Orrible January

January out here in the desert is not a great time for ringing, Firstly its damn cold, the nets have been frozen a couple of times when i've been out to them, its also wet this is the wettest month of the year, its rained at least 4 days and one of them was on a scheduled ringing morning, bummer. But the biggest factor is there are very few birds around! still we caught a few and managed to ring the 100th species for the greater Sde Boker region ( all be it the 99th for my main station in the pistachio plot) and what a beauty it was two, a 2cy male great spotted cuckoo. so due to the lack of activity and Chris not sending me the latest photos yet heres some from late last year.

Southern grey shrike

yellow wagtail



Isabelline Wheatear



Saharan horned viper

Black eared wheatears

White breasted kingfisher

Blackstart

Palestine sunbird

yearly summary

finally back online after nearly six weeks without internet. the year ended as it began with a slow trickle of birds into the nets, although one of these was a first for me and the site. A common kestrel was entwined with a southern grey shrike in the net, the shrike a bit worse for where, but i'm pleased to report has been seen in its usual hunting spots since. also of note was a black redstart from 2007, a young blackcap with a hungarian ring, and a young male black redstart that i first thought was of the semirufus subspecies but on reviewing the photographs i now believe it was of the eastern race phoenicuroides.
we finished the year with a total of 2565 birds plus a further 621 retraps of which two were foreign birds (turkey and hungary ) and a further 32 were returning wintering or breeding birds or local birds over 1 year since they were first ringed. all in all it wasn't a bad first years ringing for me, and heres to more birds in 2012.