Eilat Festival - Pied Bushchat - boom!

Joined the Eilat Festival today, and it was a super day indeed. Headed south in the morning, and through the C Negev (Sde boker area) there was very good Lesser Spotted Eagle migration going on - I had several hundreds, including some nice thermals:

Lesser Spotted Eagles and Steppe Buzzard

Did a couple more stops along the way but saw very little, including Neot Smadar that was practically dead when I drove through the fields and groves. Arrived at Eilat around lunchtime, and while I was having a bite I got a call from Igal Simantov saying he had just found a Pied Bushchat at Neot Smadar! Where I was just an hour before! And missed it! 

I led the afternoon tour, so we all headed towards the bushchat site and it was on show when we got there. Not as well as it did before - it had flown in and away across the kibbutz fence before we arrived, but it was still showing on a dead tree with some doves. All the guests were very happy with this fantastic mega (well done Igal!). Even though it's lost some of its magic in Israel - 7th record and third in three years (see here for instance), but in a WP context it is still a huge rarity, and some very keen WP listers were happy to see it. I guess a couple hundred birders connected with it during the afternoon. 

Pied Bushchat and Laughing Dove

The bushchat twitch took us longer than I expected, so we had time only for KM19 sewage before dusk. The reservoir was packed with birds, and as always there was very nice movement there before dusk. Highlights included 3 longstaying Ferruginous Ducks, some Garganeys, 2 Black-necked Grebes, several Citrine Wagtails, 2 Ospreys, and this adult Gull-billed Tern that flew past after sunset: 

Our main target for the evening was Lichtenstein's Sandgrouse. A very large group of birders assembled at the ponds at dusk, and it was a good experience to see everyone sat quietly in the right place in order not to disturb the birds coming in to drink - quite a challenge with such a large group but it all worked well. After dusk three sandgrouse came in to drink - typically very late. Great end to an exciting day!

 Artistic impression of male Lichtenstein's Sandgrouse

Eilat Festival days 6 & 7 - rambo tours!

Got back home late last night - only now I have time to write about the two very intensive but highly rewarding days.

On Monday I led the Dead Sea Rambo tour with Meidad. We left Eilat before dawn, and early morning we arrived at Metzoke Dragot to witness the massive raptor migration there, like Noam had had with his NABU group on previous days. But Mr. Murphy worked extra hard, and we had almost no raptors whatsoever, only some local breeding Eurasian Griffons, Egyptian Vultures and Short-toed Eagles. But there was still some good birding to be done in the area. Nubian Ibex were presnt in good numbers, mainly females and cubs. 

Common desert species such as Fan-tailed Ravens, Scrub Warblers and Trsitram's Starlings preformed well near the village.

Fan-tailed Raven

We then went to the watchpoint overlooking the Darga gorge. We saw two Bonelli's Eagles - an adult male and a 2cy, interacting, flying, landing, collecting fresh nesting material - very good action. On the same hill, as usual, we had a singing male Striolated Bunting. Great stuff.

Striolated Bunting

After a lunch break at Ein Gedi, where we added Rock Hyrax to our mammal list and Bllue Rock Thrush to our bird list, we went to wadi Mishmar. It was hot and rather quiet but still quite a few migrants around.

Noam tipped me off on a purple patch at Heimar reservoir south of the Dead Sea. We arrived there in the afternoon and had a really good time. Very birdy site indeed with some quality stuff. There is a nice colony of Dead Sea Sparrows there - we saw only singing males; I assume the females are on eggs. Such lovely little sparrows.

Dead Sea Sparrow

The bloody camera focused on the wrong bird...

Lots of other good birds there, including Caspian Stonechat, Subalpine Warbler, two Citrine Wags, Clamorous Reed Warbler etc. 

Caspian Stonechat - 2cy male

In the photo above the tail looks completely black, but when he spread the tail much white was evident of TF.

Cretzschmar's Bunting

Before dusk we arrived at Neot Hakikar. We checked a good site where we had three singing Clamorous Reed Warblers. A Golden Jackal was very curious about us. A Pied Kingfisher was hovering against the pink sky. Very special atmoshpere.

Golden Jackal

Pied Kingfisher

After dusk we found Nubian Nightjars very easily and our group enjoyed great views of these rare birds.

Nubian Nightjar

We then headed to a wadi in the Judean Desert where we obtained  a permit to search for Hume's Owls. It was actually super difficult - tough walk in the dark, long search, deminishing adrenalin levels, but eventually presistence and perseverence paid off, and we had breathtaking views of a male Hume's Owl - wow. We returned to Eilat almost 24 hours after leaving, exhausted but very satisfied.

Next morning was one of the most embarassing moments in my birding career. After very little sleep, I woke up at 06:30 from a phone call from two European birders: "we've just found an OBP at imax park". Half asleep I grabbed my bins and camera and headed over. A small crowd assembled, including some of Europe's finset birders. We all watched a perfect Tree pipit, but because we had a pre-conception of OBP, and we were really eager to see a good rarity, we all dismissed the doubts in the back of our heads and said nothing! We discussed the amount of variation in OBP, especially after the bird flew up to a tree and gave a good OBP call, and were all very pleased. Only when I had my first coffee of the morning I understood what an idiot I was after reviewing my images. Lesson learned I hope.

Anyway, later on I checked Ofira park which was better now with Wryneck, two Rueppell's Warblers and quite many other migrants. Around midday there was at last good raptor migration over the city, viewable from my hotel room - my first views of proper raptor migration this week... 

Rueppell's Warbler - adult female

In the afternoon headed north for another rambo tour. On the way out of Eilat got a tip from an English friend  about a day-roosting Pharaoh Eagle Owl just north of Eilat. I found the bird easily thanks to the very percise directions, and later on all Festival tours saw the bird (thanks Chris). Fantastic!

Pharaoh Eagle Owl 

In the afternoon I met the Sunbird group led by Paul French. We checked again the Heimar reservoir site - still very good with little change from the day before. We met up with Jonathan who was with the Festival group, and this time we did the Hume's Owl first, in a different wadi. It worked really well and easy this time - we had extraordinary luck watching a pair interacting, calling, flying back and forth. Wow again.

Then down to Neot Hakikar. Nubian Nightjar was easy again; in and out in a few minutes. Quality birding.

That ended my role in this year's festival. Many thanks to all the festival guests - it was a real pleasure to meet you guys. Special thanks to the festival organizers and co-leaders - Dan, Itai, Jonathan, Meidad, Noam and Yuval.

Eilat Festival day 5 - Producing water from a rock

Here you will see how I take images from a rather slow day to create an interesting post.

Spent the morning birding with Meidad. We had high expectations after yesterday, but today materialized to be another migrant-less day. On the way to Yotvata Meidad spotted a Hooded Wheatear sat by the road. Very nice. At Yotvata few migrants, only the sewage ponds had some birds including Squacco Herons. 

Hooded Wheatear

Water Pipit

Eastern Black-eared Wheatear

Listen to this sound-recording of samamisicus - so distinctive. This one's for you Martin.

Lotan was very empty too, only one Red-throated Pipit there. It had a ring on - probably had been ringed there in previous years. 

A flock of 60 Black Storks going over was nice to see.

Mammals today included Dorcas Gazelle and Cape Hare.

In the afternoon checked Holland Park, which had several Rueppell's Warbler, and the clients really enjoyed this singing male Sand Partridge:

The canal south of KM20 saltpans was OK with Citrine Wagtail again, and a plexa-type Yellow Wagtail:

Citrine Wagtail

Eilat Festival day 4 - the day of the black beauties

I had so much fun today. At last the weather changed last night, and today a dramatic change in birds on the ground was evident. We started off early at KM76. The place was just packed with migrants - dominant species were 400 Short-toed larks, 50 each of Northern and Isabelline Wheatears, 30 Tawny Pipits, and 30 Cretzschmar's Buntings. Goodies included two Asian Desert Warblers, 6-7 Bimaculated Larks, Desert Wheatear, 5 Spotted Sandgrouse, Rueppell's Warbler and more. There were huge numbers of Painted Ladies on every bush, and all the birds were having a feast on the butterflies. Here's a murderer Asian Desert Warbler brutally destroying a butterfly:

Asian Desert Warbler

Painted Ladies - so many in one frame!

Desert Wheatear

Cretzschmar's Bunting

Rueppell's Warbler (out of focus, sorry)

 Blue-headed Yellow Wagtail

Very satisfied we left KM76 and headed over to Yotvata. While having breakfast at the cafe, we received a call from our Finnish friends Mika and Erkki that they had just found a Black bush Robin at Neot Smadar sewage. Without thinking twice we quickly packed up, deserted our plans for birding in Yotvata and headed there. By the time we got there the Finns had already found a second bird, 100 m away from the first one! We got on to both birds very quickly, and the whole group had great views of these charismatic birds. I am really pleased we saw them during the festival. They are really one of the festival's iconic birds, and of course it was a lifer for most of our clients. I wasn't able to take any proper photos with 50 birders walking behind me. Maybe I'll improve tomorrow.

Black Bush Robin - bird # 1

Sorry, out of focus again, but this image shows nicely the Tristram's Starling-like wing pattern:

 Black Bush Robin - bird #2, a brighter individual

After we all had enough of these black beauties, we headed back to Yotvata. While driving south i got a phone call from some Dutch birders (sorry guys - didn't get your names) who informed me of a third bird in that beautiful canal south of KM20 saltpans. Amazing!

We spent some time looking for Arabian Warbler near Yotvata without success. Just as I called the group back to the minibus, I heard a male singing. I looked back and a few clients who were near me had great views of a male singing from a treetop! Unfortunately not all the group managed to get good views. We will try again tomorrow.

After short siesta, we headed out again in the afternoon. First checked the saltpans where we had two Siberain Gulls, four Gull-billed Terns and the White-tailed Lapwing was showing nicely in the southern end of the ponds. Yet another quality bird today.

White-tailed Lapwing  

Before dark spent some time at north beach, nothing special or new. Good night.

Eilat Festival day 3 - Nizzana

Led the Nizzana tour today with Meidad. Left Eilat at 04:00. We arrived at Nizzana a bit late but started seeing birds immediately. It took me about 10 seconds to locate a dancing male MacQueen's Bustard, and the next hour was truly magical - so many birds that the tour participants didn't know what to look at first. We had at the same spot two hilarious dancing bustards, four Cream-coloured Coursers attacked by a superb male Pallid Harrier, Asian Desert Warbler, and Pin-tailed and Black-bellied Sandgrouse. Overhead good migration started off - many raptors including Steppe, Lesser Spotted, Booted and Short-toed Eagles, Egyptian Vulture and Alpine, Pallid and Common Swifts went overhead. 

Egyptian Vulture

Then we started driving towards Ezuz, where we saw a huge take-off of White Storks (about 1000), some of them returned to drink in a small waterhole. Then they all took off, and were joined by a small group of Eurasian Cranes.

White Storks

White Storks and Eurasian Cranes

At about 09:30 the weather deteriorated and a dramatic sand storm began blowing hard, slowing our birding considerabely. However we stayed near that waterhole a little longer where we had quite many Hill Sparrows coming in to drink, with additional birds there being some large flocks of Spanish Sparrows, Cretzchmar's Bunting and Eastern Black-eared Wheatear.

Hill Sparrow

Spanish Sparrows

We checked some more sites near Nizzana. Didn't see too much else but found some Dorcas Gazelles, and had a nice group of Negev Iris.

Dorcas Gazelle

On the way back to Eilat we stopped at Sde Boker which was very productive. We had there typical desert species such as Arabian Babbler, Tristram's Starling, BlackStart etc. The babblers were really entertaining, hopping on the ground near us looking for grubs. A flyby Eurasian Griffon was cool just as we drove out. Got back to Eilat tired but very satisfied.

Arabian Babbler

Schwarzschwanz 

Rock Agama

Eilat Festival day 2 - difficult morning, good afternoon

This morning I led a tour for the festival. We started off at the IBRCE. On the lagoons we had some gulls and shorebirds, and a Caspian Tern. At the ringing station it was very very slow, but still we had a nice selection of migrants, including one Balkan Warbler. Thanks to the ringing team for their efforts and for not wearing pink T-shirts today.

Then went up to the mountains. We had unstable weather today which meant we had zero raptor migration. From the mountains I looked back down into the valley and the weather looked awful down there with so much dust in the air, so I decided to stay up in the mountains for some desert birding. We arrived at Uvda Valley when it was pretty hot already. A nice green patch produced some migrants, and two breeding pairs of Spectacled Warbler. But most fascinating was a large flock of locusts that settled on this green patch. They have already transformed into the adult, yellow form, and indeed we saw many locusts mating. This is pretty bad news for farmers but good news for migrants that will have many caterpillars to feed on in a couple of weeks... 

Then we walked across the desert a bit to look for some larks, but saw few birds. I had distant flight views of two Bimaculated Larks, and heard a Lesser Short-toed Lark, but my clients weren't able to connect with any of these. We say quite many Water and Tawny Pipits, and eventually we had some low-migrating Steppe Eagles and Steppe Buzzards but in very small numbers. For me as a leader it was a pretty tough morning but if I read the description above it seems like a pretty good morning.

Adult Desert Locust

In the afternoon checked the very productive canal north of the cowsheds. I had a pretty good time with three Citrine Wagtails, including a cracking male, two Little Crakes, White-tailed Lapwing (I briefly saw the other one south of IBRCE so there are two for sure), Caspian Stonechat, some Savi's Warblers and quite many common migrants such as Bluethroats, Lesser Whites and Chiffchaffs.

Citrine Wagtail

 Caspian Stonechat

Bluethroat