James Smith's daily sightings reports

18th November 2001 - Kibbutz Lotan

A cold front brought cloud, rain and a bitterly cold north -western wind first thing this morning. Hardly tempting conditions for desert birding, and best regarded as very unusual for the Southern Arava but still I was out in the field by 06:15hrs.

Ten minutes later, I was pleased to find the Hume's Warbler still present in the northern section of the Kibbutz in the same tamarisk tree as reported yesterday and again the bird was calling loudly. From there I wandered down towards the swimming pool and began to notice Chiffchaffs - by the time I reached the organic garden it became clear that a major influx of Chiffchaffs had taken place overnight, almost certainly induced by the stormy weather conditions. At least 50 were in a relatively small area of the organic garden, and many more were in the residential parts of the Kibbutz occurring in parties of 10 or 15 birds, many of them feeding on the grass lawns. At least one was of the paler 'Siberian' form of the subspecies P. c. tritris.

The viewing was so compelling that I spent all the morning just around the Kibbutz grounds and the organic garden. The place was 'hopping' with birds, including our highest ever single day count of Song Thrush. Also, a Curlew migrating south high over the swimming pool circled several times calling, was just our second record at Lotan.

In late afternoon, I was down by the dairy barn again and found a very late Redstart, possibly our latest, and re-located the female Finsch's Wheatear, which I didn't see yesterday. Another superb day of birding at Lotan.

Selected highlights appear below. Species highlighted by caps can be regarded as notable for our local area;

Steppe Buzzard - 1 drifted south @ 07:49hrs.
African Rock Martin - 2
Red-throated Pipit - 178
Water Pipit - 8
Bluethroat - 22
Black Redstart - 9
REDSTART - 1 male by the dairy. November records are scarce at Lotan and this maybe our latest.
FINSCH'S WHEATEAR - 1, the dark throated female still present by the dairy.
Song Thrush - 10
Blackcap - 5
Chiffchaff - *139 is almost double the previous highest single day count for the Kibbutz grounds and organic garden.
'SIBERIAN' CHIFFCHAFF - 1 by the club -house.
HUME'S WARBLER - 1 in the northern 'neighbourhood'.
STARLING - 1 appeared briefly on the soccer field.
SISKIN - 3
Goldfinch - 5

Good birding to all,

James Smith.

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Contact info

Daphna Abell
Program Coordinator
lotan-programs@lotan.ardom.co.il
Tel: +972 8 6356935;
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