Friday 20 January 2012

Freeze and rain

Yesterday (19/01) I joined Yotam, Yoav and other ringers to a special operation in the Uvda Valley (S Negev). This is a third ringing session of Yotam in this site and our target was to catch desert's larks. We set up 570 m mist-nets in the frozen early morning. Our catch included 30 birds: 9 Temminck's Larks, 5 Bar-tailed Larks, 4 Desert Larks, 8 Trumpeter Finches, 2 Spanish Sparrows, 1 Blackstart and 1 Mourning Wheatear. We folded the nets in the rain, possibly the only rain event of this year in this arid zone.

Temminck's Lark - male

Temminck's Lark - left: male, right: female



Bar-tailed Lark


Trumpeter Finch - male

In the afternoon we returned to the wagtail roost, my regular site (about 200 km N), but rain interrupted our session. Despite the rain, we recaptured the Common Rosefinch I ringed in late December. This exceptional bird has yellowish plumage, otherwise it's just a normal Common Rosefinch - I would be very glad to get some feedback on this bird.





More details about the Uvda ringing in IBRCE and Yoav's websites.