Development
I have been to Ethiopia several times, but it is already 4 years since my last visit. During these years a lot has happened. The construction business is booming in Addis (and elsewhere too), the main roads are really good (a truly unbelievable change) and there is a lot more heavy traffic on the main roads. Particularly the road from Addis to the harbour in Djibouti is very busy with heavy and slow trucks, and overtaking is both slow and dangerous. Abandoned, neglected and forgotten by Europeans for over a century (since the glory days of colonialism, really) the Chinese have now seized the opportunity making Africa their “colony”. It is with Chinese money that the roads have been improved and it is Chinese investments behind the tall buildings in Addis. Is this the beginning of a brighter future for Africa, or is history only repeating itself?

Drought
Driving south along the Rift it soon became apparent that the rains had been poor. In this part of Ethiopia there is one wet season from June-July to September-October, but the amount of rain varies from year to year. The ground vegetation was all but gone at the bottom of the Rift, and vast areas looked more like semi-desert than savannah. The crops had been poor and you could almost tell it by just looking at the people. Big herds of cattle roam the dry plains disappearing in clouds of dust and the horizon is dotted with dust devils reaching for the clouds. To me this is the picture of Africa in the dry season.
Another matter of concern in Ethiopia, and in so many other African countries as well, is the rapidly growing human population. The western world is now busy talking about global warming and suddenly the population explosion is no longer an issue?

Deforestation
The population of Ethiopia is now around 80 million, but it has doubled in less than 30 years and has been growing by 2 million per year during this millennium. This is bad news for the environment. The deforestation progresses at frightening speed, and every time you go back you can see the change with you own eyes. This time the worst shock came to me at Wondo Genet, in the foothills of the eastern escarpment of the Rift Valley. Wondo Genet is one of Ethiopia’s famous birding sites, a place where everybody goes (approximately 7degrees 05mins North x 38 degrees 39mins East on Google Earth). It has been famous for its indigenous and well preserved forest covering the rather steep slopes of the valley above the village itself. It is a classic site for endemics like Yellow-fronted Parrot, Abyssinian Woodpecker, Banded Barbet, Abyssinian Oriole, White-winged Cliff-chat and Black-winged Lovebird, but the list of birds is long including species like Spotted Creeper, Narina Trogon, Half-collared Kingfisher, White-cheeked Turaco, Crowned Eagle and Ayre’s Hawk Eagle, Abyssinian Ground Thrush and Sharpe’s Starling, just to mention a few. And now, when I with great hopes started to climb the slope, I could not recognise myself! The forest was all gone! There was not one tree left of the conifer plantation, where Greater Sparrowhawk and Little Sparrowhawk used to breed, but much worse, the whole indigenous forest above it, covering several square kilometres in the past, had all disappeared! At first I thought that it had been harvested for fire wood by the locals, which is the way most of the forests go, but I soon realised, that the scale of the project was far too huge for the locals to manage in such a short time. Also the improved tracks into the forest, with rather fresh tire marks from big lorries, in a place where only foot paths existed in the past, explained it all. The forest had been illegally logged for timber, but nobody seemed to know, or want to know, who by? Still, the fact remains that the bird-rich forest above Wondo Genet is gone for good.

Birds
But, of course, there were brighter moments too. Generally speaking the birding was excellent, as it always is in Ethiopia. Our group added one new species to Ethiopia’s national bird list, when we saw and photographed two Lesser Crested Terns Sterna bengalensis at Lake Awassa, some 700 kms from the nearest sea, where they should have been. At the same lake we also saw and photographed a Eurasian Bittern, which apparently is only the third record for the country (according the new bird atlas by Ash and Atkins).
Other birds worth mentioning were the seven Lesser Jacanas we found on three different lakes, probably reflecting the drought and the drying-out of smaller bodies of water. At least 4 birds were found along a stretch of some 400 metres along Lake Awassa. All in all we recorded 434 species, which is not bad given our route, which did not include the Bale Mountains. Personally I only had one lifer, the Red-naped Bush-shrike, which was found thanks to our guide’s, Merid’s local knowledge.
Ethiopia is a great place for raptors, and we had superb views of 46 different species of raptors, the most memorable being those of African Swallow-tailed Kite, Lammergeier, Verreaux’s Eagle, PygmyFalcon, Eastern Chanting Goshawk, the endemic unduliventer subspecies of African Goshawk, Secretary Bird and African Peregrine Falcon.

This year, the first morning, on Nov 6th, was promising, with a very strong northerly wind. And indeed, everything worked according to plan. The first eagles appeared at around 0945 against the mountains of Jordan. In active flapping flight they were heading straight towards the Eilat Mountains, where I had placed myself for the day. The gale force wind kept them very low, and many birds actually passed below me, while the majority flew at eye level and many so close they would not fit into the frame of my camera! What a treat. During the first two hours 110 Steppe Eagles passed the point, mostly adults. After this the passage got higher and the stream drifted further south and was soon lost against the hazy sky. During these hours I took some 800 shots of tens of different birds, and the conditions could not have been better.

The next day I was back again at the same spot. The wind had dropped to almost nothing, so changes were to expect. During the same three hours I counted a total of 8 eagles, all very high and distant! Not one picture for the day. And no pictures the next day either, when the wind was in the south and the eagles went high again. So different can the days be.

Amazing fall of Siberian Stonechats
If you’re birding in Eilat at this time of year, you should see a few Siberian Stonechats in a week’s tour. So, understandably I got excited, when I found 5 quite close together on the 6th. But this was only the beginning. The following evening I saw 30 different birds, mostly in the so called S Fields east of the salt pans, while Belgian birder Hugues Dufourny (the only other foreign birder in all of Eilat, it appeared!) had counted 40 between the N Beach and the Bird Sanctuary. The next day (8th Nov) was no good for raptors, so I decided to go and look for Siberian Stonechats instead. I counted every bird I saw between the N Beach and the K20 reservoirs, never checking the same area twice. In the evening tally the number stopped at an amazing 129 Sibe Stonechats! Most of the identified birds showed white tail bases, showing them to be part of the more south westerly variegata/armenica –group. Another indicator of this fall of eastern migrants were the 3 Steppe Grey Shrikes, which were also found close together on the 7th. Over the next days most of the birds disappeared, probably continuing their migration to Africa.

In the south I had the opportunity to do some birding, both alone and with Spanish friends, and managed to find some locally good birds, like a Richard’s Pipit and a Lesser Crested Tern. Together with the guys from Migres, we also had two different immature Ruppell’s Vultures, now a regular visitor to the Spanish side of the Straits. Many people come to twitch these birds for their lists, but unfortunately some of the claims, even some of the published photographs, have been of dark Eurasian Griffons! Compare the two species in the image below, where the darkness of Ruppell’s compared to the Griffon is obvious. There is no colour contrast in Ruppell’s between coverts and remiges, which there always is in Griffon, and immature Ruppell’s never show the warm brown colours of Griffon.

Immature Ruppell's left with immature Griffon. Note differences in general coloration and also in colour contrasts. 27th Oct, Pelayo, Algeciras.

For the eagles I was on my own, working familiar areas which I had visited before. Centuries of persecution have turned the Spanish Imperials into extremely shy birds, and perched birds usually take off from a distance of 300 m or more, as soon as the car is stopped. When they fly, they usually go very high, and with the high temps of last week (+30 C on most days!) the heat haze made it impossible to get clear shots at those ranges. If they fly low, they veer off as soon as a human is spotted in their flight-path. They seem to take no risks whatsoever. Three full days with the eagles left me with very meagre results, although I learnt a lot about this very rare and localised eagle, actually one of the rarest in the world. During these days I saw at least 8 different adults, 4-5 juveniles, 2-3 second years and 1 older immature, with more than a dozen birds in some days. But the photographs I managed to get were no more than record shots. The adults were keeping close to their nests, doing some display flying in the early afternoons, but most of the time they were perched in tree-tops. The hunting was mostly done in the mornings, with birds, often the pair together, perched in tree-tops near some open ground with a good supply of rabbits. I even managed to photograph one hunt, where a juvenile Imperial managed to catch a rabbit, but the hunting skills of that bird still need a lot of honing, so clumsy was the attempt. Interestingly, in one of the displaying pairs both birds were just over one year old. However, it is perfectly normal for at least one of the birds in a breeding pair to be in immature plumage.

The opening picture was taken on the last day, when I had in fact given up. Somewhat disappointed with my success, I was already driving away from the core-area, to begin the long drive down to Malaga and the airport, when I spotted three raptors soaring quite low in the direction of the road. Getting closer the first one proved to be a Red Kite, which I was just going to stop for, when I realised that the other two, a bit further up the road, were juvenile Spanish Imperials! A Formula 1-type explosive start to get under the birds in no time, then a panic braking and a quick jump out with the camera ready managed to secure a few shots before the duo slowly circled higher drifting out across the fields.
I am sure this was all arranged by The Sender?

Thanks to Luis Barrios, Alex Onrubia, Antonio-Roman Muñoz, Javier Elorriaga and Juan Ramírez for their friendship and help with various matters, and to Miguel Ferrer and Ignacio Gil de Bernabé Rivero for the successful meeting in Sevilla.

This visit was timed to coincide with the migration of the Lesser Spotted Eagles, which go through Israel in big numbers, both autumn and spring. Israel must easily be the best place in the world to study the plumage variation of this species. On a peak day one can see thousands of these eagles and in the best days up to 30 000 or more Lesser Spots have been counted from one station!

a rather average adult Lesser Spotted Eagle

While waiting for the eagles to appear, you will of course see lots of other raptors, like Honey Buzzards, Levant Sparrowhawks, Lesser Kestrels, Short-toed, Booted, Imperial, Steppe and Greater Spotted Eagles, Pallid and Montagu’s Harriers, and many, many more. Or what do you say about 5000 Black Storks roosting in the Bet-Shean valley, or 45 000 cranes, which soon will be counted in the Hula Valley? Or flocks of thousands of pelicans on migration? All unforgettable experiences, well worth a visit each one of them.

The other reason for my tour was to look for Hume’s Tawny Owl, the least known owls species of the western world, I dare say. This also was a resounding success, with memories to last a life time.

But, of course, none of this would have been possible without the help of Israeli friends. Many thanks must go to Jonathan Meyrav, Dan Alon, Itai Shanni and Liron Ziv for helping with many practical details, and to Barak Granit for his expert help with the owl.

Hume's Owl in the desert W of the Dead Sea

Finland was hit by really cold and wet weather in June, at the peak of the breeding season, and lots of monitored birds were known to have lost their entire broods. Now it seems, that the populations may not have been able to compensate for these losses later in the season, and that the breeding output of the entire season is going to be record-low. Indications of this could already be sensed during late summer, when the results from the Constant Effort Ringing Sites started to come in.  There is still a remote chance, at least for some species, that the migration has been delayed owing to  late breeding attempts, but for many species the peak migration time is long gone, and it appears that many songbirds have had the “worst year ever”.

It will be interesting to see, if this generally low reproduction is reflected in numbers of birds further south along the migration routes, and if the effect can be seen in the numbers returning next spring.  Meanwhile, let’s hope for some decent migration for the coming weeks.

A flock of 19 nutcrackers must have made tens of attempts to migrate across the sea. Everytime they faced the open sea, they started to climb higher into the strong SW-wind, only to turn around and to get thrown back to the mainland. After 5 mins they appeared again, with exactly the same result. This went on from 8am. to 10 am. without a break. What a waste of energy, and probaly a waste of birds,too..

I’ve been to Greenland once before, in 1984, so I knew more or less what to expect, but moving between the places in a boat and seeing it all from the sea side made a huge difference. With a boat you can access places, which would be impossible to reach from the shore, as there are no roads in Greenland.

The bird list was going to be short, that was no news,  but there is always that remote chance of finding something unexpected on a sea voyage like this. And then there is the scenery of course. Stunning icebergs, deep fjords with steep shores and all those (receding) glaciers reaching the coast. And on the top, like the icing of the cake, you can see the massive ice cap of the interior.

The birding highlights for me where the many Iceland and Glaucous Gulls scattered all around the coast, with hundreds around the main fishing harbours. Practically all were adults, and very, very few immatures were seen at all, which seemed a bit odd. Where are they?  Also the numerous Fulmars, both light and dark, were a delight to watch. Several groups of adult Pomarine Skuas, as well as a few Long-taileds were seen from the boat, among the more evenly scattered Arctics.  Arctic Terns were already far out at sea with their young, having already started their autumn migration, as were the flocks of Red-necked Phalaropes encountered way off shore.

The highlight after all, was probably finding the “wintering” Great Shearwaters east of mainland Greenland. On the morning   of Aug 2nd the first birds seen from the boat were 2 Great Shearwaters (position N61 x W37), and after this these fine birds could be seen throughout the day, mostly in small groups of up to ten birds, until darkness fell. Most of them seemed to be resting on the sea, with 50 in the biggest group, and they took off only to move out of the way of the approaching vessel. In all we must have seen a thousand or more (but only one Sooty Shearwater). In the evening I finished watching at position n63 x w33, and by then the shearwaters had become scarcer. The next morning, at n63 x W27, now well inside the Western Palearctic limits, we only saw 1+1 Great Shearwaters, instead the first Manx Shearwaters started to turn up as we approached Iceland.

All in all a great tour, although we didin’t see any hoped for Sabine’s or Ivory Gulls. But then, that’s what birding is about.

There are still Long-eared Owls feeding nestlings, but then this is a migrant here, starting later than the resident species. However, last winter lots seemed to have wintered, as the food situation was extraordinary good. Many of the wintering birds also started to breed unusually early, and managed to fledge their chicks by late April, when the normal time to fledge would be now.
The tiny Pygmy Owls also had a brilliant season, and many of the pairs managed to fledge as many as 8 chicks.

A Pygmy Owl chick just hours after fledging

An Eagle Owl chick, nearly 60 centimetres long, imagines being invisible