What a great day!

Not a very inspirational title but it really was simply a great day. Spent it with a group of journalists who are here to cover the Champions of the Flyway. They all write for birding magazines and websites so they are keen birders themselves. It was great to be out with them. In the morning also the Hellenic Ornithological Society team joined us which was fun.

We started off at Uvda Valley. Pretty quiet to start with but eventually we had quite many birds. Habitat looks good after yesterday's rain - lots of water. We had a nice variety of open-country migrants - pipits, wheatears, larks, wagtails etc. Highlights were two Spectacled Warbler families, three stunning male Pallid Harriers, and a possible singing Bar-tailed Lark. This Desert Agama (Trapelus pallidus) was lovely:

Neot Smadar sewage was packed with migrants, mainly Yellow Wags but also a Citrine, Garganey and a few other bits and bobs. 

After lunch I checked this Semi-collared Flycatcher found by Jonathan in the city center - nice male, great bird sadly on an ugly perch:

Then in the afternoon we checked Holland Park. Lots of warblers and the regular desert species showed well. Also Wryneck, Nightingale, a nice flock of Bee-eaters and overhead big raptor passage. This corking male Sinai Agama (Agama sinaita) was my personal highlight:

Balkan Warbler

The evening at North Beach was magical. Constant arrival of birds, stuff going through all the time, lots of quality and variety. Highlights were the two long-staying Brown Boobies, 9 Oystercatchers, Arctic Skua. Also the expected White-eyed Gulls and Western Reef Egret. Flocks of Spoonbill and Glossy Ibis came in off the sea. Massive raptor passage overhead, including single Lesser Spotted Eagle and Montagu's Harrier. Huge duck flocks (mainly Garganey) circling the gulf. Great stuff.

Oystercatchers

Spoonbills

In the evening at IBRCE we had the opening ceremony of COTF. It was a brilliant evening. looking forward very much to the race on Tuesday. Special thanks to Noam, Tzadok and the IBRCE team for hosting the event.

Knot a bad day

What a lousy pun...
Anyway, spent the morning with Jon Olav Larsen, a Norwegian birder and reporter. We left Tel Aviv early and made our way directly to the Ma'agan Michael beach. Quite many birds on the beach, with the best bird being this 1cy Red Knot. This bird has been present since Friday at least. It was showing pretty well.

We met Liri on the beach and he joined us for the rest of the morning. Other quality species on the beach were one Oystercrapper, 1 Eurasian Curlew, and 1 Gull-billed Tern. There were good numbers of plovers roosting on the beach, including 13 Grey Plovers and about 40 Greater Sandplovers.

Greater Sandplover

About 30 Sanderlings were present, most were juveniles but some adults haven't completed their moult yet:

We had a nice take-off of about 1000 White Pelicans:

Pied Kingfishers are always photogenic:

Many Marsh Harriers kept spooking all the birds:

At one point during the morning I expressed my will to see an Eleonora's Falcon, and indeed 10 seconds later Liri spotted a falcon flying over the sea! It approached us while chasing after passerines migrating over the sea, and we identified it as a dark-morph Eleonora's! Cool bird!

Other good birds this morning included 7-8 Citrine Wagtails, 1 Spotted Redshank and 1 Eurasian Cuckoo.