at Ballard Down in Sep 07. Then a few years ago, local Poole Birders Nick Hopper & then Paul Morton, started night recordings at Portland & Poole Harbour, respectively. What followed was one of the more surprising Birding discoveries in Dorset for many years. Nick & Paul were regularly recording Ortolans at every site they left their recorders running overnight. Nick generally has sessions of leaving his recorder running overnight at Portland & has regularly recorded Ortolans calling at night as detailed, including sound recordings, on the Portland Bird Obs website every Autumn in recent years. Paul then tried recording at a number of locations including Lytchett Matravers, central Poole & occasionally at other locations in Poole Harbour. In 2016, Paul identified thirteen individuals calling at night over central Poole as detailed including sound recordings on the Birds of Poole Harbour website. He also had a brief morning sighting of one he flushed at Soldiers Road that year. Paul has had smaller numbers recorded in the last couple of Autumns which are detailed on the Birds of Poole Harbour sightings pages. The overall discovery by Nick & Paul, assisted by analysis by well-known sound recordist Marcus Robb has been written up on the Sound Approach website in a couple of articles here & here. To me their results are excellent & I totally believe their records. Given how skulky Ortolans are then it is no surprise that despite Nick & Paul recording these Ortolans at night, that few get seen the next morning. Their best nights have only had two or three individuals often in the middle of the night. So, it is not surprising that they aren't found the following morning, as they have probably travelled a long distance since they were recorded. There are many evenings where I've heard Redwings calling in the evening & gone out the following morning & not found any Redwings. But, those Redwings I heard calling at nine or ten at night have have flown on for another eight hours or more before dawn.

30 May 16 - A Short Trip To The Northern Owl-lands

The combination of not having a lot of time to get out Birding & a daily long commute to work, has meant the cameras haven't had a lot of use this year: hence the lack of Blog posts this year. But finally the opportunity arose to get the cameras out, for a short trip to the Northern Owl-lands, AKA Finland. It was a chance to get the majority of the Israel 2014 trip Birders back together with Mark Edgeller, Simon Ingram & myself, but with Andy Rhodes standing in for Nigel Jones. Think the others wished that Nigel had been joining us, as collecting Nigel could have been very exciting for the Hampshire based members of the team. Having picked up the other three from the Southampton area, I was half way up the M3, when Simon had a text from Nigel about a bird singing in his garden. Here is a clue photographed a few days later in Finland.

The number plate RBF is the not very subtle clue: Nigel had found the first twitchable RBF for Hants (unless you had a plane to catch)

We arrived in time for an early lunch at Heathrow. Simon regretted picking up a copy of an in flight mag at the departure gate.

Simon at Heathrow: Simon is a passionate Hants Lister, but as far as the RBF goes he is Mr Short List

The afternoon flights to Oulu, via Helsinki went smoothly & we arrived mid evening at Oulu airport. The pre-booked Ford Focus with Sixt was waiting for us to collect & we were soon off to the accommodation at the Virkkula visitors centre about 25 kms South of the airport. It was still light about 23:00 when we finally got to bed to grab about three hours kip, before the alarm went off just after 02:00 to tell us in it was morning. Actually, it had been morning for a couple of hours already as despite the sun setting about 22:30, it remains light enough to keep Birding through to sun up again.

It is nearly sunset at Virkkula at 22:30: There is a tower hide overlooking the bay in the right of the clearing

After a small breakfast & some drinks, we went out into the car park to meet the other 4 punters who were joining us for our morning Finnature tour in the Oulu area with our local guide, Taru. The drawback of the 24 hours light is the Bird activity is greatest in early morning, hence our 03:00 departure. We were soon in Taru's minibus & off to look for our first Owl. On the way, we passeda couple of Short-eared Owls perched on roadside posts. A trip in late May/early June is about the best time to be going to Finland as the Finnature guides try to locate all the breeding Owls & by this date, they should all be feeding chicks. Thus, they should have sites for these low density breeding species in the huge tracks of forests. They should either be still at the nest or not too far from their nest sites. The first Owl was nesting in this nest box put up by Finnature.

I was surprised how low the nest box was

A few whistles from Taru & the male came in very low just over my head, before sitting & watching us from a nearby tree.

Pygmy Owl: The first of my 3 Owl World Ticks for the trip

Pygmy Owl: We weren't the only ones tired by the early sunrise

After about 15 minutes, we left the Pygmy Owl in peace & headed off to look for the next goodie: Three-toed Woodpecker. A quick blast of a recording of drumming by Taru & there was an immediate response. Soon afterwards we saw it fly in to the trees near us, where after a bit of looking we ended up getting some nice views. I've only seen one before in a Tibetan forest & so it was good to catch up with this tricky to see Western Palearctic Tick. Taru ran another trip the next day, but they failed to see or hear the Woodpecker, but they did see Hazelhen which, unfortunately, we only heard.

Three-toed Woodpecker: Male. The initial views were in dense Conifers. The yellow cap indicates this is a male

Fortunately, it soon left the dense Conifers for some more open trees on the edge of the wood. With the low light levels soon after dawn, then having dense forest was not helping the photography. Many of the photos had to be taken with very high ISO settings.

Three-toed Woodpecker: Male. Fortunately, it moved to some more open trees on the edge of the wood

Three-toed Woodpecker: Male

Three-toed Woodpecker: Male

Three-toed Woodpecker: Male. Most Woodpeckers have 4 toes with two facing forward & 2 facing back, but this is one of the Woodpecker species that only have 3 toes (just about visable in this photo)

Next stop was to look for the much larger Black Woodpecker. There was an active nest, but the despite hearing the parents calling as we walked to the nest, all we saw here was one of the chicks.

The opening scene to "Once Upon a Time in the West (Boreal Forests)": It won't be as memorable as the Sergio Leone classic. Taru had the sense to have a coat with a hood which reduced the impact of the significant numbers of mozzies. Think the rest of us were quietly wishing we had a mozzie hat like the lady on the left, despite Simon & Edge trying to look like the mozzies weren't there

Black Woodpecker: It was a large nest hole

Black Woodpecker: Junior waiting for some food. Glad it wasn't a Tick for me

It was back to the minibus to try the Ural Owl site.

The now empty Ural Owl nest box is at the edge of this clearing

We arrived to find the Ural Owl chicks had fledged in the previous few days. Taru left us in the open & went into the wood to see if she could locate the chicks. After a few minutes, she returned to confirm one of the chicks was on view & she carefully led us into the wood, where one of the chicks was patiently sitting on a low branch, waiting for some more food. Nobody was going to get too close to the chick: partially as we didn't want to upset it, but mainly as the Ural Owl parents can be very defensive.

Ural Owl: This half grown chick was still trying to get its head around all the strange things in the world

At least one of the parents was nearby & after a while, we saw an adult fly & land in one of the nearby trees. Unfortunately, all the views we had were obscured by a mass of branches.

Ural Owl: Adult. I was pleased to get this photo as I had to switch to manual zooming due to the number of branches obscuring the Owl

A typical Finnish rural house: Dark red-brown & white painted wooden houses are the norm. Note, the ladder to the roof which is presumably to help clear snow off the roof in the winter. This house was just across the road from the Ural Owl clearing

Pied Flycatcher: Male. We were looking for the key species so there wasn't time to grab more than a record photo of this Pied Flycatcher before having to head back to the minibus to move onto the next stakeout

I had hoped to see one or two new European Butterflies in Finland. But we saw very few on the trip.

Green Hairstreak: There are five Hairstreaks in Finland: the same five that we have in the UK

Edge & Andy (right) catching up one some much needed sleep as we headed off to the Great Grey Owl site

The Great Grey Owl was our fourth Owl for the morning with an adult seen sitting on the large nest.

Great Grey Owl: Another Western Palearctic Tick, unless the proposed Sound Approach split gets accepted by Clements (as the only one I've seen before was in California)

Great Grey Owl: Shame the nest site was obscured, but we didn't want to get closer to try & get a clearer view

Taru heard a Greenish Warbler singing near the Great Grey Owl site. It remained at the tops of the tallest trees & only occasionally gave some views.

 

Greenish Warbler

It was only lunchtime, but that was our trip over. However, we had been out for an hour longer than expected & had spent 9 hours birding or driving: the joys of starting at 03:00. Taru dropped us back at the accommodation, where there was time for a quick cuppa, before heading off to catch up on lost sleep. The Finnature trips aren't cheap, at 250 Euros per person per trip. But the guides we had were both excellent & without their exact knowledge of Owl territories, then you could spend a lot of time looking without success. I would certainly recommend any independent Birders plan to combine these guided trips into a more general self organised trip. Note, you need to be booking them the previous Autumn to stand a good chance of getting suitable dates.

After a couple of hours kip, it was time to get up again, head off to find a supermarket & do some Birding of our own. About 10 days earlier, I had seen a pager message about an Oriental Cuckoo in Finland. When there was a second message a few days later, I started getting interested. After a bit of searching on line, I discovered it was a male that had returning for its second year to the same location & had just been accepted a few days earlier as the first Finnish record. There were a handful of earlier unaccepted records. A search of Xeno-Canto produced a few recordings from Russia, as well as, the Finnish individual (from 2015). However, I was struggling to figure out the exact location, but fortunately, Taru was able to provide me with a detailed location on google maps. So mid afternoon, we decided to give it a go. It was a three hour drive: initially through a fairly arable & rural area, but finally the forests became commoner as we got closer. Taru had said it was calling the most in the evening & so an arrival about 19:30 seemed fine to us.

There was a nice fallow crop field at the main site for the Oriental Cuckoo: We had Red-backed Shrike, Whitethroat & a pair of Whinchats in this field

Whinchat: This was one of a pair of Whinchats that had a territiory in the fallow field

Whinchat: One kept coming back to this dead plant, before dropping into the field

Whinchat: I think this was just a good vantage point, rather than a nest site, as I never saw it arriving with food

Whinchat

We were the only Birders there, but soon after a couple of Finnish Birders arrived. They gave us the good news that it had been heard or seen that morning, but the bad news that this was at two locations: the one we were at & a second one maybe about a mile away on another road. After chatting for about 15 minutes, they decided to give the latter road a try.

While we were looking, we thought it would be good to get a team photo: me, Edge, Andy & Simon

About 20 minutes later, the driver returned with the statement "You might want to consider looking in a different location to the one you are currently trying". Translation, "we have heard it on the next road". We quickly followed him back to the other road to see his mate on the roadside with a pair of headphones on. We got handed these headphones, to realise there were small mics by the earpieces. With the headphones, we could quietly hear the Oriental Cuckoo calling from distant trees. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a lot of trees in a sunken valley between the bird & us & closer tall trees was obscuring our view. I assume it changed it posture as we could finally hear its ooo-ooo-ooo call without the headphones. But it didn't seem close, especially knowing how far a regular Cuckoo call can travel. The Finns decided to call it a day. Well it had been there for over 2 months in the previous Summer & I guess they had seen it at least once. But as we weren't going to get another chance, we had to persist. We tried our Xeno-Canto recordings, but no joy. Then we tried to get a better viewpoint on the road & eventually settled on a point about 50 metres further along the road from where we had originally heard it. It seemed a little louder & the view was a bit more open, as there were a few missing trees in the foreground. It seemed to be calling from the same distant area. It wasn't possible to consider going into the trees, as the view would have been totally obscured as the Conifers were still pretty dense. So it was a case of waiting to see if it would come closer. About 21:45, I decided to give the recordings another go & suddenly one of the lads saw a Cuckoo sp. flying towards us. It had come from where the Oriental Cuckoo was calling, but there had been a regular Cuckoo calling earlier as well. To our relief, our bird gave a couple of ooo-ooo-ooo calls in flight as it passed overhead & disappeared in the direction of our original site. I must admit when I left the UK, I didn't think we had much of a chance of hearing it, let alone seeing it, so I was very happy. We were all relieved it called in flight, as it wouldn't have been possible to identify it in flight otherwise. It would have been great to see it perched up, but a calling Oriental Cuckoo in flight is still pretty good in Western Europe.

Oriental Cuckoo: I blasted away with the camera as it came into view over the road, having already watched it with the bins as it was coming towards us. This was a World Tick for me. I had seen Oriental Cuckoos in Malaysia & heard them in Sichuan in 1990, but these have now been split as Sunda Cuckoo & Himalayan Cuckoo, respectively

We did return to our original site, but couldn't hear it & suspected in had stopped well before that location. It was 22:00 & a three hour drive back to the accommodation, so it was time to leave.

But first there was the ritual to add the Oriental Cuckoo to the car list

The sunset about 22:30, but there was still enough light to see to drive home, without needing the lights (but they were on anyway). A fairly uneventful drive, with a few Woodcocks flying over the road. I had hoped we might have seen a Moose or two in a roadside clearing, but no joy. Still I can't complain, it had been an excellent day with 2 new Owls (Pygmy Owl & Ural Owl) & an Oriental Cuckoo. The Three-toed Woodpecker & Great Grey Owls were Western Palearctic Ticks. We were sitting on the accommodation verandah, enjoying a final cuppa & hearing distant Cranes calling at 01:00.

28 May 15 - April: A Variable Spring For The Studland/Ballard Patch Year List

Somehow I spent too much time out Birding earlier in the Spring & didn't get the chance to do an April round up for the Studland/Ballard Patch Year List. Well now the Spring migration is almost over, I had better do a quick catch up. Having finished March one ahead of my target of 130, I decided on an ambitious 150 for the end of April. All I needed to do was to hit a couple of good migrant arrival days & it should be possible. The month started off quietly with the Easter Bank Holiday on 3 - 6 April. Good Friday, true to form for a Bank Holiday, was a write off of constant rain. It finally cleared & allowed me to get out that afternoon. The highlights of which were my first Hirundines: a party of six Sand Martins, followed by a single Swallow North over South Haven. A scan in the evening revealed the Great Grey Shrike was still present on the edge of Godlingston Heath (I last saw it the following evening). Wildfowl were on the move on the next day, with a departure of 54 Brent Geese & 3 Canada Geese and eight Common Scoter flying East past the harbour mouth. More unusual, were singles of Jackdaw & Rook moving North over the harbour mouth. Despite being common species at the Ballard/Greenlands Farm end of the patch, they are fairly scarce visitors at South Haven & are only seen as they move North in small numbers over the harbour mouth. Most of the records are late Autumn & I think these are my first Spring records. It was slim pickings on Easter Sunday, despite spending a fair bit of the day in the field. Finally, the cold wind dropped on the Easter Monday and left clear sunny skies. A good day to check out Ballard Down for migrants. I was pleased to find a small fall here. I quickly added Blackcap & Willow Warbler to the Patch Year List. I'm sure Blackcaps must Winter around the gardens in the village, but it is a species I rarely see until the Spring. However, it was still fairly quiet with a couple of parties of Wheatears and just the occasional Swallow & Sand Martin quickly moving through.

Wheatear: It's always a good day when I bump into parties on the patch (6 Apr)

Yellowhammer: Male. Old Harry & Ballard Down are easily the best places in Poole Harbour to see this species (6 Apr)

The highlight came when I reached the ridge of Ballard Down: a Red Kite appeared over the ridge by the trig point, right above my head. I had a short opportunity to grab a few photos, before it slowly drifted off towards Old Harry. I thought it would turn to follow the Studland Peninsula North, but instead it headed steadily out into Studland Bay. I lost it about a mile out, still heading for central Bournemouth. I added the first House Martin to the Year List later in the morning.

Red Kite: A species I only gave myself a 50-50 chance of seeing as they are mainly erratic Spring migrants through Dorset on days of fine sunny weather & light winds. I was very relieved to have seen a Red Kite without any effort. I had expected to spend a lot of time sitting & scanning for one this Spring (6 Apr)

The sun brought out Butterflies, with small numbers of Small Tortoiseshells, Peacocks & Brimstones on the wing. I have managed to see Butterflies in every month of the year on the patch so far this year. It should be easy to keep seeing them until Nov.

Peacock: (6 Apr)

Small Tortoiseshell: (6 Apr)

It was slim picking the following weekend. After a week of warm, sunny conditions, the weekend saw a return to colder Northerly based winds which quickly halted the migration. The highlight of the weekend was a lone Redstart, hanging around a group of Wheatears in one of the Old Harry fields. The same pattern seemed to reoccur the following week, but I wasn't able to get out on the patch over the weekend (due to the twitch to Scillies for the Great Blue Heron).

I was keen to get out for the final weekend of the month. It didn't take long to find the first Whimbrels & Common Terns in Brands Bay. Slightly more surprisingly was my first Whitethroat was on the edge of Greenlands Farm. I typically expect to see them first on territory at Old Harry, but they hadn't arrived by the second weekend of the month (when I saw the Redstart). A distant Cuckoo calling was another recent arrival, but I had to wait until the start of May before I finally saw one. The other two highlights were a couple of Whinchats at Greenlands Farm, & as expected, the Reed Warblers were back on territory at South Haven. However, the most unusual record of the day was a Red-legged Partridge on Greenlands Farm: nearly ten years after my only other record in Oct 2005 of four individuals. I wonder where that came from.

Whinchat: One of two with a Stonechat party on Greenlands Farm (25 Apr)

The final April visit started with an early visit to South Haven. Frustratingly, over the two decades the beach has been severely impacted by dog walkers. When I first moved to Dorset, there used to be a good high tide roost of Waders at Pilots Point. Some days, it seems that half of Poole & Bournemouth feel the need to let their dogs run unhindered & crap wherever they like on the beach. The result is you need to be out early to stand any chance of Waders on the beach. This morning I got their before the hordes & found three Whimbrels on the beach. Even better there was a big feeding flock of Common Terns off the harbour mouth, with a couple of Little Terns in with them. This was a species I only gave myself a 50-50 chance of seeing on the patch, so I was really pleased to see them. The final highlight of a day spent covering as much ground as I could, was a Garden Warbler feeding on the edge of the South Beach wood. This brought my end of April total to a disappointing 147 species. While I managed to add 16 species in April, it was the first end of the month I had dropped behind my 2009 reference total. By the end of Apr 2009, I was on 148 & finished the year on 176). However, I had managed to miss a number of common Spring migrants this April, so I wasn't too surprised.

11 April 14 - A Morning At Yotvata

Another early start saw us heading to an early breakfast, so we didn't have to raise back to Eilat mid am for a late breakkie. Then it was back North to Yotvata. The sewerage works were the main location with another attempt to photograph a Little Crake. There were also a number of other species present at the sewerage works, as well as in the nearby kibbutz. We also had a look at the dunes next to one of the circular fields, but making sure that we didn't stray across the border. 

Looks like there was a formal border crossing at one point

The dunes nearby: Apparently the border is just a low fence in the dunes

Garganey: Male. My favourite Western Palearctic dabbling Duck

Osprey: Adult. Just in case you have forgotten what they look like since the photos a few posts ago

Marsh Harrier: Male of the nominate aeruginosus subspecies

Marsh Harrier: Male. Sand dunes aren't the normal habitat!

Little Crake: Female. The grey face of the males extends down to the breast

Spur-winged Plover

Wood Sandpiper

Little Green Bee-eater

Pied Wagtail: The White Wagtail alba subspecies

Yellow Wagtail: The Black-headed subspecies feldegg

Citrine Wagtail: Male. This looks like the werae subspecies which has a greyer mantle (whereas the nominate citreola has an olive or brown tinge to the grey mantle). Also werae has a less extensive black nape (which doesn't extent onto the sides of the breast)

Citrine Wagtail: Male. The werae subspecies is the commoner subspecies in Winter & on migration, but the nominate citreola does occur on migration

Rufous Bushchat

Masked Shrike: Female. Males would have black, rather than grey upperparts & would be deeper orange on the flanks 

Masked Shrike: Female. She finally moved to a natural background

Ortolan

Ortolan: Another photo of the same bird. The streaks on the breast indicates this is a 1st year bird which still retains some of the 1st Winter plumage

The next stop was the Caspian Plover area at the start of the Ovda Road, but very close to the start of the turnoff this time. We had met some Swedish birders the previous evening, who had seen a party of Scrub Warblers in the bushes in this area. A quick look & we located the birds, which remained quite skulky.

Scrub Warbler: This is the inquieta subspecies. Not a great photo, but it shows the prominent streaking on the crown, whitish supercilium, dark line through eye & dark eye. The Moroccan birds we saw earlier in the year had fine streaking on the crown, an indistinct buffy supercilium & weaker eye stripe

Whinchat: They will soon be passing through Dorset again

We returned to Eilat along the Ovda road that goes via the Eilat Mountains. This gave us another chance to have a look for the Hooded Wheatear, but this time we saw it. With the border fence in the background & being right next to the army checkpoint, I decided it would be better to leave the camera in the car: especially as it would have been a poor photo as it wasn't close.

Desert Lark: The birds found in the Southern Israeli deserts & the Sinai are intermediate between the deserti subspecies we saw in the Dead Sea area & the isabellinus subspecies of North & West Eqypt & SW Saudi Arabia

Desert Lark

Crested Lark: This is the brachyura subspecies which occurs in the Southern Deserts of Israel as well as North Libya to coastal Egypt, North Sinai, North Saudi Arabia & South Iraq. Other subspecies occur further North in Israel

Dorcas Gazelle: Mum & youngster. When they saw us they headed off into the desert, which we couldn't consider following as this is all firing ranges

A lot of the desert on both sides of the road was off limits during the week due to the firing range