A week summery in the Arava

Its been a long and hectic week for me with guiding and monitoring throughout.
Bird migration is always a wonderful spectacle and there is always much to see (though not always what you expect...)

It started last Sunday when I was guiding Norbert Schaffer and we had these wonderful birds which were described in my last post, but in fact, raptor migration kept on going in the most amazing numbers throughout the week and in one morning at least 70,000 Steppe Buzzards were counted during a single day!

Passerines numbers have been low this week and in fact it was a very hard work to find all that we were looking for, but still we managed well with some local 'stars' like Bimaculated Lark, Hooded Wheatears, Crowned Sandgrouses and an array of more common species.

The highlight was on Wed' when an RBA broke the silence reporting of a Pied Bushchat which was very swiftly becoming the most interesting species of the week, 

leaving the Daurian Shrike, Caspian Plover, Greater Sand Plover, Little Crakes Pharaoh Eagle Owl, Striated Heron, Macqueen's Bustard and even the Black Bush Robins all behind.

Photo by Nitzan  Segev

racing for the Caspian Plover

Photo by Shachar Shalev

Thanks for the organisers and hope the season will keep on surprising us for the better.

I'm off to the field, there must be something out there...