April ended with the usual heat and dust typical of this time of year. The last days of the month were devoted to our 2 nd 7 day classic tour of the spring. After I made sure to give specific details to all the birders wanting to "twitch" The beautiful Black-crowned Finch Lark, I headed north to the Dead Sea area with my visiting birders.

We left bright and early on the 29th of April and stopped at specific locations where we connected with the special birds of the region.

Historically, the 30 th of April is usually the first "big" day for Honey Buzzard migration so we spent the morning in the Eilat Mountains . Already upon our arrival there were birds circling low overhead. This turned out to be a memorable morning and we enjoyed outstanding views of 22,000 Honey Buzzards, amongst them I pointed out 3 Crested Honey Buzzards and I was very happy that the visiting birders were able to enjoy such rare birds and learn some of the tricky identification features of this complicated genus.

The 1st of May was devoted to the Nizzana area. We spent the whole day birding around the western Negev and found all the typical species for the region. We had great luck and besides getting great views of all 4 species of Sandgrouse (Spotted, Crowned, Black-bellied and Pin-tailed Sandgrouse) we also saw 3 Cream-coloured Coursers and a chick, and 2 superb Houbara (Macqueen's) Bustards.

The 5th of May was hot and misty and only several hundred raptors passed over the mountains. I spent the morning of the 6 th of May at Neot Smadar Lake , finding 4 Little Bitterns and a Little Crake, when I noticed some Honey Buzzards thermalling to the east. I immediately jumped in my car and headed to our raptor watch point of Mount Ait . Between 8:30 and 11:00 I was in the midst of a spectacular stream of Honey Buzzards .

The 9th was a quiet day and the highlight were a nice flock of 12 Black-headed Buntings at the Yotvata fields, where another Lesser Grey Shrike was present.

Around mid month, large numbers of waders have congregated on the K20 salt pools, and every visit at this time produced hundreds of Little Stints and Ruff, around 50 Curlew Sandpipers, around 10 Broad-billed Sandpipers, hundreds of White-winged Black Terns and good numbers of Collared Pratincoles.

Due to the special patterns of migration this year, migration was still in full swing towards the 3rd week of May, and hundreds of Blackcaps were still pouring through. An interesting wave of Barred ( up to 40 a day ) and Garden Warblers (up to 20 a day) could be noted at this time. Another outstanding wave of passerines could be noted with irregular large numbers of Hippolais warblers, and hundreds of Olivaceous Warblers, some singing. This was a great year for Olive-tree Warbler, with over 50 birds seen (and some ringed) in the southern Arava. The rare Upcher's Warbler was also seen in above average numbers.