Our last stop was at Ye’elim holiday village (behind Yotvata’s parking lot), were Yellow-browed Warblers have been recorded almost annually. Surely enough, we immediately heard one when entering the park, but it was a long hour till we managed to get our bins on the skulking bird.

By that time, Rami Mizrachi had joined us and the bird finally showed itself. Rami then informed that in the morning he saw and photographed another Yellow-browed Warbler at ‘Bahad 1’ sewage, near Mitzpe Ramon.

On the next morning, Eilat’s north beach was the same as before so Noam and I went to Wadi Shlomo (Eilat Mts.) while Rami continued north.

In Wadi Shlomo we saw two Cyprus Warblers. We continued on Uvda road, which goes through the mountains and ends at Shizzafon. We stopped in various green patches along the way and Near Mahane Sayarim, we had another Cyprus Warbler.

We reached Shizzafon at mid-day and entered Neot Semadar. The Kibbutz and the agricultural fields were also very low in passerines. A nice surprise though, was an adult male Goshawk hunting for Skylarks above the fields.

From there we went on to Lotan/Ketura area but saw nothing of note.

That evening, Rami saw a 1^st winter Kittiwake, rare in Israel, off Eilat’s north beach. He also counted the Cormorants in Km 19 sewage pools at about 3,500, a figure ten times higher then ever recorded in Eilat area before.

At the northern saltpans, the number of Flamingos exceeded 700.

On the morning of the 3^rd, all three of us tried for the Kittiwake at the north beach. After about an hour, the Kittiwake appeared and even got very close to us at times, allowing for some photos to be taken.

It was very hot that day and we did not see anything out-of-the-ordinary during noontime.

We ended the trip at Yotvata area, were at the circular field, we had a very tamed Dotterel, to which we got as close as five meters.

A last check at Ye’elim park revealed a Black Redstart from the rare ssp. phoenicuroides.