Spring Migration

And so it begins... the steady trickle of Wheatears, Sand Martins and Swallows is making its way northwards. Chiffchaffs are singing, bumblebees are bumbling and my hibernaculum of Harlequin Ladybirds has dispersed at last. Alpine Swifts have been appearing here, there and everywhere - causing me to be duly gripped. Everybody I know with a pond has frogspawn at last, and the office daffs have finally started to bloom.
I was invited to the Eilat Spring Migration Festival to see how things were progressing further south. The Swifts are on their way - with White Storks, and skeins of Cranes and Black Storks. Hordes of Steppe Buzzards are pouring north through the Negev. Lesser Whitethroats are arriving in Eilat at 1/3 of their normal bodyweight and feasting before continuing their journey (possibly to Britain).

I spent an exhausting 3-and-a-bit days doing dawn-til-dusk birding, followed by lectures. What a treat. I'm currently preparing a proper article and a short film about my adventures, but in the meantime here's my 'spot the Ibex' competition. My excuse is that it was taken from a moving bus through glass.