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Southern Arava 9-10 March 2004
I met Dr. Sadavoy and his wife at the dining room for an early breakfast and soon after we were on our way to our destination, the Eilat Mountains. The sun went up slowly and the chilly breeze had us all wide awake in no time. We stopped at an observation point and waited while enjoying views of local Blackstart and a couple of Tristrams Grackles. The raptors started to show up and for the next hour or so we enjoyed good low views of passing Steppe Buzzards, Steppe Eagles and the occasional Black kite. We made our way down to the productive salt pans and fields north of Eilat. A brief stop at the Birdwatching park produced good views of summer plumaged Little Grebes and Squacco Heron, and a single Pallas`s Gull. A special treat was a 1st summer male eastern Stonechat of the ssp. Maura in the hand, at the ringing station.
Besides the regular - and no less spectacular - flocks of Flamingos (150) and Shellduck (130) we found a group of 14 Baltic Gulls resting between the pools. Waders are slowly building up in numbers with close to 100 Ruff being the dominant species but with smaller numbers of Redshank, Greenshank and Ringed Plovers . 2 Black tailed Godwits gave close-up views and impressed us all with their incredible bills. Our next stop was Yotvata sewage, acacia scrub and fields. At the sewage we found among others, a male sammimisicus Redstart , a Woodchat Shrike and a pair of beautiful Little Green Bee Eaters , which were voted the personal favorite of Dr. Sadavoy. The Yotvata fields are lush and green and the number of Swallows and swifts was incredible with hundreds of Barn Swallows, House Martins, Red-rumped Swallows, Common and Pallid Swifts , swirling around us feeding on the wing. The action on the ground was just as impressive with large numbers of Pipits, Wagtails, Wheatears and Chiffchaffs feeding in the fields, 5 Greenfinches feeding along the trail were an interesting find and a striking male Marsh Harrier also made an appearance.
10 march: We headed out of Lotan and turned west on route 40. While climbing up the road we saw some early morning Steppe Buzzards leaving their roost. We stopped at a little sewage pool on the side of the road where we started the day with a handsome Woodchat Shrike and a group of 5 Desert Gazelle. Our next stop were the fields of Neot Smadar, which were teeming with migrants; hundreds of Swallows, Wheatears, Pipits were feeding on the ground and in the bush we found Masked Shrike, Redstart and a beautiful Bluethroat that was singing away, perhaps warming up for his northern Europe nesting grounds.
From Neot smadar we drove back down to the Arava valley to check a green patch that had formed near the road due to recent rainfall. This patch that has been around for a week started starting to dry up, but still was much greener than the surrounding areas. We slowly birded our way finding lots of Wheatears, mostly Black-eared, Tawny Pipits, and a handsome flock of 65 Short-toed Larks. After some extensive searching we found a small group of Arabian Babblers. We decided to finish the day with a stroll at Kibbutz Lotan Bird Reserve where we found some interesting birds, especially few obliging Hoopoes. We were lucky enough to cap the day off with a graceful male Pallid Harrier slowly making its way north. The trip was a rewarding experience in many ways with regards to both the birding and the company. Sadly enough, I found a beautiful male Cyprus Wheatear on Lotan the morning after Dr. Sadavoy and his wife left, but that's just the fast pace of birding the Arava in the spring. Jonathan Meyrav and the birdingisrael team. Contact infoDaphna Abell |
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The k19 Sewage Pools were full of birds, with two juvenile White Pelicans steeling the show, swimming amongst the hundreds of Cormorants . At this point the wind was howling and we decided to head to the K20 pools where, as usual, we birded driving around slowly, using the car as a hide. 
We arrived at Lotan for lunch having already seen an excess of 70 species. Dr. Sadavoy and his wife decided to enjoy a relaxed afternoon and each got treatments from our holistic therapy experts on Lotan. We would be out birding again tomorrow morning. 
The Peach and Apricot trees are blooming and this attracted hundreds of Chiffchaffs, Lesser Whitethroat and Spanish Sparrow. More interesting were 3 Corn Buntings and a female Chaffinch.