Eilat Bird Festival and Champions of the Flyway 2023

My head us still buzzing after my return from Eilat. I spent almost a week down there, joining the Eilat Bird festival, this year led by Alen, followed by Champions of the Flyway, led by Jonathan. It was an amazing week, full of fantastic birds and birding, wonderful people from all over the world and from Israel, and conservation, friendship, diversity and collaboration. Traditionally it is one of the highlight weeks of my year, and this year was no different. The birding was really good, with intensive migration both in the River of Birds in the Sky and down on the ground. It was great to spend time with some of the best people in the world, all flocking here to Eilat. My BirdLife Israel team, Eilat Bird Festival guests, Champions of the Flyway teams - what a bunch of extraordinary people. Together we watched bird, promoted conservation and had a few beers.

I headed down to Eilat early on Thursday, March 23rd. I picked up Ugandan super-tracker and bird guide Patricia Kansiime from the airport too early, and dragged her with me to Mt. Amasa. Poor girl, she was totally exhausted after a long trip and I made her climb hills and wadis and chase after some little birds. It was a great session, wasn't it Patricia? Highlights were Cinereous Bunting, Eastern Subalpine Warbler and three Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrushes.

Cinereous Bunting

We took the scenic route down to Eilat through the Negev towards Eilat, encountering clouds of White Storks and Black Kites, pretty extreme migration to start with. I arrived in Eilat and joined the festival group that had been running already for a few days. The first afternoon session I led was to north beach that was fairly quiet but hosted this stunning, cooperative blue morph Western Reef-Heron:

I birded with the festival and independently until Saturday, including a night trip for Nubian Nightjars (sadly the Desert Owls didn't show, again...), Arabian Warbler in the northern Arava, mind-blowing raptor migration up in the mountains, Black Scrub-Robins breeding in Samar - top quality stuff! I had a great time with the festival guests, I hope they enjoyed the birding too and also the conservation context that is a part of birding in Israel with BirdLife Israel.

Then it was on to Champions of the Flyway, meeting, greeting and helping teams prepare for the Big Day, scouting sites - all great fun. With a weather change and shifting winds, Saturday and Sunday were super exciting with tons of active bird migration, birds literally dropping out of the sky and going in all directions. The sky was full of raptors, bee-eaters, Hirundines, pipits, wagtails, larks, buntings and all sorts of other active migrants. On the ground, the bushes and fields were exploding with passerines, trees dripping with Sylvia (now Curruca?) warblers. The best birding Eilat can offer.

Tree Pipits

Collared Flycatcher

Masked Shrike

Steppe Eagles

Go Go Geese

Champions of the Flyways race day and events were an enormous climax of birding and friendship, working with teams, doing media stuff, very busy but lots of fun. I spent the morning with some teams at KM76 that is the most productive site at the moment, it was absolutely exploding with birds, so much stuff on the ground there, I enjoyed it very much. Check our eBird checklist here.

Hen Harrier

Caspian Stonechat

Spanish Sparrows looking all glorious

Appreciate the habitat where this Savi's Warbler is reeling:

Back in Eilat, there were some quality birds on show, including a young Bonelli's Eagle terrorizing pigeons at the cowsheds near KM19, and a pair of Lichtenstein's Sandgrouse showing so wonderfully at the little grove by the entrance to KM20. Exquisite birds those sandgrouse are. Check those feather patterns...

The closing event was incredible, all people gathered together for conservation, solidarity and friendship. Champions of the Flyway winners were The Wrens, who scored 181 species on the big day! The team is comprised of the Zaitlin family from Jerusalem, and included Klil who grew up at the Jerusalem Bird Observatory and then did a year at Eilat Birding Center. Klil is an outstanding birder and a great young man. I look forward to see him develop in the world of birding and conservation. Most importantly, COTF is about raising funds for ACBK and BSPB to protect Red-breasted Geese (still time to donate!), and bringing people together to act for conservation. The atmosphere during the closing events was truly inspiring, amplified by the shit storm Israel is going through currently, demonstrating that conservation and international solidarity and collaboration are the real thing, not this politics bullshit.

Photo by Yuval Dax - thanks Yuval for everything!

This is the place to say special thanks to my team who worked so hard on these events and made them so successful - Alen, Jonathan, Noam, Mark, you are legends. IBRCE team formed the backbone of the event. Yuval, Nadav, Meidad, Yotam and Ofri from BirdLife Israel team participated too - thank you! So many wonderful people to thank - sorry if I forgot anyone.

As an aftermath or after-party to COTF, on Thursday, still high on Adrenalin, I headed up to Kfar Ruppin. I met up with The Birders Show for some filming, talking about our restoration work there, led by Nadav. They flew in to participate in COTF, and continued to focus on our restoration work. I had a great time with the team - Chris, Julian y Santi - you guys rock! While talking and watching birds in peace, news broke of a Yellow-billed Stork nearby. We made a quick dash for it, wonderful bird!

Yellow-billed Stork! Yesterday while filming w @TheBirdersShow in Kfar Ruppin we got alerted of this mega. A few minutes of rally-driving later we enjoyed fab scope views. @ChrisBellCOL is in the background...@_OSME pic.twitter.com/yPw5cEQFcw

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) March 30, 2023

Eilat International

I spent a couple of nights in Eilat, taking part in an international course organised by Noam Weiss, director of our Eilat Birding Center. The course, funded by the Ministry for Regional Cooperation, with the City of Eilat, was themed around the management of community-based bird observatories, with participants from 15 countries - Balkan, Caucasus, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern - what a wonderful mix of great people. Some were old friends, others new. Those were days of international work, international people and international birds.

Last week this happened:

Mega! African Crake found yesterday by a member of the public in Eilat, taken into care. 2nd record for Israel! Photo by @NoamWeiss10 @_OSME pic.twitter.com/cmNTtG9qnX

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) November 29, 2022

The bird, second for Israel, was taken into care in the Hai Bar Yotvata Reserve, and was rehabilitated by Israel Nature and Parks Authority staff there. I was anxious all week - will it recover? When will it be released? Knowing that the course is approaching, I kept all my fingers crossed. Eventually, my timing was perfect - the decision was made by INPA to release it back to the wild on Monday, the first morning of our course, at the Eilat Birding Center. Noam asked me whether I want to ring the bird. At first I offered the ringing team to go for it, then I thought to myself, why not. What an amazing bird to ring. It felt very fit and ready for release.

I was privileged to release it too. Suddenly, I realised I won't have a photo of the bird. I asked Noam to grab my camera and use it when I release the bird.

New profile picture?

The bird disappeared immediately in thick vegetation, never to be seen again. It was released in a section of the park that is closed off to the public, so nobody could bother it as it readjusted to the wild.

That afternoon I squeezed in half an hour of seawatching, to join the incredible Swinhoe's Storm-Petrel party. Indeed, I saw from shore at least four individuals, whizzing around a fishing boat. Very cool.

Next morning, yesterday, we went early with the course participants to do some desert birding near Amram's Pillars. 

All expected desert species were seen, including four Sinai Rosefinches. They were a bit distant for photography but were seen very well and were very vocal. In this region, the geology and geomorphology are perhaps as impressive as the birds.

Rain that fell there last week (very rare) melted the sand stone and created beautiful patterns.

Then, after I finished what I had to do with the course, I headed north via Nahal Etek, where the Verreaux's Eagle are being seen. I spent a few hours there with Amir, Meidad, Arad, Barak and a few others, scanning and scanning. The scenery there is so serene and beautiful. And there's no phone signal. Bliss. If only the eagles showed up... But they didn't. There was a trickle of Steppe Eagles passing through, a Common Raven and that's all.

Huge appreciation to Noam and the Eilat Birding Center team for the successful operation of the course, with the fantastic support by Alen, Amir and the rest of the team.

Eilat Day 2 - migration pulses

Two days, before race day, I went out with some teams to assist with their scouting efforts. In the morning it was Ovda Valley, that at first was rather quiet until we hit the purple patch, which was rather Deep Purple. There was a fantastic mixed flock at one of the flower carpets. It contained many Short-toed Larks, wagtails, Pale Rock Sparrows and wheatears. This buzzing whirlpool of hundreds of birds in the middle of the desert must be a magnet for any passer-by, so it pulled in also singles of Richard's Pipit, Lesser Short-toed Lark, Bimaculated Lark and Citrine Wagtail. The flock was very mobile and I couldn't get any photos of the species above.

Greater Short-toed Larks

A little crop...

Western Yellow Wagtail - feldegg

Western Yellow Wagtail - flava (female), displaying its long hind claw, separating it from Eastern Yellow Wagtail

As is often the case, breeding lark species avoided the crowds and retreated to unknown quieter productive spots. I heard only one distant Temminck's and Bar-tailed singing.

There was fantastic sandgrouse activity in the valley, with groups of Spotted and Crowned Sandgrouse noisily flying around constantly:

Spotted Sandgrouse

Crop...

Crowned Sandgrouse

Crop...

Eventually we encountered a small group on the deck. With some patient positioning they walked up quite close - such beautiful birds:

Most wheatears were Northern, with fewer Isabelline and Eastern Black-eared:

Eastern Black-eared Wheatear

Two mobbing Northern Wheatears helped us find this tiny, beautiful Crowned Leafnose Snake (Lytorhynchus diadema):

This Steppe Eagle was literally eyeballing us at stupendously close range - wings clipped in most images...

Israel is probably the only country along the flyway of this majestic, globally Endangered beast, where it is shot by cameras and not by guns. Travel safe my big friend.

Ovda Valley you are glorious! Repping @flywaychampions and @ZEISSBirding here in the Negev and what a pleasure to be a part of something so special. More to come.... #COTF19 #govultures #flywaychampions pic.twitter.com/xzgf2xZYk4

— Mark James Pearson (@Markthebirder) March 24, 2019

eBird checklist here.

A quick stop at Neot Smadar was fairly quiet. The sewage ponds hosted another two Western Yellow Wagtail 'taxa', tentatively identified here - what a headache!

thunbergi

'dombrowski-integrade'

In the afternoon a big storm was boiling. The weather was unsettled, the wind kept shifting, there was a lot of dust in the air - quite dramatic. There were pulses of birds moving through - quite cool. Jonathan and me checked first KM19 and environs, not finding too much in the way of migration on the ground:

Woodchat Shrike

Western Yellow Wagtail taxa #5 - 'supercilliaris-integrade':

We then positioned ourselves at IBRCE and did what most birders do here nowadays - watched the skies and waited for a Crested Honey Buzzard to pass. None did, but IBRCE was pretty good and there were cool birds moving through. A distant group of 28 Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters was beautifully lit by momentary sunshine, 5 Gull-billed Terns, 6 Purple Herons and quite many other raptors.

Purple Herons battling the wind

Marsh Harrier

In the evening the opening ceremony of COTF, hosted by IBRCE team, was as always inspirational and great fun. Still time to donate money to any team here: http://www.champions-of-the-flyway.com/2019-teams/