Recent weeks have been very
intensive for me with lots of ringing. The breeding season was very successful at
all of my ringing sites. In Tzor'a Valley every Friday session I catch about
100 birds. Last Friday I had 106 birds, with a nice surprise - an adult female
Bluethroat; normally Bluethroats migrate through Israel during October-November
and some stay for the winter. This bird was in active complete moult and
probably failed to migrate north this year.
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| Bluethroat |
On Sunday morning I ringed in
my CES and was positively surprised with 135 birds in very short time - it gets
so hot so fast; the first net round produced 70 birds and fourth (and last) net
round produced only one bird! 124 birds out of the total of 135 were Reed
Warblers. A few Reed Warblers, especially adult birds, completed their partial
body moult and had lots of fat, and probably started their autumn movement. One
of those adult Reed Warbler showed an extraordinary moult strategy - an active
primary moult. Normally this occurs on African wintering grounds.
In Atlit also very busy ringing
as a result of very successful breeding season, most of the terns we ring are
juveniles. Until today I ringed about 90 juvenile Little Terns, compared to 2010-11
in which I ringed about 30 juveniles per year. Also first autumn migrants are
here with first shorebirds around and first White-winged Tern ringed.
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| White-winged Tern |
.JPG) |
| Squacco Heron |
.JPG)
In mid-July I joined to the
annual Mt. Hermon ringing session, which was great fun but didn't produce any
surprises. Although I ringed for the first time this beautiful male semirufus
Black Redstart.
