Miilda
Well-known member
Introduction
This short trip to Israel was our annual autumn bird-watching holiday. September in Israel is not the best time to watch birds compared to the immense possibilities on offer during the massive spring migration. Therefore, when I was looking for valuable information for our trip, I struggled a little to find reports about early autumn birdwatching holidays in Israel. This inspired me to make my humble contribution and write my own report.
We are just beginners in birdwatching (only four, but very active, years in this amazing hobby). We planned the trip ourselves, using reports on the Internet and checking some websites of local birdwatchers from Israel and other organizations. And we got some very useful contacts of Israeli birdwatchers from our friends. As gratuity we promised to search for the ringed Black Storks, as they do a project of the protection of Black Storks in Lithuania. This story probably won’t appear so interesting to highly experienced birdwatchers, travellers and veterans of this forum, as you won’t find any rarities or unusual things here. We didn’t have any particular targets as this was our first trip in the Middle East and therefore many of the common birds and other wildlife were new and interesting for us. The intention was to travel all around Israel, hoping to see as much as possible of this unique small country where the three continents of Asia, Europe and Africa meet. Moreover, Israel lies along a major migration route for millions of birds. The north of the country is decorated with the snowy cap of Muont Hermon and the south with the jewel of Eilat, which is dipped in the refreshing waters of the Red Sea. It’s like a woman’s body whose western side is washed by the warm Mediterranean Sea, whose legs are heated by the Negev desert and whose waist is marked by the magnificent Dead Sea. The River Jordan is snuggled against her north-eastern side. The Hulla Valey, a famous wetland area, and the Bet Shean Valley with its numerous fish ponds and open farm lands tempt the traveller to the north. Due to such mosaic diversity Israel accounts for around 500 species of birds and is a real joy for all birdwatchers. And along with all this beauty and natural diversity, the whole country is literally stuffed with soldiers with machine-guns and seeing this, you are persecuted by thoughts about the never-ending political hassle, conflicts, etc. But maybe this is not the place to write about such sad things...
We spent full seven days in Israel (19 – 26 September) during which time we travelled about 1 700 km, saw 142 species of birds (27 of which were new for us!), some butterflies, hundreds of colourful fish, a few lizards and mammals. We visited Jerusalem, the Ma’agam Michael fish pools, Eilat, Ein Gedi and Dead Sea, the Beat Shean valley, the Hulla valey Reserve and the Gamla nature Reserve. These were fantastically warm (well ok, actually sometimes too hot) days full of impressions, discoveries and some losses ... one very unpleasant criminal event at the last evening of our voyage and our final lucky escape home to the cold and rainy Lithuania! But all is to follow.
This short trip to Israel was our annual autumn bird-watching holiday. September in Israel is not the best time to watch birds compared to the immense possibilities on offer during the massive spring migration. Therefore, when I was looking for valuable information for our trip, I struggled a little to find reports about early autumn birdwatching holidays in Israel. This inspired me to make my humble contribution and write my own report.
We are just beginners in birdwatching (only four, but very active, years in this amazing hobby). We planned the trip ourselves, using reports on the Internet and checking some websites of local birdwatchers from Israel and other organizations. And we got some very useful contacts of Israeli birdwatchers from our friends. As gratuity we promised to search for the ringed Black Storks, as they do a project of the protection of Black Storks in Lithuania. This story probably won’t appear so interesting to highly experienced birdwatchers, travellers and veterans of this forum, as you won’t find any rarities or unusual things here. We didn’t have any particular targets as this was our first trip in the Middle East and therefore many of the common birds and other wildlife were new and interesting for us. The intention was to travel all around Israel, hoping to see as much as possible of this unique small country where the three continents of Asia, Europe and Africa meet. Moreover, Israel lies along a major migration route for millions of birds. The north of the country is decorated with the snowy cap of Muont Hermon and the south with the jewel of Eilat, which is dipped in the refreshing waters of the Red Sea. It’s like a woman’s body whose western side is washed by the warm Mediterranean Sea, whose legs are heated by the Negev desert and whose waist is marked by the magnificent Dead Sea. The River Jordan is snuggled against her north-eastern side. The Hulla Valey, a famous wetland area, and the Bet Shean Valley with its numerous fish ponds and open farm lands tempt the traveller to the north. Due to such mosaic diversity Israel accounts for around 500 species of birds and is a real joy for all birdwatchers. And along with all this beauty and natural diversity, the whole country is literally stuffed with soldiers with machine-guns and seeing this, you are persecuted by thoughts about the never-ending political hassle, conflicts, etc. But maybe this is not the place to write about such sad things...
We spent full seven days in Israel (19 – 26 September) during which time we travelled about 1 700 km, saw 142 species of birds (27 of which were new for us!), some butterflies, hundreds of colourful fish, a few lizards and mammals. We visited Jerusalem, the Ma’agam Michael fish pools, Eilat, Ein Gedi and Dead Sea, the Beat Shean valley, the Hulla valey Reserve and the Gamla nature Reserve. These were fantastically warm (well ok, actually sometimes too hot) days full of impressions, discoveries and some losses ... one very unpleasant criminal event at the last evening of our voyage and our final lucky escape home to the cold and rainy Lithuania! But all is to follow.
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