Fun in the Golan

Since the northern ceasefire went into effect a few weeks ago, birders returned to northern Israel and started finding lots of great birds. It was tormenting for me to see all these wonderful reports come in, without being able to travel north. Yesterday I had to get away, after weeks of intense personal stuff and work overload. I left early with Jonathan and Rony. Climbing up the Golan heights from the Hula Valley after dawn was breathtaking. I missed this region so much.

It was very cold up Mt. Bental, and at first bird activity was low. At least it was very beautiful up there.

Slowly the sun climbed out of the cloud, temperatures rose and birds became more active. We met up there with Barak and Uri. We first found a couple of sweet Red-fronted Serins, then we had several more, total of about eight. That's a good number for Israel. Sadly all the serins I saw were very mobile and I didn't manage to get any decent photos of them.  The stars of the morning were two Radde's Accentors that have been hanging around there for a couple of weeks. Great to see this rare birds - I haven't seen one in Israel since 2011. They were not easy to see, but eventually I managed a half-decent photo.

I also enjoyed the nice numbers of Rock Buntings there, I find them pretty in the pastel-toned winter plumage.

We left Mt. Bental satisfied (eBird checklist here), and headed south. A stop at Mt. Bnei Rasan wasn't very productive and the wind picked up, so we continued further south towards Meitzar Reservoir, where a Red-wattled Lapwing had taken residnce in the last few months. We found it quickly, hanging out with Spur-wings on some rough ground. These are my first photos of this rarity in Israel. I did see one briefly in early 2024 in the Hula valley but all I managed that morning was a sound recording as it flew past me in thick fog.

We descended from the Golan Heights via Susita, where we had four Crag Martins, and a Blackstart - this is a northern range extension for this desert species in Israel. Every northern Big Day we do we visit Susita for Blackstart and a few other species.