Eilat is alive!

As for the other days, our third real day here in Eilat was really ‘alive’ again with many migrators both in the hand and in the air. There was a strong northern wind blowing (what is considered to be normal here in Eilat haha) so the mistnets were fully exposed to the wind. Despite the wind the mistnets were catching good, with Chiffchaffs being the bulk, again. No real highlights were trapped today but we did catch a first for the season: a Wryneck.

In the dusty sky we had some raptor migration: 37 Steppe Eagles, 9 Steppe Buzzards, 2 Short-toed Eagles and always, when you are eating something cool passes by: a 3cy Greater-spotted Eagle! We saw it just too late so I only have a few reasonable shots of the bird, flying away from us. A Pallas’ Gull passed by this morning again.

3rd cy Greater Spotted Eagle passing the IBRCE around noon.

In the afternoon, around 15:00 we headed to the North Beach at Eilat. We stopped at Ofira Park ofcourse, to look for the Cinereous Bunting that was found by a Dutch birder, Harvey van Diek, over a week ago. After 15+ Cretzchmar’s Buntings and 3 Rueppel’s Warblers we soon relocated the pretty male Cinereous Bunting.  Mission accomplished! We drove further to the North Beach where we had Isabelline Wheatear, Red-throated Pipit near the football field and +15 White-eyed Gulls, Heuglins Gulls, a few Armenian Gulls and a Common Kingfisher fishing from some rocks on the beach.

 One of the male Rueppel's Warblers in Ofira Park

 The pretty male Cinereous Bunting

 A few of the many Cretzmar's Buntings

Ringing totals:

Balkan Warbler 2 -
Barn Swallow 1 -
Bluethroat – 4
Chiffchaff 43 – 3
Common Whitethroat 1 – 1
Cretzchmar’s Bunting 2 -
Eastern Orphean Warbler 2 – 1
House Martin 4 -
House Sparrow 1 - 1
Indian Silverbill 1 -
Laughing Dove – 1
Lesser Whitethroat 11 – 1
Reed Warbler 2 -
Rock Martin 1 -
Rueppel’s Warbler – 1
Sardinian Warbler 2 – 2
Spanish Sparrow 4 – 1
White-spectacled Bulbul 3 -3
Wryneck 1 -

Total 81 - 19

 Wryneck

 Rock Martin

Among the many Chiffchaffs we also had a Chiffchaff that looked really good for Siberian Chiffchaff (on the right), a brownish overall colour, no yellow in the supercilium and no yellow on the underwingcoverts. 

 Roni showing a Cretzchmar's Bunting

Christian on the North Beach