EILAT, ISRAEL
There are many bird species along the migration pathways and avian highways of Israel.
For a bird photographer Eilat works best from March to May. Over the years I’ve been there close to 10 times. After a gap of several years, I was there again in 2009: two weeks in March and a week in May. Eilat has seen many changes in the past two decades, but it hasn’t lost its lure as a great bird place. It’s still one of the most exciting locations in the Western Palearctic for photographing birds.
Eilat is in the southern tip of Israel, on the northern edge of the Red Sea, along the main flyways of birds migrating between Europe and Africa. Eilat’s annual spring migration of raptors is unique in the Western Palearctic. Raptors pass Eilat in numbers ranging from about a half million to more than 1 million, depending on the year. In addition, great numbers of passerine birds, waders, and some herons and egrets, waterbirds, and raptors stop to rest and feed in Eilat and the neighboring areas. The region also has its own avifauna, so there is no shortage of birds to see and photograph.
Eilat has many biotopes to offer the tired and hungry birds, starting from the parks in the city center, which attract wagtails, phylloscopus warblers, pipits, buntings, sylviidae warblers, and shrikes.
The salt ponds and reservoirs north of Eilat draw great numbers of waders as well as flamingoes, herons and egrets, gulls, and some terns.
Farther north, you will come to large irrigated areas of agricultural land with wheatears, pipits, larks, shrikes, doves, and bee-eaters. The agricultural lands are quite extensive nowadays from Eilat to Yotvata, with its kibbutz center about 40 km (25 mi) north on the southern edge of the Negev Desert. A further 30 km (19 mi) north brings you to kibbutz Neot Semadar (formerly known as Shizafon) in the Southern Negev Desert. As an oasis in the desert, Neot Semadar is a powerful attraction to birds, and thus bird photographers.
Many bushes and acacia trees growing in the arid land of Eilat offer food and shelter to small birds, especially warblers, such as the sylviidae, phylloscopus, and Icterine.
Eilat’s northern shore is still relatively unbuilt, and you have a good chance of seeing birds that are fairly exotic in the Western Palearctic, such as Brown Boobies and Red-billed Tropicbirds, and to photograph many other interesting species, such as the White-eyed Gull, the Western Reef Heron, the Little Tern, and the White-winged Tern.
I recommend renting a car, not just for getting around, but also for photographing. Some of the salt ponds are circled by roads, offering good opportunities for photographing waders from the car. The irrigated lands, grain stores, cattle farms, and heaps of manure are frequented by a wide variety of species, and it’s easy to photograph the birds from a car.
In Eilat I tend to get up early so I can either get to the salt ponds before sunrise and photograph waders in the beautiful morning light, or so I can go to the parks or other areas with shrubs and bushes where I can photograph small birds. After a good hour or so I head for the mountains, which is the main path for raptors on migration. The drive takes only about 10 minutes northwest from the city center, along the road to the Ovda Airport. The sand and ground are quite light in the mountains and reflect light into the air, lighting the birds’ undersides nicely.
Eilat is not good just for its rare and exotic species, it’s also great for photographing the more common migratory birds, such as this Barn Swallow in flight (Hirundo rustica)
Canon EOS-1D Mark III, 500mm f/4.0, 1/2000 second, f/6.3, ISO 1600, continuous focus with an extended central focusing point, handheld camera. Eilat, Israel, March 2009.
Eastern Common Buzzards and Black Kites on migration above Eilat (Buteo buteo vulpinus, Milvus migrans)
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, 500mm f/4.0, 1/1000 second, f/7.1, ISO 500, continuous focus with an extended central focusing point, Gitzo tripod, Manfrotto 501 video head. Eilat, Israel, March 2009.
You’ll have fairly good opportunities to photograph migrating Steppe Eagles in Eilat (Aquila nipalensis)
Canon EOS-1D Mark III, 800mm f/5.6, 1/2000 second, f/7.1, ISO 1600, continuous focus with an extended central focusing point, Gitzo tripod, Manfrotto 501 video head. Eilat, Israel, March 2009.
The migration often starts 60–90 minutes after sunrise. The ideal time for photography lasts only two hours or so, before the warming temperatures create thermals that the birds use to gain altitude, making them fly beyond the reach of your camera. Also, as it gets warmer, the heat haze gets stronger, and even if the raptors were still flying low on some days after midmorning, your images would end up blurry, especially with lenses longer than 500mm. Most times the raptor sessions are over by midmorning, which leaves you enough time to catch breakfast at your hotel. Then there’s still time to reexplore the parks or the fields and plantations. The middle of the day, when the light is harshest, is best used for a siesta. After all, there’s a lot to do from about 3:00 in the afternoon to sunset.
The dominant raptor species on migration in March and April is the Eastern Common Buzzard, with daily numbers reaching into the tens of thousands. Other plentiful species include the Black Kite and the Steppe Eagle, tens of thousands of which pass through and over Eilat during the course of the spring migration. Among these main species you can spot Long-legged Buzzards, Short-toed Eagles, and Egyptian Vultures and Harriers—the Western Marsh, Pallid, and Montagu’s.
The main migration pathway is in the hands of the wind, so to speak, and can change as the day passes. You need to anticipate and stay ahead of the weather so that you find yourself in the right place at the right time. You won’t get it right every day, but sometimes each piece falls into place, and you’re exactly where the raptors are, and they are low enough, and all you can do is photograph to your heart’s content.
If you stay for a fortnight you’ll get a good overview of the spring migration. You’ll witness the migration peaks for many small bird species, and the ensuing decrease of their numbers in the area, and the concurrent increase of other species as they are nearing their migration peaks. The changing of the species works well for a bird photographer; there’s something new to work with every day.
A Marsh Sandpiper in its breeding plumage by the side of a freshwater reservoir (Tringa stagnatilis)
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, 800mm f/5.6 plus 1.4x extender, 1/500 second, f/14.0, ISO 500, one-shot focus with a central focusing point, beanbag, car as a blind. Eilat, Israel, March 2009.
The Collared Pratincole is one of Eilat’s many fascinating wader species (Glareola pratincola)
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, 800mm f/5.6 plus 1.4x extender, 1/160 second, f/22.0, ISO 400, one-shot focus with a central focusing point, beanbag, car as a blind. Eilat, Israel, March 2009.
A male Rueppell’s Warbler (Sylvia rueppelli)
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, 800mm f/5.6 plus 1.4x extender, 1/400 second, f/9.0, ISO 500, one-shot focus with a central focusing point, beanbag, car as a blind. Eilat, Israel, March 2009.
European Honey-buzzards can come eye to eye with a photographer in Eilat (Pernis apivorus)
Canon EOS-1D Mark III, 800mm f/5.6, 1/3200 second, f/5.6, ISO 1600, continuous focus with an extended central focusing point, Gitzo tripod, Manfrotto 501 video head. Eilat, Israel, March 2009.
The same is evident with the waders as species come and go at the salt ponds. In March especially, look out for Marsh Sandpipers, Collared Pratincoles, Black-winged Stilts, and Plovers (the Kentish, the Caspian, and the Greater Sand), among others.
March is a good month for photographing many small birds on migration. Rueppell’s Warblers can be seen in the bushes and parks toward the end of the month. Using bird sounds is a good way to attract some inquisitive individuals to a bush near you, as they come to check the source of the sound. They aren’t on their breeding grounds, and employing the lure only briefly will not disturb them. The beautiful Subalpine Warbler comes in lower numbers, and it is not particularly easy to photograph. Eastern Bonelli’s Warblers and Eastern Olivaceous Warblers are common toward the end of the month and are easier to photograph. The boldly colored Woodchat and Masked Shrikes, Black-eared and Desert Wheatears, plus Cretzschmar’s and Ortolan Buntings are relatively easy to photograph from a car because they feed on the agricultural lands. The Red-rumped Swallows’ migration peaks shortly after mid-March, and that’s when they are common in the area.
The Levant Sparrowhawk’s migration peak, which often coincides with the third week of April, is short, intensive, and difficult to photograph. The birds migrate in flocks, on a good day in numbers exceeding 10,000. In early April, Eastern Common Buzzards are still seen regularly on migration, and Black Kites migrate well into the second half of April. As April turns into May, European Honey-buzzards start to migrate in massive numbers, often peaking during the first week of May. With about 500,000 individual birds, the European Honey-buzzard is the most numerous of all the raptors that migrate through Eilat in spring. Photographing them is done with the same approach as with other raptors.
During April the numbers of European Bee-eaters and Blue-cheeked Beeeaters grow steadily, peaking at the end of April and early May. The European Bee-eaters are far more common than the Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters, and photographing them is quite easy because they hunt above the fields or rest on the ground or in the trees.
In May you can see White-winged Terns, Black Terns, and the occasional Gull-billed Tern at the fresh water pools. There are more and more typical waders in their breeding plumage as May advances, with especially good opportunities for Little Stints and Curlew Sandpipers.
Bluethroats, Redstarts, Common Nightingales, Rufous-tailed Scrub-robins, and Warblers, such as the Icterine, the Eastern Olivacous, and the Booted, stop in Eilat to rest and feed.
In addition to the migrating birds there are many intriguing breeding species in and around Eilat. Lichtenstein’s Sandgrouse, Sand Partridges, Green Bee-eaters, Sinai Rosefinches, Tristram’s Starlings, Arabian Babblers, and Greater Hoopoe-Larks are good examples of birds to pursue on days when there is no migration.
With a bit of luck, you can photograph Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters from a very short distance (Merops persicus)
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, 800mm f/5.6 plus 1.4x extender, 1/100 second, f/16.0, ISO 500, one-shot focus with a central focusing point, beanbag, car as a blind. Eilat, Israel, March 2009.
Rufous-tailed Scrub-robins prefer to stay in the cover of bushes (Cercotrichas galactotes)
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, 800mm f/5.6 plus 1.4x extender, 1/160 second, f/16.0, ISO 800, one-shot focus with a central focusing point, beanbag, car as a blind. Eilat, Israel, March 2009.
A Green Bee-eater bathing in the soft evening light just before sunset (Merops orientalis)
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, 800mm f/5.6 plus 1.4x extender, 1/100 second, f/8.0, ISO 200, one-shot focus with a central focusing point, beanbag, car as a blind. Eilat, Israel, March 2009.
For more information about Eilat and the neighboring regions, see A Guide to the Birding Hot-Spots of Israel by Hadoram Shirihai (Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, 2000).
Lichtenstein’s Sandgrouse are best seen in late evening at places where they can come to drink, but with some luck you can bump into them in broad daylight (Pterocles lichtensteinii)
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, 800mm f/5.6, 1/25 second, f/5.6, ISO 800, one-shot focus with a central focusing point, beanbag, car as a blind. Eilat, Israel, May 2009.