Saturday, March 8, 2014

Slow ringing day, Bimaculated Larks and several subspecies of Stonechat

We opened the nets bright and early at 5:30 today, and were hoping for a migratory day, but that did not happen. A quarter of the birds in the nets were retraps from previous days, including the Robin from the first day of ringing. A grand total of 16 birds today.
Stonechat ringed today at Lotan
I left Jan Visser at 8:00 in order to guide a German couple for half a day. Shachar Shalev from Eilat came to have a look and help out a bit at the ringing station. The couple and I headed down to Yotvata to try to look for the Bimaculated Larks found there a few days ago. Within about 20 minutes we had already located the birds, seven in total, in amongst the Short-toed Larks. They were, however, at a great distance, and I could only see them with the scope, but no pictures. They really did look like Goliaths among a sea of Davids.

?Siberian Stonechat Maurus

In the southern circular field we had a show of Stonechats, including the variegatus and maurus subspecies. 

?Caspian Stonechat Variegatus


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