Southern Israel
- Nicholas Turner
- Dec 18, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb 3
9th - 14th December 2022
A rare opportunity to visit a fascinating part of the world for both cultural and wildlife reasons. Our base would be Be’er Sheva which is in Southern Israel in the Negev Desert. From here we would able to travel south to the desert or east to the Dead Sea.
Friday 9th December: On the Friday we flew from Manchester via Frankfurt to Tel Aviv where a car was waiting to take us to our University accommodation in Be’er Sheva.
Saturday 10th December: Our hosts kindly organised a day trip for us starting with a 2 hour drive south into the Negev Desert where although birds were somewhat scarce we saw a spectacular Mourning Wheatear, a Blackstart, 2 Rock Martins and a Hooded Crow.
In the afternoon we visited Ein Bokek beach on the iconic Dead Sea where some of the party spent the time floating in the sea which is an incredible 389 metres below sea-level! Along the beach were 2 Spur-winged Lapwing, 1 White-throated Kingfisher, 2 Rock Martins, 2 Stonechats, 1 Blackstart, White Wagtail and 3 Laughing Doves. New butterflies included Pioneer White and Plain Tiger as well as a Painted Lady.
Sunday 11th December: The whole of Sunday was spent visiting the historic Jerusalem Old City where we had an excellent guided tour with a lunch provided at midday.
Monday 12th December: Close to our accommodation at the University was a large park called Shnei Eliyahu Garden. This turned out to be an excellent place to spend the morning looking for birds. In and around the trees there was a single Spur-winged Lapwing together with White Wagtail, Common Bulbul, 2 Syrian Woodpeckers, a Graceful Prinia, 3 Chiffchaff, 1 Hoopoe feeding on the ground, White-spectacled Bulbul, Laughing Dove, Collared Dove, Blackbird, Palestine Sunbird and a Rose-ringed Parakeet. The highlight of the morning was undoubtedly a White-throated Kingfisher which sat patiently in a tree. 2 Black Kites drifted over in the late morning.
A small area of flowers was full of butterflies with Small White, Lang’s Short-tailed Blue, Long-tailed Blue and Painted Lady. In the afternoon near the University 30 Black Kites were seen going to roost.
Tuesday 13th December: Today we were driven north to Jerusalem where we would stay for one night prior to flying back home. We decided to pay an early morning visit to the famous Jerusalem Bird Observatory and nearby Wohl Rose Garden. Here we saw a Palestine Sunbird, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, White-spectacled Bulbul, Hooded Crow, Parakeet, 3 Syrian Woodpeckers, 12 Chukar as well as a Red Admiral and a Small White.
Wednesday 14th December: Time to fly home and reflect on an amazing few days spent in the Negev Desert of Israel.
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