Tuesday, March 22

The dark prince!

The day started with a good amount of birds in our traps. The two Festival groups which visited the park enjoyed a nice variety of migrants and were well satisfied.
Shortly after the they left Ute, our long returning German volunteer came from a net round and handed me a bag with an "not common" bird in it. As I looked in I was amazed to see a long black tail with white tips! after teasing the team a short while I took out this stunning Black Bush Robin!

Obviously the excitement was huge.  After ringing the bird , we sent an RBA and prepared for the twitch.

A few tens came quickly to witness the dark prince.

This is most probably a 2nd calendar year male. Note the striking moult limit in the secondaries .

This species used to be an extremely rare vagrant in Israel. During the last decade there have been some changes in it's appearance patterns, maybe due to range expending. We don't know yet whether our birds originate in Arabia or in Eastern Africa, hopefully more ringing might bring us some answers. 
 The BBR was finally released after an hour from trapping time  and hopefully will stick around for a while.

Other then the  BBR, some other quality birds showed up. A nice Scops Owl was a nice treat for the groups.

What a sweet owl!

The guys finally put their hands on the elusive Squacco Heron

And in one of their favorite poses:

All in all, this was an excellent day at the IBRCE with over 200 birds ringed, and many smiley faces around J
What will bring us tomorrow? 

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