22-23 March - Lotan & the Southern Arava

22nd March - We began the morning with a walk around Lotan's organic garden and dairy barn. There were actually some nice early morning flights of migrants including 150 White Storks, 30 Black Storks and at least 2 Lesser-spotted Eagles, which are always scarce in the Arava.

After breakfast we stayed in the area and headed up to Nahal Grofit where Roef wanted to concentrate on landscape photos, while Paul got close up and personal with a group of Nubian Ibex. This wonderful desert wadi was not without good birds and in the Acacias we found a Blue Rock Thrush, Orphean Warbler , a samamisicus Redstart, 6+ Eastern Bonelli's Warblers and a young female Cyprus Warbler, a new bird for both Roef and Paul. A relatively short trip to the Shizzafon fields produced a female Subalpine Warbler amongst good numbers of more common migrants, and with that we headed back to Lotan for lunch.

Our late afternoon session was spent at Yotvata where we waded through huge numbers of Yellow Wagtails (250+) with Tree, Tawny and Red-throated Pipits. There was also a Willow Warbler here, my first of the year. Good raptors in the area included Short-toed and Booted Eagles. The bird of the afternoon, however, was a Hobby that kept sweeping low over the fields towards dusk, thus closing another fine day of birding.

 

23rd March - Saturday morning offered us the opportunity to enter some military areas and this we did in search of sandgrouse. Although our main interest was Crowned Sandgrouse, a long patient wait by a sewage pool at Shizzafon produced eventually good views of Spotted Sandgrouse, nine of which flew over and another came in to drink. In between times, we had good flights views and calls of five Temminck's Horned Larks, which were typically brief in their appearance. We also enjoyed great views of a pair of local Desert Wheatears and three Little-ringed Plovers.

During mid-morning we dropped down into the Arava Valley to scour the fields of Lotan. Birds were relatively few here, but we did find a fine male samamisicus Redstart and an Olivaceous Warbler. In late afternoon we headed back to the Eilat area, but found the wind quite difficult to deal with at Km 20 salt pools. So we chose to head for the north beach instead. It proved to be a good decision as we were treated to some excellent seawatching including a couple of Mangrove Herons, 1 Western Reef Heron, 2 early Cory's Shearwaters, 1 each of Pomarine & Arctic Skua, 50+ White-eyed Gulls, 1 Great Black-headed, 1 Siberian and 12 Baltic Gulls and Caspian, Sandwich and Common Terns. Also of note were at least 5 Pied Kingfishers.

In just four days, Paul and Roef had experienced a broad cross section of some of the best elements of birding in the Arava, not to mention Ido Heruty's in-depth knowledge of culture and history. I also had the feeling that they really enjoyed their 'down' time on Lotan and will be back in the not too distant future.

Good birding to all,

James Smith

Contact info

Daphna Abell
Program Coordinator
lotan-programs@lotan.ardom.co.il
Tel: +972 8 6356935;
Toll Free: 1800 2000 75 (when in Israel)