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Weekend in Israel, February 2018 |
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Written by Jos
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A month or so earlier, my younger travelling companion, now at the grand age of nine, announced a list of five places in the world she wanted to visit – Hawaii, Death Valley, the Grand Canyon, the Eiffel Tower and the Dead Sea. With just a weekend to spare, the western side of America seemed a little extravagant and I really didn't have any real desire to visit Paris, so there it was, a trip to Israel on the cards. 
With just 2.5 days in the country, the basic idea of this mini trip, beyond obviously a short swim in the Dead Sea for the little one, was just to have an excellent weekend's birding, my only real targets being Black Bush Robin and a male Dead Sea Sparrow, the first of which I last saw in Sudan many years ago, the latter of which two dozen years since last encountering a male. |
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 04 March 2018 )
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Golan and North Israel, February 2019 |
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Written by Jos
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With a duration of just two-and-a-days, this proved to be an extraordinarily productive trip. The basic idea was to visit the Hula Valley for the amazing concentrations of wintering Cranes and other waterbirds, then travel up into the occupied Golan Heights, before dropping down to the Beit She'an area to look for birds around the superb fishpond systems. 
This short trip truly exceeded expectations - not only seeing the impressive 50,000 Cranes at Hula, but also a whole bunch of other highlights, including Black Francolin, Dead Sea Sparrows, Great Spotted Cuckoo and no less than 19 Pallas's Gulls. Also saw Eastern Imperial, Steppe, Bonelli's and Great Spotted Eagles, plus a number of other targets, such as Vinous-breasted Starlings in the Tel Aviv area and False Apollo butterfly in the Golan Heights. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 05 March 2019 )
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Israel, two trips 
