Last but, well, nowhere near least - what a bird. The perfect last day of the trip for the terriers began with the Champions of The Flyway awards ceremony in Eilat, continued with long and ridiculously bird-filled, migrant-plastered sessions at Hadoram's Pumpkins (K19-K20) and Yotvata, followed by a dusk session with our friends the Welsh Red Kites back at K19 for a successful meeting with Lichenstein's Sandgrouse (the preceding evening, over a hundred jostled for poor or non-existent views on race day), and ended with a final fling back at Yotvata for around 2000hrs; our target, the mighty (and to us almost mythical) Pharoah Eagle Owl.
Thanks to the kind guidance of Duncan (from Team Living With Birds), we knew which dust track to off-road along, and which pointy rock doubled as the throne of the Pharoah on its way from the mountains to decimate the local rat population. Instant success, with good views in the headlights at maybe 25 metres - which would've been more good enough for us... but a slow trundle in first along the sandy track for more Egyptian Nightjar action soon resulted in cries of "F#*k, it's there!" "Where?" "Right by the car on the passenger side!" - the owl had landed much closer, and even let us turn the car around so everybody could get perfect, point-blank views in the headlights....
.... after much squealing and back-patting (and after getting all the Spurn boys onto it as they followed in a minibus, later apparently liberated from the sand with the help of the Kites), we headed back to Eilat for a celebratory drinking session with various lovely comrades (including James, Toni and John and Jean-Michel from our friends the mighty World Youth Birders). What a trip...
