dinsdag 17 april 2012

Migrating north

Yesterday I left Eilat and joined the bird migrants from Eilat and moved up north, to Jerusalem, where I will stay for a week, before I go back to Holland!

I want to thank Yotam, Tzadok, Itai, Roni and the Dutch guys, Chris, Teun and Bram and other people for the great time I had the past 6 weeks at the IBRCE. There are no words for the amazing spring in Eilat this year!!

I spent the last few days of my stay in Eilat doing some nice stuff. Sunday afternoon Chris, Teun, Bram and I went snorkling at the Coral Reef south of Eilat. It was beautiful, seeing all the colourful species of fish and seeing some nice corals. I'm sure that I had 50 lifers that day.. After the snorkling the entire crew went to the North Beach and afterwards we had some good shoarma. It was good to have some decent (haha) food again after a week of Passover..

Yesterday after the ringing we did a quick check at K19, seeing the local Bonelli's Eagle, a female Pied Wheatear and some other stuff. Then it was time to grab my bag and go!

 Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), yesterday morning
 Booted Eagle (Aquila pennata), light morph
Bonelli's Eagle (Aquila fasciata), 2cy at K19
Chris: So guys, this is how you should pose for the photo..!
Final evening on the North Beach

This morning was my first morning at the JBO, the Jerusalem Bird Observatory. The first bird of the morning was immediately a new species for me in hand: Thrush Nightingale! Very nice bird. The entire morning the catch was good and the total for the morning was 100 birds. 
Thrush Nightingale (Luscinia luscinia)

This afternoon I joined Ron Haran, a ringer from the JBO, for a ringing session in the Ella Valley, this is the valley from the story in the Bible where David killed Goliath with the stone! This valley is really beautiful, with alfalfa fields full of red flowers. We ringed a good number of birds in the late afternoon. Of the 60 birds, we had about 5 Great Reed Warblers, 2 Ortolan Buntings, a Goldfinch, some Barn Swallows and many Reed Warblers and Blackcaps. And in the darkness, there were some Stone Curlews calling.
The Ella valley

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