Eilat - Israel

The IBRCE (International Birding and Research Center Eilat) is situated in the far south of Israel, just by the coast of the Red Sea. This is the only overland bridge between Europe, Asia and Africa, creating a bottle-neck that serves hundreds of millions of migratory birds. 

 

At Eilat, the birds are preparing themselves for the most challenging task of crossing the foodless and hostile Saharan desert. The Eilat area used to be a large and rich saltmarsh that consisted the last “fueling station” before the desert for these birds, but has suffered human development that left nothing of this important habitat.

The IBRCE conduct a large scale monitoring program in order to identify trends in migratory populations of common and rare species and to understand the importance of Eilat and the sites around it in southern Arava for these migratory birds. The ringing station is open daily on migration seasons (mid-February to mid-May and September to November). 

 

The volunteers at Eilat birds monitoring program must be trained and experienced bird watchers or certified bird ringers that can work long hours in field conditions. Days of work begin at first light for 5 hours and then 3 more hours in the afternoon (Raptors count team works 07:30-15:30). The volunteers work 6 days a week but can take additional days off for seeing the country when work allows. The volunteers are lodged in shared furnished flats that are hired and have there all basic facilities that are needed for themselves. 

Over the years, many volunteers from Ottenby have been participating in the work at Eilat.

 

If you, as a voluneer at Ottenby, are interested in working at Eilat, contact Magnus Hellström for further information and for a letter of recommendation. 

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