Eilat/Aqaba 19-26 March (1 Viewer)

Hi folks,

we are headed for Eilat for the last week of March. I know about the "migration festival" and stuff, but we are not really the types for organized tours. However while you can find a lot online about these occasions, it's quite hard to find out where are the actual good spots for watching the various species migrate. We have been there already twice, so we know some of the places around Eilat - the ponds near the airport, those further north and the green areas around, but we would like to make the most of the trip.

The main question is: Eilat, or Aqaba, or both? We are likely gonna rent wherever we end up (possibly something like three days one side, three days other side). We would like to see the obvious raptor migration, but also find places to meet the various passerines passing through, in general maximizing the number of species, of course

I will be really gratefull for any suggestions!

Just for the reference is someone finds this thread: from 1.1.2016, Jordan stopped giving out free visa at the Wadi Araba crossing - in the process, they decided to not give ANY visa at all at this border. Thus, travel from Eilat to Awaba is possible only with a pre-arranged visa from an embassy (or seemingly in an organized group with a certified travel agency, but the rules seem to be unclear and it would be highly annoying anyway).

As we don't even have a Jordan embassy, getting a visa at this point would be impractical and expensive, thus making my choice between the two countries rather simple, since we fly to Eilat and have no way to get across the border.

How did the trip go? Successful?

Rob Williams said:

How did the trip go? Successful?

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It was nice, even though there was a little touch of disappointment - I have read many reports about spring migration in Israel, with the sites full of birds and that simply wasn't the case. We have still seen some 132 species with 16 lifers, which was great, but we were probably expecting too much - for example one report talks about hundreds of buntings etc. in the fields around Neot Samadar, whereas we have at maximum single birds there. Similarly was the situation in places like Lotan and even the Yotvata circular fields were basically dead. Talking with local birders, we learned that this was an exceptionally bad year for migration for unknown reasons.

At least some non-migratory birds have put up a great show. We have easily found a Houbara Bustard in Nizzana, the Lichtenstein's Sandgrouse went to drink at km20 as expected and we even managed to nicely see a Pharaoh Owl near Idan. And even though the Brown Boobies have spent their time in the forbidden waters of Jordan, our telescopes were strong enough to see them from the North Beach. On the other hand, several mornings of waiting for the other Sandgrouse species at different locations haven't brought any success.

The "Guide to the birding hotspots of southern Israel" has proven to be invaluable, even though a little outdated, as on several places, we have been told that the site is not what it used to be. In general, it was a nice trip and it leaving more to be desired is only a good excuse to come back agains

Some photos can probably be seen here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/401729379854657/permalink/1253982851295968/

That's a bit worrying about the lack of migrants, as another post on the site mentions that there are much fewer migrants passing through Jeddah..

Did you fly to Eilat? Which route? Via Tel Aviv?
Cheers.

jogresh said:

That's a bit worrying about the lack of migrants, as another post on the site mentions that there are much fewer migrants passing through Jeddah..

Did you fly to Eilat? Which route? Via Tel Aviv?
Cheers.

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We flew Krakow-Eilat, it's a newly opened Ryanair route and they had fantastic discounts to that occasion, it was something like 120 Euro per person return. The only downside is that they fly to Ovda, not Eilat city, but the bus connection is good and works on Shabbat.