Last friday in Tzora, we had a pretty normal session with 91 birds. Two birds of note were a juvenile Woodchat Shrike and a Little Bittern.
One of the participants, Rafi, showed us something very interesting about one claw on each of the Bittern's feet, a tiny comb.
The comb is used for grooming, and is found on most Egrets, Herons and Bitterns.

The Shrike was the first Woodchat Shrike ever caught in Tzora, but definitely not the last, not even for friday.

After we finished folding all the nets, Yosef told us that they were going to drive around trying to catch more shrikes using baited traps. I went in Yosef's car and Chanan in Rafi's. 
As we started driving, we saw our first one standing on a wire, a juvenile looking for something to eat. we slowly stopped the car and put the trap out, waited for a few minutes and... it flew away. We continued driving and found an adult standing on the continuation of the same wire, put the trap out, waited (this time for much longer) and sure enough it came down tried to take the grub and *SNAP* it got caught. Great, we had one but we still had a bunch of grubs, time and patience left so we kept driving. 
After around an hour of driving, a few uninterested shrikes, two Stone Curlews and a Short-Toed Snake Eagle, we started heading back.  

On our way back we found another juvenile and put out a trap. The bird flew down, took the grub and flew away to a wild raspberry bush to eat it! Yosef and I were both annoyed but took advantage of the fact that the bird was eating to quickly reload the trap and put it out. The bird finished eating and went right back to the trap, this time without any caution. It yanked on the grub, triggered the trap and we had caught our second shrike!
We headed to the rendezvous to meet with Rafi and Chanan (they hadn't caught any), ringed and photographed the birds and let them go.  

When we reached the final cotton field of tzora, we saw quite a few Woodchats. Seeing as we had a few grubs left we decided to try and trap a few. Both times that we caught the birds,  they managed to steal the grub the first time and only get caught on the second try. Both birds were juveniles that were at different stages of a full moult, one was almost done while the other was just starting. What's special about this is, that according to all literature known to Yosef juvenile Woodchat Shrikes only perform such a moult after their arrival in africa, so this really was exciting. Yosef set up his special sophistacated "WPS" (Wing Photography Studio) and took pictures of the wings of both shrikes. 
 

So what started out as a pretty monotonous ringing session turned into an exciting adventure and an incredible discovery- a great day!

Sunday morning, Chanan and I went looking for nocturnal wildlife in the fields by Bet Shemesh at 4:00 A.M.. My first creature was some sort of beetle I saw on my street while waiting for Chanan.

When we got to the fields, we were hoping to see some owls.There were no signs of any at first, so we kept walking until we saw this Wolf Spider.

As we kept walking we were surrounded by bats, i have no idea what kind. Finally, we reached the point where we planned on turning back from, but decided to first sit down and rest for a few minutes. 
Since we were just sitting there I figured we might as well put on a recording of a Scops Owl because I had read that they respond very well to recordings. Five minutes later Chanan told me to turn the recording off because it was giving him a headache. So I turned off the recording, and it kept going! Obviously, another owl was responding to our recording! 
After a short search, we found the owl and managed to get horrible record shots, as you will see:

This past friday (6/21) we ringed in Tzora. My friend and I Chanan decided to wake up an hour early and take a walk through the fields near the ringing site, hoping to see some owls. Sure enough we found two breeding pairs, part of the biological pest control project in Israel. 

When we reached the ringing site we saw this bat- Kuhl's Pipistrelle, fly straight into the net:

Later on during the day, we caught a BEAUTIFUL adult Turtle Dove. 

This morning I joined Avner Rinot at the JBO. The JBO is located in the middle of Jerusalem right next to the knesset. The JBO is an "oasis" in the middle of the busy city, food, water, and trees to sleep in- perfect for a bird.
This morning we caught many of the JBO "specialties" (Common boring birds)- House Sparrows, Spectacled Bulbuls, Olivaceous Warblers and the like. All this was until around 10:00, when we caught Israel's national bird- (Right next to the knesset, don't forget) the Hoopoe!

Apparently catching a Hoopoe is not as exciting as I thought as there was not so much excitement among the rest of the ringing team. But since I'm used to the Tzora Ringing Station where only one Hoopoe was ever caught (And I had to leave for school right before we ringed it) I was quite excited. 

Someone requested that I post a link to the instructions for getting a level B license, the license I am now working towards.

B PERMIT (Hebrew)
B PERMIT (English)

We are now entering the summer, the least exciting season of the year. Last friday we caught 114 birds from nine species. ALL of the birds were common, birds that are caught almost every week, Reed Warblers, Sardinian Warblers and Cetti's Warblers (plus a few other species scattered around).
 With nothing interesting on the bird side, I had time to focus on another form of wildlife: 

More INTERESTING updates to follow (I hope).

It's been almost a whole year since I last updated this blog and obviously, a lot has happened. I decided though that it would be a bit annoying to write a post about everything that has happened since the last one, so i will pretend I have been writing regularly. 
This week in Tzora we caught 138 birds from 13 species. This week's highlight was a juvenile Zitting Cisticola that I ringed (I got my license a week after my last post, as I expected.).

Schedule for Friday 19/06/12
12:30- Wake up
1:10- Picked up by friend and his mother and drive to Modiin
1:45- Arrive in Modiin, Get Picked up by Rafi and Yosef- leave to the Chermon
2:30- On our way
3:30- On our way
4:10- Arrive at the gate and start waiting for everyone to arrive at 5:00
5:00- Start driving up in convoy style
5:20-Reach the ringing site (1,600 M)
5:30- Ringing
6:00- Ringing
7:00- Ringing
9:00-Ringing
11:00- Start driving back down to Modiin
14:00- Reach Modiin, get picked up by my parents and drive back home
14:30- Home

Since this was my first time ringing at the Chermon, I can now officially say that ringing at the Chermon is awesome and not just guess.

While we were there I saw four new species: 
1) Syrian Serin: 

2) Sombre Tit:

3) Rock Bunting:

4) Cretzschmar's Bunting:

Other species included: Spotted Flycatcher, Common Linnet and Balkan Warbler.

While we were ringing a very sick looking fox (One of the ringers is also a vet and he diagnosed it with a very serious skin disease) came to drink at the pool we were ringing by:

Hopefully this week I will finish my 300- I have currently taken out 272 Birds. 

Autumn migration is picking up! this week we had some migrants coming through such as this Sedge Warbler (My personal favorite):

And this Savi's Warbler

And obviously:

While we were ringing we heard and saw many Yellow Wagtails flying over so hopefully we'll start ringing them soon.

Last week Yosef declared that this week we would catch our first Common Kingfisher of the season. He was more than right- we caught four. In addition to that we unexpectedly caught our first Savi's Warbler for the season.
  

In the reservoir there were four Glossy Ibises and around 10 Little Egrets. In the air there were many Bee-Eaters and Barn Swallows. Later, a little while before we left two White-Winged Terns showed up and started hunting.

I have now taken out 83%(249) of the birds needed for a license.