Nightjar season begins!

Yesterday I visited my nightjars for the first time this season. Even though nights are still relatively cold, the nightjars are beginning their breeding activity already. I expect some good courtship during the next full moon (the festival tours should get lucky!). Anyway I met up with Lasse, Markku and Vesa from Finland. They are really nice guys (of course they were in a good mood, -30º back home, and here in Israel we have beautiful spring weather...) and we had good fun. Very quickly we found 3-4 nightjars that offered us terrific views, as they should. Also nice views of a wild-type cat, looks like the animal that showed well last year too.

Today near Be'er Sheva a nice flock of 2000 White Storks - my first real flock of the season.