Late October – Eastern Vagrants and a MEGA find

Late October is always an interesting time in Israel. The birds on the ground are plentiful and good species can pop up just about anywhere. This period of the year is usually characterized by the movement of migrants of eastern origin and brings new and interesting challenges to every day’s birding. We are happy to bring you a short summary of observations in Israel in late October coloured with a  definite eastern flavour.

Israel’s northern valleys produced good birds this month with a beautiful 1st winter Steppe Grey Shrike seen at the Hula valley from the 11th of October. The fields around Kfar Ruppin were full of birds and held another Sociable Plover, the second of the fall. A few Isabelline Shrikes were found around the fields and in various other localities in late October.. The winters first Oriental Skylarks were found in the fields on the 10th-11th and a Little Bustard was found in the Beit Shean valley on the 20th. Another Steppe Grey Shrike was reported from the Kfar Ruppin fields on the 23 rd.

A short trip to Sdeh Boker College was a great success with the highlights being no less than 7 Red Breasted Flycatchers seen around the complex in a single day. A few other RB Flycatchers were reported from various other places around Israel.

A good movement of Crakes was evident around northern Israel and Little Crake was seen nearly daily. There were a handful of records of Baillon's and Spotted Crakes including this beautiful Spotted Crake found on the 18th of October at Kfar Ruppin.

The bird of the fall was Israel's second Long-toed Stint found by Steve Mann and Ben Dvir on the 22nd of October. This rare Siberian vagrant was found at the Maoz Haim fishponds and stayed for at least 2 days, many of Israel's birders got good views ( and good images ) of this eastern Mega. Israel's only record to date was an individual found at Eilat in August 1991. The Long-toed Stint, probably a bird moulting into adult plumage was seen feeding alongside Little Stints and we are attaching an image of the bird with a Little Stint for direct comparison.

Southern Israel also produced some good birds at the end of the month, besides the little influx of Red Breasted Flycatchers mentioned earlier there was also a River Warbler at Sdeh Boker on the 19th, a Desert Warbler at Nizzana and a beautiful Ring Ouzel seen around Mitzpe Ramon. The bird was found at a site where up to 3 birds were present last year and is turning out to be one of the best sites in Israel to see this species in fall.

We are now entering a transitional period; many wintering species are making an appearance and other species growing in numbers. The Hula valley is a spectacular place to go this time of year with over 10,000 Common Cranes already present with large numbers of waterfowl and waders providing great views from the various hides. The first wintering birds of prey are showing up with small numbers of Imperial and Spotted Eagles seen daily. A Spotted Eagle showing characteristics of the rare ssp. fulvescenes was reported in early November.

October was definitely a great month of birding in Israel and all eyes are open for the surprises November has in store. I am happy to add Steve’s excellent detailed field report of Israel’s second Long-toed Stint and would like to thank him for his images and for a great time together this fall.

Good birding, Jonathan Meyrav.

Here are Steve's impressions:

At around 10.30 am 0n 22nd October, I set off from Kfar Ruppin with Ben Dvir to check the fishponds at Maoz Hayyim. Shortly afterwards we found a dried out fishpond containing many waders and quickly located a Golden Plover sp. We drove a little closer to get better views of this bird but quickly identified it as just a Eurasian Golden Plover. Then Ben mentioned that he could see an interesting stint at the other end of the pond. From my position in the car I only had a distorted view of the bird through the car windscreen, but the much browner appearance compared to the nearby Little Stints immediately suggested to me that this might be something interesting. We drove slowly alongside the bird in order not to disturb it and soon realized that it could not be a Little Stint and noting the differences in structure and plumage, I suggested it looked most like a Long-toed Stint. At this point Ben urged me to get pictures of the bird, but I was unable to get the bird in my scope, being on the wrong side of the car, so we had to manoeuvre the car once again until the bird was on my side. At first. it was very difficult to get sharp images of the bird due to intense heat haze (and mild panic), but eventually as the bird came closer I managed to get some reasonable images. In between taking photos I took extensive field notes and discussed with Ben the identification features that we could see.

By now I was fairly certain of the bird's identity, the only doubts being that the bird was in a relatively less well-known plumage. The fact is that neither of us had seen the species before; however, we had vague memories of a problematic Little Stint found by James Smith at Eilat in 2003. Ben then took the Collin's Bird Guide out of his rucksack and translated the Hebrew text, which mentioned many of the features we had already discussed. While I photographed and took field notes on the bird, Ben had telephoned several people and Zev Labinger came to see the bird for a short while. Unfortunately, Ben had to leave shortly after this  as a group of people he was supposed to be guiding were getting a little impatient. A few minutes later,  Arnon Tsairi arrived to see the bird but by then the bird became more mobile and was lost from view. I took this opportunity to return to Kfar Ruppin to download my photographs and to pick up Amit Geffen. When we returned, Amit relocated the bird on the original pond where we watched it briefly before it flew off again to a nearby full fishpond. Yoav Perlman relocated it there about 30 minutes later on the rocks around this pond, and we drove around to view it. The bird remained on this pond until just before dark when it appeared to return to the original pond. Several other birders came to see the bird including Barak Granit, Lior Kislev, Tomer Landsberger, Eran Banker, Nir Sapir and Rami Mizrachi.

Apparently the bird was also seen and photographed the following day ( 23/10/04).

The following is a just a brief summary of some of the identification features of the bird:

In size it appeared slightly smaller than the nearby Little Stints and much slimmer bodied than the much rounder LS, which in comparison appeared as if they had swallowed a tennis ball. The neck appeared much narrower and longer and when stretched appeared very long and gave an appearance reminiscent of a miniature Wood Sandpiper. The head also appeared comparatively much smaller than nearby LS. The bill appeared narrower than the LS and slightly down-curved. The legs appeared longer especially the tibia and the toes were very long, the central toe being much longer than the bill. Most of the time the legs were covered in mud and it was difficult to determine the exact colour. However, once the bird found its way to the full fishpond, the legs could be clearly seen to be dull greenish-yellow. The bill was also mainly covered in mud but a small paler yellowish area could be seen at times at the base of the lower mandible. The tertials appeared very long reaching the end of the tail and completely cloaking the primaries. The overall general plumage tones appeared much browner than the LS. The crown had a uniform pattern of dark centres rather than the darker central ridge and paler sides of LS. The ear coverts had a diffuse darker area in the upper corner lacking the darker and more extensive ear covert patch of a Least Sandpiper. The head pattern appeared quite subdued, the supercilium being most prominent and bulging in front of the eye and becoming fainter behind the eye. A narrow dark line on the lores did not quite meet the eye or the bill but was joined narrowly to the dark forehead feathering. A narrow whitish eye-ring was apparent, most prominent around the rear half of the eye. The breast appeared well streaked forming a pectoral band and giving the bird a passing resemblance to a miniature Pectoral Sandpiper. This streaking continued narrowly onto the flanks.

The plumage of the bird appeared much worn and I believe it is most likely to have been a 2nd calendar year bird, due to the extremely worn (juvenile) wing coverts and tertials virtually lacking any edges. Juveniles apparently usually do not replace the wing coverts during the moult to first-winter (Shirihai, Harris and Christie 1996). It is possible that the bird was starting its moult into full adult winter plumage, as most of the bottom row of lower scapulars were missing, but judging from the extent of wear on the coverts below this area, they may have been missing for some time.

Steve Mann

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