Jerusalem

We spend our last day in Tel Aviv at the Carmel Market yesterday. It was just a market with all kind of food and other stuff. Then we went to the Central bus station for a bus tour to Jerusalem. From the bus we saw Short-toed eagle, hoopoe and a green landscape what we never saw before. The trip lasted only 40 minutes.

In Jerusalem it was quite cold and we had to walk to the New palm hostel near the Old City half an hour away from the bus station but it took us the double time with our baggage.

In the Old City we had a quick look at the Western Wall. Every Friday evening it’s Sabbath party for the Jewish people. It’s not a party with alcohol and other things that you can use like we have in The Netherlands but it was quite impressive with some hundreds of Orthodox Jewish people singing in front of the Wall.

In the hostel we have a dormitory room with ten other people from all over the world. When I was in bed I thought that there was an earthquake but it proved to be a snoring man… First it was only one man but after some sleepless time the second and third man began also. It

sounded like a competition between them, it was really terrible but we had a lot of fun about it.

Today was our first ringing day at the Jerusalem Bird Observatory in the big park in the middle of the city. We were a bit late because of the snoring night. When we arrived we saw Carmel Zitronblat photographing a very nice 2nd CY male Cyprus warbler! A ringing tick for us, good begin, but we missed already a Common Rosefinch.

Carmel showed us the ringingstation. It’s a really nice education center and I’m happy that we can stay here for a week. The rest of the mourning we caught some Sylvia’s. Most of them were Lesser whitethroats but a Eastern orphean warbler as well. Near one of the nets I saw a Nightjar chilling on a branch. We tried to flush it in one of the nest but we failed.

After ringing we spend some birding time in the park. The park was quite full with migrants, most Sylvia warblers including a male Ruppell’s warbler and a Eastern oprhean warbler. Also a Masked shrike, Hawfinches, Nightingales, Redstarts and a Serin were present. We had five Israeli ticks today. Now we will visit the Old City, bye.