wolfbirder
Well-known member
Indeed wonderful Hoopoe photos John.
-
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Almost The Greatest Story Ever Told (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Farnboro John
- Start date
Farnboro John
Well-known member
7 April: Friday 1
Thanks all for kind comments (and patience!)
End of the first week and end of our stay in Eilat. We packed the car early and set off North out of town to have yet another go at the fields around Yotvata, where once again we found no new birds (though a male Redstart gave us a good show and Maz caught up Arabian Babbler, like she was bothered.....)
Off across the Negev desert. Miles and miles of sand, much of it earmarked for tank driving and gunnery, with the no stopping concrete blocks conspicuous everywhere and rows of actual tanks lined up in apparently the middle of nowhere, awaiting their crews dropping in for a spot of training from wherever their barracks might be. I guess tank theft is rare.....
I would have liked a closer look and some pix, but house rules prevented the thought even being voiced. Conversation had dropped away with the lack of interesting features (such as plants, buildings, mountains, animals or pretty much anything else) so it was with some relief that we heard Steve utter the time-honoured traveller's mantra: "I spy, with my little eye..."
I can't remember even what the answer turned out to be, but the trouble was, as Jeff pointed out acidly, that Steve couldn't see it, and moreover as he eventually admitted, hadn't seen it: we had unexpectedly found ourselves playing a different game altogether that required a good deal more inventiveness! Off Jeff went with a heavily sarcastic "I can't spy with my little eye, something beginning with Zed", proceeded to deny all our guesses, eventually revealed what he couldn't spy, immediately reeled off the initial of something else he couldn't spy.... and repeat - and repeat..... it turned into about a twenty minute inspired almost continuous rant in which nobody ever guessed what he couldn't see and he interspersed his challenges with remarks about "playing the game", the general lunacy of humanity and so on. We were in stitches, its pretty much impossible to get across just how funny his monologue was. It made the miles pass easily, anyway.
Suddenly we were approaching an escarpment of crumbling sandstone, with a town on the top of it - which must mean the road goes up it - oh, Lor' look at that..... A series of hairpins stitched back and forth across the cliff before trailing off to the left for the final ascent. Maz and I are not great at this sort of thing! But d'you know what? It wasn't an issue. We drove up the road, which was well protected with substantial barriers and whose hairpins were actually quite wide and smooth, without a single squeak, let alone full on screaming. And just the other side of Mitzpe Ramon, the town perched on the escarpment, we found a Long-legged Buzzard sitting on a boulder as we steamed along the road. Of course it flew as soon as we got turned round and came back for it, but we tumbled out of the doors and opened fire with the big lenses as quickly as possible. For me this was Bird of the Day.
After that we continued for quite a long way, through slightly more amenable habitat varying from irrigated fields and date palm plantations, minor streams lined with trees and steep hillsides with low bushes to undulating mixtures of desert sand, sparse grasses and scrub varying from knee to head height.
Eventually we found Nizzana Fortress, though my eye looked at the ruins with their large windows and thought governor's palace, not fort: eventually it transpired this wasn't far wrong. A scan with bins (it was by now too hot to think of climbing the steps to the ancient ruins) revealed a good deal of the standing remains were pock-marked with machine gun fire, though whether the result of actual warfare or live-fire training wasn't clear. What we couldn't find despite driving all over the area on and off road, was the Nizzana sewage pools at which we hoped to pick up some more sandgrouse species in the morning.
So we gave that up for a while and instead hunted for, and found, the railway wagon that is the viewpoint for the jewel of the Negev: Macqueen's Bustard. Needless to say, in the heat of the day, we didn't find the bustard itself, though we did give the terrain a good grilling: we've all been present at too many places where a specific time window is specified but seen the bird outside it not to have a proper go - but on this occasion it didn't work.
By now we thought perhaps it was time we went to our next accommodation, which was booked for three nights. During that time we had plans for night drives for mammals, as well as staking out a vulture restaurant for scavenging carnivores, so it bid fair to be exciting. Steve had GPS co-ordinates for the place, so he fed those into his phone satnav and away we went. The guidance took us to a fenced village, and the written directions within it said to find the yellow bus (that was easy, big yellow bus just inside the gate) and ring the accommodation proprietor. But the trouble was, the directions also mentioned going past a barrier, a playground, and stopping by a building of some sort, and that didn't fit with the location of the bus. We did an orbit of the inside of the village and ended up back by the bus.
So we rang the proprietor, and assured him we were by the bus, and he said he couldn't see us. So we drove round again and at one point he said he could see us and he was waving: well, even with bins we couldn't see a man waving. And he didn't actually believe us when we returned to the bus and told him we were right next to it! There was some stuff about him riding a bike to find us, which then coincided with someone riding a bike towards us - but he gave us a funny look when we stared at him all the way in.....
It dawned on Steve and Jeff that, GPS directions or not, we were in the wrong village. So after a while and with tempers rising on our side while our host was sounding stressed and confused, we bolted out of the village, along the main road past the fields and into the next one along. We drove the length of that and there was a man waving at us, in front of a yellow bus. A very old, run-down, decrepit yellow bus that seemed to have been sort of converted into a - what? Caravan? Mobile home? Non-mobile home?
Holy God. That is the accommodation. It's a bus. It's a ****ing bus!!!! I literally don't believe I'm seeing this. I know the booking said Negev Bus, but I don't speak Hebrew and for all I know "Bus" means "small hamlet in the desert".
But it doesn't. We're going to spend three nights living in a godalmighty effing bus in a village in the Negev Desert. Maybe its been professionally converted and it's actually quite luxurious.
But it wasn't. It had been converted, yes, but the advertising material claimed it had "rooms" and frankly it didn't. The driver's position was still there, and access truly was via the front door, up the steps past said driver's position to find immediately behind the driver, a small booth to seat four, two each side of a formica-topped table. On the other side was a sink and small food preparation work surface along with a tiny gas stove. The gas supply was an industrial size calor gas cylinder strapped to the outside back of the bus. Our instructions were to turn the supply off at the cylinder every time we left the bus.
Immediately aft of the "kitchen" was the "bathroom" - the only actual enclosed room in the bus - approximately two feet by four feet it contained a toilet, a washbasin and a shower area and I'm absolutely not lying: there was not space for two people, and one was a tight fit, whatever system they were going to use! Trying to shower was going to be a full-on nightmare with arms, shoulders and other bits bouncing off the walls throughout. The toilet was a chemical effort with a lid that closed sideways when nobody was in position (you had to scoot your backside backwards to get it to open once sitting: normal male standing use for a pee was impossible. Bleeding bloody hell.
Behind the bathroom the floor area opened up into what was laughably referred to as the dressing area and extra bedroom, where one lucky person had a sofa bed inside which lurked an ancient mattress to deploy on the floor for the other. Then a row of cupboards provided some privacy, though no closing door shut off the main "bedroom" with its double bed at the back of the bus.
There was bed linen provided. It was gopping. If you threw it at the wall it would have stuck. By now we were in shellshock, and didn't complain. It's for three nights. It will be all right. Jesus Christ.
And still the day was not over, but I need to get this memory out of my head before I continue and finish it off.
John
Thanks all for kind comments (and patience!)
End of the first week and end of our stay in Eilat. We packed the car early and set off North out of town to have yet another go at the fields around Yotvata, where once again we found no new birds (though a male Redstart gave us a good show and Maz caught up Arabian Babbler, like she was bothered.....)
Off across the Negev desert. Miles and miles of sand, much of it earmarked for tank driving and gunnery, with the no stopping concrete blocks conspicuous everywhere and rows of actual tanks lined up in apparently the middle of nowhere, awaiting their crews dropping in for a spot of training from wherever their barracks might be. I guess tank theft is rare.....
I would have liked a closer look and some pix, but house rules prevented the thought even being voiced. Conversation had dropped away with the lack of interesting features (such as plants, buildings, mountains, animals or pretty much anything else) so it was with some relief that we heard Steve utter the time-honoured traveller's mantra: "I spy, with my little eye..."
I can't remember even what the answer turned out to be, but the trouble was, as Jeff pointed out acidly, that Steve couldn't see it, and moreover as he eventually admitted, hadn't seen it: we had unexpectedly found ourselves playing a different game altogether that required a good deal more inventiveness! Off Jeff went with a heavily sarcastic "I can't spy with my little eye, something beginning with Zed", proceeded to deny all our guesses, eventually revealed what he couldn't spy, immediately reeled off the initial of something else he couldn't spy.... and repeat - and repeat..... it turned into about a twenty minute inspired almost continuous rant in which nobody ever guessed what he couldn't see and he interspersed his challenges with remarks about "playing the game", the general lunacy of humanity and so on. We were in stitches, its pretty much impossible to get across just how funny his monologue was. It made the miles pass easily, anyway.
Suddenly we were approaching an escarpment of crumbling sandstone, with a town on the top of it - which must mean the road goes up it - oh, Lor' look at that..... A series of hairpins stitched back and forth across the cliff before trailing off to the left for the final ascent. Maz and I are not great at this sort of thing! But d'you know what? It wasn't an issue. We drove up the road, which was well protected with substantial barriers and whose hairpins were actually quite wide and smooth, without a single squeak, let alone full on screaming. And just the other side of Mitzpe Ramon, the town perched on the escarpment, we found a Long-legged Buzzard sitting on a boulder as we steamed along the road. Of course it flew as soon as we got turned round and came back for it, but we tumbled out of the doors and opened fire with the big lenses as quickly as possible. For me this was Bird of the Day.
After that we continued for quite a long way, through slightly more amenable habitat varying from irrigated fields and date palm plantations, minor streams lined with trees and steep hillsides with low bushes to undulating mixtures of desert sand, sparse grasses and scrub varying from knee to head height.
Eventually we found Nizzana Fortress, though my eye looked at the ruins with their large windows and thought governor's palace, not fort: eventually it transpired this wasn't far wrong. A scan with bins (it was by now too hot to think of climbing the steps to the ancient ruins) revealed a good deal of the standing remains were pock-marked with machine gun fire, though whether the result of actual warfare or live-fire training wasn't clear. What we couldn't find despite driving all over the area on and off road, was the Nizzana sewage pools at which we hoped to pick up some more sandgrouse species in the morning.
So we gave that up for a while and instead hunted for, and found, the railway wagon that is the viewpoint for the jewel of the Negev: Macqueen's Bustard. Needless to say, in the heat of the day, we didn't find the bustard itself, though we did give the terrain a good grilling: we've all been present at too many places where a specific time window is specified but seen the bird outside it not to have a proper go - but on this occasion it didn't work.
By now we thought perhaps it was time we went to our next accommodation, which was booked for three nights. During that time we had plans for night drives for mammals, as well as staking out a vulture restaurant for scavenging carnivores, so it bid fair to be exciting. Steve had GPS co-ordinates for the place, so he fed those into his phone satnav and away we went. The guidance took us to a fenced village, and the written directions within it said to find the yellow bus (that was easy, big yellow bus just inside the gate) and ring the accommodation proprietor. But the trouble was, the directions also mentioned going past a barrier, a playground, and stopping by a building of some sort, and that didn't fit with the location of the bus. We did an orbit of the inside of the village and ended up back by the bus.
So we rang the proprietor, and assured him we were by the bus, and he said he couldn't see us. So we drove round again and at one point he said he could see us and he was waving: well, even with bins we couldn't see a man waving. And he didn't actually believe us when we returned to the bus and told him we were right next to it! There was some stuff about him riding a bike to find us, which then coincided with someone riding a bike towards us - but he gave us a funny look when we stared at him all the way in.....
It dawned on Steve and Jeff that, GPS directions or not, we were in the wrong village. So after a while and with tempers rising on our side while our host was sounding stressed and confused, we bolted out of the village, along the main road past the fields and into the next one along. We drove the length of that and there was a man waving at us, in front of a yellow bus. A very old, run-down, decrepit yellow bus that seemed to have been sort of converted into a - what? Caravan? Mobile home? Non-mobile home?
Holy God. That is the accommodation. It's a bus. It's a ****ing bus!!!! I literally don't believe I'm seeing this. I know the booking said Negev Bus, but I don't speak Hebrew and for all I know "Bus" means "small hamlet in the desert".
But it doesn't. We're going to spend three nights living in a godalmighty effing bus in a village in the Negev Desert. Maybe its been professionally converted and it's actually quite luxurious.
But it wasn't. It had been converted, yes, but the advertising material claimed it had "rooms" and frankly it didn't. The driver's position was still there, and access truly was via the front door, up the steps past said driver's position to find immediately behind the driver, a small booth to seat four, two each side of a formica-topped table. On the other side was a sink and small food preparation work surface along with a tiny gas stove. The gas supply was an industrial size calor gas cylinder strapped to the outside back of the bus. Our instructions were to turn the supply off at the cylinder every time we left the bus.
Immediately aft of the "kitchen" was the "bathroom" - the only actual enclosed room in the bus - approximately two feet by four feet it contained a toilet, a washbasin and a shower area and I'm absolutely not lying: there was not space for two people, and one was a tight fit, whatever system they were going to use! Trying to shower was going to be a full-on nightmare with arms, shoulders and other bits bouncing off the walls throughout. The toilet was a chemical effort with a lid that closed sideways when nobody was in position (you had to scoot your backside backwards to get it to open once sitting: normal male standing use for a pee was impossible. Bleeding bloody hell.
Behind the bathroom the floor area opened up into what was laughably referred to as the dressing area and extra bedroom, where one lucky person had a sofa bed inside which lurked an ancient mattress to deploy on the floor for the other. Then a row of cupboards provided some privacy, though no closing door shut off the main "bedroom" with its double bed at the back of the bus.
There was bed linen provided. It was gopping. If you threw it at the wall it would have stuck. By now we were in shellshock, and didn't complain. It's for three nights. It will be all right. Jesus Christ.
And still the day was not over, but I need to get this memory out of my head before I continue and finish it off.
John
Last edited:
Steve Babbs
Well-known member
It's fair to say the Negev Bus didn't get a great review on Booking.com although I had to give it maximum marks on location. Somehow the main driver ended up with the even more crap then the rest bed i.e. a dirty mattress squashed into a spot where it was impossible for a six foot birder to stretch out.
stuartvine
Well-known member
Sorry John, I shouldn't snigger at your misfortune, but your description set me off! 
Weirdly it doesn't get a bad average score (8.1) on Booking.com!
Weirdly it doesn't get a bad average score (8.1) on Booking.com!
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Sorry John, I shouldn't snigger at your misfortune, but your description set me off!
Yeah, we think he lets it out to his mates and they review it accordingly.
John
Steve Babbs
Well-known member
Sorry John, I shouldn't snigger at your misfortune, but your description set me off!
I have slept in worse: a church doorway in Lerwick, toilets/washrooms on St Marys, a car park in Norwich etc.
8.1 must be the most blatant bit of score bumping ever.
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Yes, but you didn't pay for any of them or see astonishing reviews of them on Booking Dot WTF!!
John
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Our bus was on the edge of the village, with only a short walk to the cliff edge of a substantial wadi. The cliffs were home to a herd of Nubian Ibex - females, kids and some adolescent males. We scanned the wadi without success and photographed the Ibex as they wandered around our gaff and browsed the bushes within the village.
We had arranged to undertake a night drive with Tomer Ben-Yehuda, a local mammal-watcher and someone we were virtually connected to via Jon Hall's mammal watching site. Tomer managed to find us and we all piled into the Duster to start with a dusk watch at the vulture restaurant. This was a bust though we saw a few Dorcas Gazelles scattered across the desert.
As always when you are intent on a night drive, it took ages to get dark! Once it did we crowded in and set off along a nearby track that Tomer reckoned was a likely site for Striped Hyena and Golden Jackal. It may have been but they weren't playing for us.... Eventually we gave up on that track and went to try one up the back of Mitzpe Ramon, which turned out at least to be stuffed with desert form Red Foxes (only the faces are red, the remainder being a dull greyish that matches the local substrate). Better than nothing, especially when we found one curled up on a hillside and determined not to move.
Returning to the village, we found the truck-bomb-proof gate shut and no means of opening it. You are kidding. After all this we don't get to drive in and straight to the accommodation? Pants. Tomer's car was outside so he was able to get straight off. We sat in the car till fortunately one of the locals decided to go out for some reason and we nipped through the gate as he came out.
Driving back to the bus we spotted a White-breasted Hedgehog in the road. Whoopee! Of course we all had the wrong lenses on, so we quickly changed them, tumbled out of the car and - no hedgehog. What? Where's it gone? Don't say we've met the Usain Bolt of the hedgehog world..... but we had. We ran about, flashed our torches all over the landscape and very soon had to conclude we had been outsprinted by the prickly insectivore. Hadn't been so embarrassed since I was in Florida and a Gopher Tortoise zipped down a hole while I was changing lenses (admittedly those had been Pentax screw mounts) - being outsmarted by the lightning speed of a tortoise is as bad as it gets. But the same treatment from a hedgehog is quite bad enough!
We collapsed into our smeggy beds and fell asleep.
John
We had arranged to undertake a night drive with Tomer Ben-Yehuda, a local mammal-watcher and someone we were virtually connected to via Jon Hall's mammal watching site. Tomer managed to find us and we all piled into the Duster to start with a dusk watch at the vulture restaurant. This was a bust though we saw a few Dorcas Gazelles scattered across the desert.
As always when you are intent on a night drive, it took ages to get dark! Once it did we crowded in and set off along a nearby track that Tomer reckoned was a likely site for Striped Hyena and Golden Jackal. It may have been but they weren't playing for us.... Eventually we gave up on that track and went to try one up the back of Mitzpe Ramon, which turned out at least to be stuffed with desert form Red Foxes (only the faces are red, the remainder being a dull greyish that matches the local substrate). Better than nothing, especially when we found one curled up on a hillside and determined not to move.
Returning to the village, we found the truck-bomb-proof gate shut and no means of opening it. You are kidding. After all this we don't get to drive in and straight to the accommodation? Pants. Tomer's car was outside so he was able to get straight off. We sat in the car till fortunately one of the locals decided to go out for some reason and we nipped through the gate as he came out.
Driving back to the bus we spotted a White-breasted Hedgehog in the road. Whoopee! Of course we all had the wrong lenses on, so we quickly changed them, tumbled out of the car and - no hedgehog. What? Where's it gone? Don't say we've met the Usain Bolt of the hedgehog world..... but we had. We ran about, flashed our torches all over the landscape and very soon had to conclude we had been outsprinted by the prickly insectivore. Hadn't been so embarrassed since I was in Florida and a Gopher Tortoise zipped down a hole while I was changing lenses (admittedly those had been Pentax screw mounts) - being outsmarted by the lightning speed of a tortoise is as bad as it gets. But the same treatment from a hedgehog is quite bad enough!
We collapsed into our smeggy beds and fell asleep.
John
Last edited:
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Pix:
Long-legged Buzzard
Bustard Hide
Palatial accommodation - NOT!!!!
Negev Vulture restaurant (two dead cows)
Desert Red Fox
Long-legged Buzzard
Bustard Hide
Palatial accommodation - NOT!!!!
Negev Vulture restaurant (two dead cows)
Desert Red Fox
Attachments
Mike Richardson
Formerly known as Skink1978
Are you sure it wasn't a Desert Hedgehog? I'm not sure if White-breasted occur as far south in the Negev. Either way, both can move extremely fast when they need to.
Farnboro John
Well-known member
We decided it couldn't be ID'd on range from our book but in any case the face wasn't contrastingly white-edged black as per Desert Hedgehog so that was eliminated. You are so right about the speed!
John
Farnboro John
Well-known member
8 April: Saturday 2
We were up and out fairly early the next morning - there was no great desire to stay in bed anyway, and we had places to go, the immediate one being the bustard hide on the Ezuz road beyond Nizzana. The 20 or so Nubian Ibex were up before us, wandering about the edge of the village. I had a scoot round the Sherman traps I had set out but there was nothing in them. In fact that was the story of the trip: I trapped every night at Mid-Reshet Ben Gurion (where the blasted bus was) and also at our residence up in the Hula Valley and caught two-fifths of naff all. Never mind. Back to the narrative.
We had an uneventful drive to our destination, up to within a mile of it when four very unfriendly and uncontrolled Israeli dogs blocked the road and then barked and growled very aggressively round the car. Generally I like dogs but even I came close to advising Steve to drive right over them. What was even more annoying was that we could see the owners, occupying themselves with a radio-controlled aircraft meet on a deserted IDFAF runway that paralleled the road, and they could see what their dogs were doing but made no attempt to call them off. What's the Hebrew for chav?
Anyway, we got past them and rocked up to the hide where after some pretty detailed scanning suddenly a male Macqueen's Bustard was on view. It was a long way off but we didn't care (well we did but a tick's a tick) - at least the thing was safely on the list and we could relax a bit. We also had a couple of Chukar scuttling across the landscape, also distantly but another tick.
We watched the bustard for a while but of course eventually it walked out of sight and there wasn't much else there. Overnight we had done a bit of research via Google maps and had a much better idea of where the sewage pools were, so we next drove round to near those and walked in, seeing more Chukar close enough for pictures before we reached the pools.
They were quite large lakes, fenced but not so as to prevent birding, and with a selection of common waders and ducks present. A flock of 10 Black-bellied Sandgrouse flew in giving us decent flight views before dropping to drink a long way off at the far side of the pools. The bushes outside the fence were stuffed with Lesser Whitethroats but held other birds as well, the best of the bunch being a male Semi-collared Flycatcher that bumped my list up by another one in addition to being a smart elegant bird.
Following this successful patch we returned to the Nizzana Fort where the surrounding dry moat held an Eastern Orphean Warbler that stayed just long enough for Maz to tick it and then shot away from us along the moat and vanished. A Hen Harrier ringtail teased out in the desert but eventually gave us ID views.
Returning to base for the hot part of the day we had a drive round the local fields, finding more Black-bellied Sandgrouse though they weren't all that co-operative. Back at the bus I decided to have a walk round the village as I'd seen Palestine Sunbirds feeding on red-hot poker flowers and looking eminently photographable, so I wanted a go at them. The boys wandered off in different directions and Maz had a nap.
My walk round was pretty successful, with a male sunbird giving great views, a couple of Tristram's Starlings also posing and a fine performance from a family group of Arabian Babblers in addition to finding a male Pied Flycatcher doing its stuff among some trees. Hooded Crow, Laughing Dove and introduced Common Mynas also featured, plus a male Blackcap that had picked up a lot of yellow pollen from the flowers giving it a startling golden bib.
Out again late afternoon we had another go at the fields. A fence line barring access to yet more sewage pools held a big flock of sparrows and, at last, a pair of Desert Finches that came up from gleaning seeds in the fields to give good views on the barbed wire strands topping the fence. We were however distracted by first two Egyptian Vultures rising from the pools area and circling over us, and then a point-blank Short-toed Eagle that drifted into the pools area and then drifted off again. A couple of Alpine Swifts catching insects over the pools gave us our best views of this species for the trip.
Late afternoon we dropped in to the local garage to get supplies, and with Maz volunteering to do our shopping I stayed by the car and, scanning around, found a Fat Sand Rat sitting by its hole in the sandy soil just off the side of the tarmac car park. Steve and Jeff also got this and we all photographed it, but by the time Maz had returned from the garage, it had disappeared and though we hung around a while, it didn't put on another show. It was quite a smart rodent and good value.
Besides, we had to get home to get fed early as we had a formal, paid for night drive coming up later in the evening....
John
Pix:
Chukar
Nizzana sewage pools
Black-bellied Sandgrouse
Semi-collared Flycatcher
Nizzana Fort
We were up and out fairly early the next morning - there was no great desire to stay in bed anyway, and we had places to go, the immediate one being the bustard hide on the Ezuz road beyond Nizzana. The 20 or so Nubian Ibex were up before us, wandering about the edge of the village. I had a scoot round the Sherman traps I had set out but there was nothing in them. In fact that was the story of the trip: I trapped every night at Mid-Reshet Ben Gurion (where the blasted bus was) and also at our residence up in the Hula Valley and caught two-fifths of naff all. Never mind. Back to the narrative.
We had an uneventful drive to our destination, up to within a mile of it when four very unfriendly and uncontrolled Israeli dogs blocked the road and then barked and growled very aggressively round the car. Generally I like dogs but even I came close to advising Steve to drive right over them. What was even more annoying was that we could see the owners, occupying themselves with a radio-controlled aircraft meet on a deserted IDFAF runway that paralleled the road, and they could see what their dogs were doing but made no attempt to call them off. What's the Hebrew for chav?
Anyway, we got past them and rocked up to the hide where after some pretty detailed scanning suddenly a male Macqueen's Bustard was on view. It was a long way off but we didn't care (well we did but a tick's a tick) - at least the thing was safely on the list and we could relax a bit. We also had a couple of Chukar scuttling across the landscape, also distantly but another tick.
We watched the bustard for a while but of course eventually it walked out of sight and there wasn't much else there. Overnight we had done a bit of research via Google maps and had a much better idea of where the sewage pools were, so we next drove round to near those and walked in, seeing more Chukar close enough for pictures before we reached the pools.
They were quite large lakes, fenced but not so as to prevent birding, and with a selection of common waders and ducks present. A flock of 10 Black-bellied Sandgrouse flew in giving us decent flight views before dropping to drink a long way off at the far side of the pools. The bushes outside the fence were stuffed with Lesser Whitethroats but held other birds as well, the best of the bunch being a male Semi-collared Flycatcher that bumped my list up by another one in addition to being a smart elegant bird.
Following this successful patch we returned to the Nizzana Fort where the surrounding dry moat held an Eastern Orphean Warbler that stayed just long enough for Maz to tick it and then shot away from us along the moat and vanished. A Hen Harrier ringtail teased out in the desert but eventually gave us ID views.
Returning to base for the hot part of the day we had a drive round the local fields, finding more Black-bellied Sandgrouse though they weren't all that co-operative. Back at the bus I decided to have a walk round the village as I'd seen Palestine Sunbirds feeding on red-hot poker flowers and looking eminently photographable, so I wanted a go at them. The boys wandered off in different directions and Maz had a nap.
My walk round was pretty successful, with a male sunbird giving great views, a couple of Tristram's Starlings also posing and a fine performance from a family group of Arabian Babblers in addition to finding a male Pied Flycatcher doing its stuff among some trees. Hooded Crow, Laughing Dove and introduced Common Mynas also featured, plus a male Blackcap that had picked up a lot of yellow pollen from the flowers giving it a startling golden bib.
Out again late afternoon we had another go at the fields. A fence line barring access to yet more sewage pools held a big flock of sparrows and, at last, a pair of Desert Finches that came up from gleaning seeds in the fields to give good views on the barbed wire strands topping the fence. We were however distracted by first two Egyptian Vultures rising from the pools area and circling over us, and then a point-blank Short-toed Eagle that drifted into the pools area and then drifted off again. A couple of Alpine Swifts catching insects over the pools gave us our best views of this species for the trip.
Late afternoon we dropped in to the local garage to get supplies, and with Maz volunteering to do our shopping I stayed by the car and, scanning around, found a Fat Sand Rat sitting by its hole in the sandy soil just off the side of the tarmac car park. Steve and Jeff also got this and we all photographed it, but by the time Maz had returned from the garage, it had disappeared and though we hung around a while, it didn't put on another show. It was quite a smart rodent and good value.
Besides, we had to get home to get fed early as we had a formal, paid for night drive coming up later in the evening....
John
Pix:
Chukar
Nizzana sewage pools
Black-bellied Sandgrouse
Semi-collared Flycatcher
Nizzana Fort
Attachments
Last edited:
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Village walk pix, part one:
Negev Desert
Nubian Ibex
Blackcap male (note pollen staining)
Tristram's Starling
Palestine Sunbird
Negev Desert
Nubian Ibex
Blackcap male (note pollen staining)
Tristram's Starling
Palestine Sunbird
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Farnboro John
Well-known member
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Can't remember if this was immediately I got back from my walk or later, after the trip round the fields, but the boys had found a male Collared Flycatcher near the bus to round out the set of three for the day. Very nice too. I've included it here for convenience.
If anyone knows what the moth is, please tell me!
Part Three:
Hooded Crow
Common Myna
Moth sp
Collared Flycatcher X 2
If anyone knows what the moth is, please tell me!
Part Three:
Hooded Crow
Common Myna
Moth sp
Collared Flycatcher X 2
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Farnboro John
Well-known member
Farnboro John
Well-known member
wolfbirder
Well-known member
Great read John. As always.
Farnboro John
Well-known member
Cheers mate, I'm sorry its taking so long. I'm determined to keep it moving from now on though.
John
Steve Babbs
Well-known member
Well I would take over but I'm not sure I could match the story telling style or the photos.
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