First day in Israel. 13.4.2012

I arrived this morning at the Tel-Aviv airport with Jände and Esko. After security checks and other garbage, we get our car and started our journey.
First birds were Common Mynas, Palm Doves and Yellow-vented Bulbuls of course. Today i´m too tired to tell everything but we watch birds in many places, like Mghan Michael, "jersey valley", Meron Mountain and so on.

Maghan Michael highlights were flock of Mongooses and many Night Herons. Mostly place was empty and silence. Graceful Prinia was maybe the commonest one..

Pied Kingfisher. We saw something like 25 birds.

Common Mynah.

Mongoose guy.

Adult Night Heron. Such a great looking bird.

This one wasn´t so lucky.. :( 

After Maghan Michael we drove to the Jersey Valley, witch is not the right name to this place but i don´t remember it...
Highlights were 12 Short-toed snake Eagles, 2 Great-spotted Cuckoo. We saw good numbers of Kestrels and Black Kites. Also 15 White Storks were flying over the fields.

Great-spotted Cuckoos are super birds!

Some ugly guy.

Last place was Meron Mountain, and this visit was actually only a place checking visit. There is maybe few pairs of Olive-three Warblers later, so it´s important to know where the place is.
Of course we didn´t saw these magical birds this time. but place was not empty.
Maybe 20 Black Birds were singing and one Sardinian Warbler were also active.

Total specie count is something like 83 but i check it later and tomorrow i put some numbers.
More pics and good jokes and bad stuff later tomorrow.

Best.

-Tomppa-