Israel is now running out of birds, we only have a few birds left here. We’ll make an effort for Pin-tailed Sandgrouse, and we will continue to search for that possible Caspian Plover. Anyways, I’m getting ahead of myself here. The first day for this post was allocated in it’s entirety to search for a Batteleur, an African Eagle lost in Israel for the last couple of years. Large beautiful fields in the area of Gal’on, we spent the entire day searching the fields. No eagle, enormous amounts of White Storks and raptors though. Black Kites, Short-toed Eagles, Steppe Buzzards, Long-legged Buzzards and one Greater Spotted.
No Batteleur though, maybe we’ll make time for one more effort on that bird, it is there.
Camped just outside Sde Boker kibbutz, with the idea to jump up early and search for Barn Owl in the Kibbutz. Just before we went to sleep, we heard wolfs howling, then just after that, the jackals also howled and we got confused. But then we saw them, two Arabian wolves walking in the moonlight. Mmmm.
No Barn Owl there, we’ll get it later, no harm in trying except sleep deprivation. Once in the car again, Erik checked Facebook, and shouted out – hey – President Trump has resigned. Uhh, we go – maybe not. it’s April first. We then post on our FB that we give up due to “social tension in the group” – we thought that was funny. Sde Boker is not as good for migrants as the Ben-Gurion memorial site close by, we went there and found a Hume’s Warbler (which we already had from Kuwait)
As well as a pair of migrating Collared Flycatchers.
Next wanted bird was Dead Sea Sparrow, which we had already halfheartedly searched for. Now we went to – tada – the Dead Sea, they have to be there. Searched tamarisk bushes here to no avail, and then died in the shadow of a nearby petrol station. Once the heat became non-lethal we went back to the same bushes and continued the search, and now with less heat the birds were more active and we could easily find them.
Set camp nearby the site of the Dead Sea Sparrows, perfect camping spot in a small wadi. In the evening we had a date with Barak Granit for a session to see Nubian Nightjar and Hume’s Owl. Two difficult species. Barak Granit delivers.
We had excellent views of the Hume’s Owl as well.
I’ve said it before – camping is great. And what is absolutely best with camping is that you wake up on the birding spot. At first light – even before coffee – we all wander about and do random birding. Lovely and completely unorganised. We had:
With the Dead Sea species pocketed we went south again, towards Eilat, with a short stop at some ponds where Red-billed Teal was seen last year .. hmmm. Spent the entire afternoon on the famous Yotvata Fields. Spectacular birding there, nothing new though. A tricky Pallid Harrier forced us to look close at the characteristics.
