Spring alive...

Birding is such a great activity, always surprises, lots of interesting stuff and interesting people you meet along the way.

Last Monday we added to the ringing team at the IBRCE Roger Riddington and Will Miles who came for 10 days of ringing and birding with us. Will is visiting the ringing station for the second year in a raw and it was great to meet once again. Along with Will and Roger came also a great variety of species like Eastern Orphean & Ruppell's Warblers,  Cretzchmer's Bunting, Little Green Bee-eater and more...

The new force also allowed Markus to take his first day off and he joined me to check the bird situation at K76-77, a great spot in the Southern Arava.

This has proved a great idea and during few hours we had Ruppell's, Asian Desert & Spectacled Warblers group of  Cretzchmer's Buntings, Isabeline, Desert, Northern and Black-eared Wheatears, groups of Spotted Sandgrouses, 'samamisicus' Redstart, a single Bar-tailed Lark and a group of 20+6 PaleRock Sparrows which were busy feeding...

 We than stopped at Yotveta where we added a nice male Lesser Kestrel and few more Buntings but not much else.

After dropping Markus back at the station, I went to look for the female Subalpine Warbler which the dream team found the day before. Not only did I found it but also a beautiful male which seemed very happy feeding and fighting with the many Ruppell's around.

Today (Friday) I guided the Southern Arava birders and we had a great raptor passage with Long-legged and Steppe Buzzards, few Steppe Eagles, Egyptian Vulture and great views of Greater Spotted and Imperial Eagles as well as the/a White-tailed Plover!

What a great way to open the weekend...