James Smith's Daily Sightings Reports Fall 2001

2nd December 2001 - Southern Arava

Killian and I arranged to share a final morning in the 'field'. We met at Lotan at 06:20 hrs, had a coffee
and then went up to the western fields at Shizzafon. It was a perfect day, crisp, cool and sunny with no
wind. On the road to Shizzafon we saw a couple of Desert Larks and stopped for Killian to attempt to
obtain a sound recording. As we climbed out of the car there was also a Scrub Warbler singing close to the
road, and Killian managed to record both species. The day had begun well.

Arriving at the western alfalfa fields, I quickly recognized the fluty call of a Woodlark as it circled around the alfalfa and landed again. Woodlark has a particularly attractive voice and Killian was especially keen to get a recording. While he was busy, I had a lovely male 'Siberian Stonechat' perched atop the irrigation sprinklers, as well as species such as Northern Lapwing, Eurasian Skylark and Arabian Babbler. Killian was highly satisfied with his recordings of the Woodlark and with that we set off for the orchard groves to search for the Menetries's Warbler that we'd since last week, and in fact present there since the 20th November.

Killian found the Menetries's Warbler sitting high on top of it's favourite bush with a couple of Sardinian
Warblers allowing a really excellent comparison. Not only that but Killian managed to get some really great
sound recordings and some superb photos of this potentially 'tricky' species. After our success, we headed off to the eastern alfalfa fields, finding White-crowned Black and Mourning Wheatears as soon as we arrived. There were many Black Redstarts in the area and a number of pipits including 3 Tawny Pipits which are always good to see in December as most will have migrated much further south by this time. There were also 2 Tree Pipits in the same field.

It had been a good morning, especially for Killian, who managed to sound record a really fine range of interesting species. The heat of the day was already developing we headed back to Lotan where Killian went
onto the dairy barn and found the Finsch's Wheatear in it's usual place.

As I said goodbye to Killian, I really felt quite privileged to have shared so much of his time and found him more than willing to share his own very broad experience and knowledge. Let's hope it's not too long before we see Killian Mullarney back in Israel.

Good birding to all,

James Smith.

[next report ]

Contact info

Daphna Abell
Program Coordinator
lotan-programs@lotan.ardom.co.il
Tel: +972 8 6356935;
Toll Free: 1800 2000 75 (when in Israel)