Oh, how I missed these. Spent a night and two days with my family at Ein Gedi by the Dead Sea. Daytime birding was rather quiet, as expected for this time of year, but it was good to get reunited with ‘my’ familiar desert birds and mammals.
The birding highlight of the weekend was a couple of hours of night birding in the northern Dead Sea region with my brother and Rami (thanks!). A small population of Egyptian Nightjars was found breeding there last summer.
We went to check if they had stayed for the winter. They did. Very quickly we found three nightjars on the deck.
They offered brilliant views. Quality!
We left them in peace and moved on to nearby date plantations to see if Pallid Scops Owls overwinter there too. They do… We had only brief views of one, but heard about three singing and calling. Great stuff. It is quite amazing how we can still learn new things about our breeding birds in Israel.
Here are few unimpressive wildlife images I got:
Barbary Falcon – perched on the tall communication mast in the kibbutz (huge crop)
White-crowned Wheatear – 2cy
Disgraceful Nubian Ibex
Rock Hyrax
Yoav Perlman
I have been birding since the age of 9, and from the age of 15 I started working professionally in birding. I have been working for the Israeli Ornithological Center since 1998. I was a member of the Israeli rarities committee between 2001 - 2007. I have an MSc in Ecology from the Ben Gurion University. I did my research on the ecology of Nubian Nightjars in Israel, and spent hundreds of nights with these fascinating birds. I lead tours in Israel, and especially focus on Nubian Nightjars obviously. I traveled and birded Asia extensively, and also Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Africa and North America. I am married to my lovely wife Adva and father to two sons - Uri and Noam, and one daughter - Libby. Currently I live in Norwich, where I am starting a PhD project at UEA.
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