Israel Birds Part 02_05 Mitzpe Ramon to afternoon tea

Day 05

We said farewell to Mitzpe Ramon and birded south to Eilat. Mitzpe Ramon is situated on the northern edge of a very extinct volcanic crater. Almost immediately after leaving the town and heading south, the road does a number of slow switchbacks to descend to the plain. We stopped, just a few kilometres from the hotel and birded the Nekarot Wadi. This river course was dry, despite the recent rain, with plenty of shrubs and bushes growing in the wadi and on its banks.

Blackstart Cercomela melanura

Lesser Whitethroat Sylvia curruca

Cretzchmar's Bunting Emberiza caesia

We then returned to the hotel for a final breakfast and retraced our initial steps back south but stopping at the top of the crater rim to observe an out-of-town flock of Nubian Ibex, much fitter than the urban flock near the hotel. 

Whilst there we had the first of the day's encounters with a Champions of the Flyway team. Yes, it was race day.

We descended back down onto the crater plain and birded here and there as we went. There were plenty of fighter jets flying overhead and tanks and military personnel moving along the roads. There was a bit of sabre-rattling going on politically and the Palestinians in Gaza had fired some rockets into Israel. 

The spring migration was in full swing too. A lot of birds from Europe migrate into Africa via Gibraltar and Italy but do their return trip via Israel. They channel up to the northeast corner of Africa following the Rift Valley which actually continues most of the way up Israel ending at Mt Hermon which is the northern border of Israel with Lebanon and Iran. Jordan is on the east side of the Jordan River which sits in the Rift Valley and ends in the Dead Sea, 400 or so metres below sea level! The migrating birds choose to channel across the Sinai Desert and end up flying into Israel at Eilat and the Negev Desert.


The migratory birds we were keeping an eye out for included wagtails, warblers and raptors, storks, basically anything that moved! At one site, a CotF team stopped (I think they knew Meidad) and we pointed out a bird on the other side of the road to which we were looking. They went a tad ga-ga, ticked it and zoomed off. It turned out they were the winning team and they won by one bird: obviously the bird they saw with us!

The White Storks numbered into the thousands.

White Stork Ciconia ciconia

Flocks/swarms of wagtails and swallows were at ground level.

There were plenty of raptors chasing a meal on their way north.

Eurasian Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus

Marsh Harrier Circus aeruginosus

Common Eurasian Kestrel Falco tinnunculus

Israel Birds Part 02_03 Nizana and Mandatory Road

Day 03

Ramon Inn, the hotel at Mitzpe Ramon, had a unique layout. It was on three levels including the ground floor and the rooms were uniquely numbered. Thus Room 12 in a typical hotel would be on the first floor, and the second room from one end of the corridor. But not in the Ramon Inn. Rooms were numbered by stairwell! Thus Room 12 is accessed from stairwell 1 and is the second room up! Truly bizarre. And all the stairwells were several miles from reception and the dining area, another plus! And there were no lifts nor concierge nor busboys so everyone had to lug their luggage (boom boom) by themselves.

First thing, well before dawn, (with breakfast on board the bus), we went to near Nitzana, northwest of Mitzpe Ramon, very near the Egyptian border to a site where the estimated 60 pairs of Macqueen's Bustard breed on the rocky desert environment. We travelled alongside the long abandoned Ottoman Railway Line built by the Turks during WW1 to transport troops to the Suez Canal with the objective of either capturing it from the British or disabling it. Neither happened and the Brits took over that part of the world in 1917.

Part of the line near Nizana has been preserved along with two railway wagons which are now the Hubara Hide at Nizana-Ezuz, one of the few places to reliably see the bustard. When we arrived there was already a big crowd present. We discovered that the annual Champions of the Flyway bird race in the "unparalleled and legendary migration hotspot - Eilat, Israel" was happening the next day, 26 March 2019, and teams were everywhere do final reconnaissance stuff. There were a few hire cars about.

We hopped out of the bus having been told to be quiet, very quiet. Those bustards are so sensitive. Well, there is only one thing wrong with 20 people trying to crowd into a metal railway wagon that is accessed by a metal stairway and balcony!! Even breathing on the thing made a bell-like sound which echoed its way across the desert in the calm dawn light. Despite all the setbacks, the bird was seen doing its headless chicken dance although about 300 metres away and with scope only. No images.

No matter where you are in the world, birds like water and what better place for undisturbed water than a Water Treatment Plant. After the bustard, we visited the WTP at Nizzana Military Base where we saw Sandgrouse coming soonish after dawn, right on cue.

Spotted Sandgrouse Pterocles senegallus

Black-bellied Sandgrouse Pterocles irentalis

Sites visited before lunch included any old Mandatory Road just in the middle of nowhere. At one of our stops, a young Scrub Warbler decided that the safest place would be on top of the rear bumper of the bus! He stayed there for quite a long time as his parents moved through the area and away. No image. A visit to a wetland at a winery finished the day off.

Mandatory Road. Egypt in the distance.

White Stork Ciconia ciconia

Common (Steppe) Buzzard Buteo buteo vulpinus

Mitzpe Ramon has a resident herd of Nubian Ibex which were gathered in a small park near the hotel when we returned. It has to be said that they are not underweight!

Nubian Ibex Capra nubiana