After a relaxed breakfast we headed south to the Eilat area this morning. Our first port of call was Eilat cemetery, which we put on hold for a while as a funeral was taking place. We tried the pumping station area instead and quite literally discovered 3 House Buntings as soon as we jumped out of the car! The birds gave excellent views and Roy, Bev, Ken & Margaret collected their first 'lifer' of the day. Other typical desert birds here included Blackstart and White-crowned Black Wheatear.

Raptor migration was very thin over Ein Netaphim, so we tried a hike through Wadi Shlomo finding 3 Sinai Rosefinch which were all female/immatures, but none the less another lifer for Roy & Bev, as was the fine male Cyprus Warbler that we found close the road just minutes later. It was one of those days where birds were few but the quality was extremely high.

To cap off a superb morning, another check of Nahal Shakhmon came up trumps with a superb Striated Scops Owl, our first of the winter.