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

Champions of the Flyway 2022

 After a short break at home, I returned to Eilat for Champions. I joined the organising team. Heading down to Eilat the weather was quite horrible with nasty winds blowing dust down the valley. Birds were struggling to migrate into the wind.

Baltic Gulls

Montagu's Harrier

After the traditional swap meeting and briefing at IBRCE, I went with Jonathan to KM20 saltpans. It was actually OK there with birds moving through, albeit with difficulty because of the wind. Nice to see the long-staying Lesser White-fronted Goose. 

Green Sandpipers

Osprey

Many Ruff (and a Marsh Sand)

Curlew Sand with friends

Red-necked Phalaropes actually have legs!

flava Western Yellow Wagtail

On race day the wind dropped thankfully, though it was very hot. I headed up the Arava Valley very early for some desert larks. I checked nice desert habitats and found most necessary larks (Hoopoe, Arabian, Temminck's and Bar-tailed). They were all in song but only half-heartedly - it's very dry up there and I'm not sure they will actually breed. 

It was thrilling to bump into a few migrants in the middle of the desert, in total non-habitat, including this beautiful nominate Common Redstart:

Then I proceeded to Wadi Sha'alav. There were far fewer migrants there compared to my previous visit during the festival, yet it was productive with Levant Sparrowhawk, Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters, quite many Tree Pipits and other stuff. There were lots of raptors on the ground - mainly Steppe Buzzards and Black Kites. 

Tree Pipit

Tawny Pipit

Back in Eilat, I quickly visited the Semicollared Flycatchers at Canada Gardens:

In the afternoon I met up with many groups congregating at KM20 saltpans, trying to help them be efficient and move on before the light runs out. Again, there was good bird movement.

The JBO Tits and their driver/chaperone Tzoor

Gull-billed Terns (jet in the background is in Aqaba airport)

Greater Sand-plover with Kentish Plover

Down at North Beach teams were frantic with last light efforts to add species to their lists. Lots of birds were flying around.

Garganey

Western Reef-Heron adapting to beach life

I created a little eBird Trip Report of the birds I saw personally during race day - check it here.

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@flywaychampions closing ceremony soon! Tension at its peak! Who will be this year's winners? pic.twitter.com/BcP5o28i83

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) April 6, 2022

The #COTF22 Race is run! An incredible effort by all our teams, and vital funds raised for the #YearOfTheDove throughout. Results to follow soon! Our campaign and fundraising continues, however.... donate here: https://t.co/CsbhXOVA7g

Special thanks to @ZEISSBirding! pic.twitter.com/Y68ENs9MsH

— BirdLife Israel (@BirdLifeIsrael) April 6, 2022

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It was very special to see all the kids who took part in this project. Really heartwarming, also the increasing number of women, and birders from different sectors. All those who participated, either physically at the race or through their contributions, are true Champions. Thickbills, Blackcaps, Kowa Women in Steppe, Zeiss BirdLife Malta - you rock!

Special thanks to COTF organiser Jonathan Meyrav for the amazing work he did this year, despite some very challenging circumstances. Hats off to the rest of my team at BirdLife Israel who contributed so much to the event, especially Alen Kacal and Noam Weiss. Shout out to Zeiss for sponsoring the race. Mark and Arad did excellent work behind the scenes - thank you. 

Fundraising hasn't ended - please donate here to express your #dovelove and save Turtle Doves in Malta, Cyprus and Greece.

See you in #COTF23!

The final lap

This strange year is coming to an end soon, which is shaping my birding mode. I continue birding to the max, trying to maintain my birding streak and expand my year list as much as I can, within reason. I am not doing a Big Year per se - quit job, divorce, drop everything and run type, but I am doing my best, holding hands with Jonathan. In 2019 I ended up with 370, so my target to improve this annual total was reached already a few weeks ago, now I'm on 382... At this point, additions obviously include only good stuff, including Goldcrest, Buff-bellied Pipit, Saker. 

This super-early morning I drove down to Eilat with Jonathan and Yotam. Our main target was the American Golden Plover found by Shachar Shalev a few days ago, the third for Israel. I have seen it in Israel before, the first one, back in 2008. Yet, it's a mega bird here, and we needed it for our year list... Eilat is defined as a 'Green COVID Island', meaning that only those showing relevant COVID tests can enter the city. We had not managed to get tested prior the trip down south, so we used an instant testing depot at Yotvata, thankfully all three of us came out negative...

We arrived to North Beach at first light. While Jonathan was faffing around with his gear in the car, Yotam and I walked down to the beach, and quickly found the Brown Booby perched on a distant border buoy - an appropriate support cast. I called Jonathan over, got my digiscoping kit ready for a quick video, when the bloody booby decided to take off and disappeared into the early morning haze far in the east. Poor Jonathan. 

However, our main target performed better. We found the AGP quickly, within a large group of smaller plovers. A bit distant for proper photography, but very good conditions for scope views and videos, in beautiful, crisp early morning light. Lovely bird, very distinctive with that huge supercilium, long wings and gray tones.

Hey @JMeyrav what are you watching?
American Golden Plover 🤘
Where is it?
IBRCE Eilat
Watch through @SwarovskiOptik ATX85, sorry for shit hand held quality...@BirdLifeIsrael @SPNI pic.twitter.com/gTPEEVm0lx

— Yoav Perlman (@yoavperlman) December 15, 2020

A walk around the IBRCE was fairly quiet, quite typically for this time of year, yet there were some nice birds (eBird checklist here), including this funky Western Reef Egret:

After a celebratory coffee with IBRCE staff we continued to KM20, very quiet there, only this Hooded Wheatear brightened up the scene slightly, despite looking away:

We had a few other birding plans but the weather deteriorated, wind picked up dust and birding was not pleasant. En route home we stopped for 30 seconds at Yelek Cistern, rosefinches and stuff. Casual. 

Thanks Jonathan, Yotam and Bamba for sharing this long day. 

Two weeks to go - will I add any more birds? Fingers crossed.

Good night.

Milestone celebrations

Yesterday I reached a significant milestone in eBird's checklist-a-day challenge. I completed 365 days of daily birding, i.e. 'proper birding' - not just submitting a checklist but actual daily significant birding activity.

I started this checklist streak when I was in the UK a year ago. Then, on August 14th, 2019, a one-day stutter shattered my previous streak of 234. Basically, since December 23rd 2018 I have been out birding every day except once. Some may say this destroys my life. True, I am in a constant semi-zombie state, fighting tiredness and fatigue. Others might argue that this daily birding activity keeps me sane. In the bottom line, this is my new life style, and I have no intentions to stop. 

To celebrate the 365-streak, on Wednesday I headed down to Eilat. I spent the evening at North Beach with Shachar and Shmuel. Terns included Bridled, Lesser Crested and many White-cheeked, but no too much else; eBird checklist here.

Yesterday morning I started early at KM20 flamingo pools with Itai. Shorebird numbers are building up there, and there was some interest too, in the form of a Sooty Falcon perched on the border fence, and a flock of six White-cheeked Terns circling over the saltpans - first time I see these strictly-marine terns inland. eBird checklist here.

My true reason for heading down to Eilat was to join the monthly monitoring pelagic trip in collaboration with INPA. I met up at IBRCE with the team. A very quick wander around the park produced a Lesser Gray Shrike and a checkered Western Reef-Heron.

We set out to sea, and reached our position near the border triangle, as deep as possible without a passport. We started chumming, and fairly quickly I picked up a Swinhoe's Storm-petrel that made a typically fast and directional fly-past. Better views than last year - shorter distance and slightly longer duration, but still no photos of this rarity. The rest of the trip was fairly quiet (eBird checklist here). Two lovely Cory's Shearwaters kept us focused (when will they be split from Scopoli's?). They certainly performed well. No wilson's, again...

Thanks to skipper Chen, Eran from INPA, and Noam and Gal from IBRCE for this great opportunity.

On the way back home I made a quick diversion for the Blue Pansies at Neot Smadar. They were extremely active at their spot, quite many of them. They kept chasing after each other, and refused to open their wings for me. What a contrast between the wonderful upperwings (see e.g. here) and the rather dull underwings. Incredible how they are found in Israel at one small roundabout in Neot Smadar ONLY.