2025-10

30th October 2025

On Friday afternoon a week or two ago, a couple of hours before the start of Shabbat, I took a short walk along the forest paths of The Sergeants’ Grove in Netanya. This is an urban wood, whose tranquillity is enjoyed by local residents, children and adults alike; joggers, cyclists, and - of course - the local flora and fauna.
As I ambled at a leisurely pace, I was nearly hit by some decorticating windfall from one of the eucalyptus trees - though, to be honest, it looked rather lightweight, and I don’t think it would have done me any real harm.
Decorticating (meaning ‘shedding bark’) is a useful word to have in your kit bag - you never know when you might need it. Eucalyptus trees shed their bark (which, by the way, is much worse than their bite) in much the same way that snakes shed their skins (which, by the way, is much better than their bite).
Eucalyptus actually means ‘well-covered’ or ‘well-hidden’ - the name comes from the fact that their flowers are covered by a hard cap until the blossom pushes it off. Koalas will sometimes eat the flowers, but their preferred dish is eucalyptus leaves. I kept my eyes open but didn’t see a single bear - if there were any, they must have been lurking behind trees, well-hidden from sight.
The accompanying photos were taken a couple of days later in the Switzerland Forest. One is a huge eucalyptus tree. The other photo is red blooms from a much smaller yellow gum tree (also a eucalyptus and named yellow because of its yellowish bark). You can clearly see the hard caps immediately above the flowers.
Strolling along, enchanted by the aromatic eucalyptus and relishing the chant of the bark flakes as the wind rustled them, I recalled a poem I wrote recently that was published in the 2025 Voices Israel Anthology. I was inspired to write it while looking at a landscape that my Mum painted many years ago. Her picture didn’t depict a eucalyptus tree, but rather a forest scene with trees beside a stream - she painted it so beautifully that you can almost hear the water flowing down the wall.
Mum’s painting is here and so is my poem:

Eucalyptus

She looked intently at the tree
head and shoulders above all the trees around
its head touching the clouds
and its feet close to a full flowing stream
and she painted.

She painted the decorticating bark
flaking like paint on a dilapidated house
she painted the brown and gold trunk
the fresh living shiny-bright bark
and she painted the branches with their foliage.

She heard the tree singing softly
heard joyful calypso music
she heard a ukulele and a digeridoo
chirruping birds, droning bees,
and whispering leaves chattering on the branches
and she painted.

She painted with long brush strokes
the long myrtle leaves hanging downwards
she painted each waxy and glossy green leaf
and she painted the music, the music of the tree.

She smelt the scent of the tree
the petal-less flowers with showy stamens
and she painted.
She painted the aroma
and the soul of the tree.
She painted the stream
greens, browns and blues, and splashes of white.
And she painted the breeze.

The painting completed - in her living room,
every day, all day and all night, she heard
the music of the eucalyptus, the birds and the bees
she smelt the sweet fragrance of the flowers
she saw the tree swaying in the breeze
and she felt the splashes of the stream
as it meandered slowly down the living room wall.

--

19th October 2025

Harriers and Dragons

We’re so relieved that our living hostages have returned home, and that for the time being, we can hope that there maybe a period of peace. The last year has truly been an annus horribilis – and the year before that was just as bad, if not worse. The damage that we have suffered as a nation has been enormous and it will take many years for us to recover. Likewise, our neighbours in Gaza and elsewhere have suffered terribly - all as a result of murderous and totally immoral terrorists. We all desperately need to live together peacefully.

Last year, I wrote an article for the Jerusalem Report magazine, Israel-Hamas War: Learning from nature to work together – opinion, which is also on the web, here - https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-783478. As I concluded in that article, “Let’s learn from the birds and animals how we must look after ourselves. But more important still, let’s find ways to work together with our neighbours and let us all be winners – we’re all brothers and sisters here.”

--

A recent post was about the speed of eagles. But one wonders how much they miss when flying so fast. I must say, I often wish I could slow down when zooming past an interesting bird perched on a fence. Fast isn’t always best; sometimes it’s worth taking an extra moment or two to enjoy what you see.

The marsh harrier does just that. It can fly so slowly, it’s a miracle it doesn’t stall and fall, gliding back and forth as it scans its surroundings – a technique known as quartering. This hunting strategy lets it cover a wide area while searching for small mammals, birds, frogs, and fish.

When I took this photo of a marsh harrier, I wasn’t 100% sure that it actually was a marsh harrier – I half wondered if it was a black kite. I consulted a real expert, Alena Kacal, who told me “It’s a marsh harrier - one key ID point is the tail – the black kite has a slightly forked tail, while this tail is more rounded. The harrier flight pattern is also key - often seen quartering over marshes - low and slow, holding their wings in a slight V (called a dihedral) and almost rocking from side to side.”

Dragonflies, a favourite prey of marsh harriers, use a similar method when hunting smaller insects, which they mostly catch mid-flight. Among their favourite snacks are mosquitoes – which, as you may know, have a taste for me – so I am very grateful to dragonflies. They often return to exactly the spot they left after a short foray, giving me a perfect chance to snap a photo. Of course, they’re not cooperating for my sake; once a dragonfly finds a good vantage point, it doesn’t give it up easily.

Catching one is no simple task. Their huge eyes give them nearly 360-degree vision, and their four wings allow them to change direction instantly. They can fly forwards, backwards, sideways, up, and down, hovering like tiny helicopters.

Dragonflies are even older than dinosaurs, which means they survived the massive meteorite impact that wiped out those ancient giants. Perhaps if dinosaurs could have flown in all six directions like dragonflies, they might still be here today. 

---

12th October 2025

We wait on tenterhooks, hoping beyond hope that today or tomorrow will bring the return of our hostages. We’ve waited such a long time for this day - two full years. We hope and pray that this will mark the beginning of a lasting peace in our part of the world.

--

Our last post was about an eagle, which, as everyone knows, is a rather fast bird. Indeed, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in his poem ‘The Eagle’ writes, “He watches from his mountain walls, /And like a thunderbolt he falls.” But the eagle is by no means the fastest bird. This accolade is awarded to the Peregrine falcon – the fastest animal in the world. It can reach speeds of up to 240 mph (390 km/h) as it dives pitilessly on its pitiful prey.

Believe it or not, butterflies are also surprisingly fast movers. I have struggled on many occasions to photograph flying butterflies, but with no success. This isn’t altogether surprising because their actual speed is not far off that of the thunderbolt eagles. They reach speeds of up to 12 mph (20 km/h). Now you might suppose this doesn’t come anywhere near as fast as a ‘thunderbird’ eagle, but when their comparative body sizes are taken into account, it is very fast indeed.

Think of Usain Bolt, who is quite a quick runner. He can run 100 metres in a little less than 10 seconds. That’s about ten metres per second – and let’s say he is about 2 metres tall. Then he can run at 5 body lengths each second. Here’s a comparative list of approximate body-length movement per second:

- Peregrine falcon (dive): 250
- Pigeon: 110
- Mosquito (flying away after biting me): 100
- Golden eagle (dive): 90
- Short-toed snake eagle (dive): 60
- Swallowtail butterfly: 49
- Human (head-down skydive): 47
- Marsh harrier (dive): 40
- Boeing 737 jet plane: 6
- Usain Bolt sprinting: 5
- Julian (me) walking with camera: 0.8
- Tortoise: 0.2

All speeds are relative. Or as Einstein is reported to have retorted, “The faster you go, the shorter you are,” which should make me rather fast.

I photographed this swallowtail butterfly a few days ago. It was buzzing around at a pace far too quick for me to follow, but then it settled momentarily at the top of a small hill. It’s very noticeable when we visit Mount Arbel that the swallowtails congregate at the top of the mountain and are rarely seen lower down. This is one of the ways the males indicate their prowess and virility to potential mates – and is known as hill-topping. The most eligible bachelors (that is, those who are fastest, strongest, and possess the greatest manoeuvrability and endurance) claim the high ground. The less top-notch (that is those lower in the butterfly hierarchy) are left languishing at the bottom of the butterfly ladder. 

6th October 2025

Last Thursday, Yom Kippur (our Day of Atonement), was a truly horrendous occasion for the Jewish Community of Manchester. The Synagogue that was targeted was just a couple of hundred meters from the house that we had lived in happily for 30 years or so, before leaving the UK. We know the Rabbi of the Synagogue; we knew one of the deceased, and we know one of the injured young men. We mourn for those that died, and we pray that the injured victims should have a complete and speedy recovery. And most of all, we pray that there should be no more terrorism on the streets of Manchester, nor on the streets of Israel, nor anywhere else in the world.

--

Not very far from where we live now are two mountains – Mount Arbel and Mount Nitai. We like to hang out at one of the cliffs of Mount Arbel – but not too close to the edge. From here we get a magnificent view over much of the northeast of Israel. Words can’t adequately describe the beauty of the panorama, so I’ve attached a short video clip that I hope will give you a feel for what we see – it was a windy day, as you will hear.

We’re not the only ones who like to hang out near the cliff edge. Raptors do too. Thermals, which are rising columns of warm air created when the sun heats the ground unevenly, cause pockets of air to become less dense and lift upward. This effect is especially strong over sun-heated surfaces such as fields, rocky slopes, or sun-facing cliffs. As the warm air rises, cooler surrounding air flows in to replace it, creating a continuous cycle that birds and gliders can ride to gain altitude without using energy. Raptors often head toward these sun-heated areas, including cliffs, to exploit this free energy supply.

Last week we saw scores of ‘kettles’ of large raptors soaring effortlessly over the mountain. They were mostly European honey buzzards and black kites, but I spotted a couple of short-toed snake eagles amongst them – by the way, it’s the eagles that have short toes, not the snakes. And though they were high above, I managed to photograph one of them.

Just as we were leaving to head home, in the distance we saw a pair of Egyptian vultures circling over the cliff-top. One of the park rangers told us that the vultures had recently hatched a chick in their nest halfway down the cliff face. Once the chick was mature enough to cope with the disturbance, the rangers rappelled down the cliff (rather them than me!) and attached a tracker to the chick. It has now flown the nest, leaving its parents behind, and is residing in Yemen, more than 1,300 miles from its birthplace.

Everyone admires the high-flying eagles that swoop from the sky to carry off a young or small animal or bird. By contrast, vultures are often looked down upon for scavenging and making a living from decaying carcasses. Yet vultures perform a vital service: the strong acid in their stomachs allows them to eat decaying meat that other animals couldn’t digest. In doing so, they clean up the environment and help prevent the spread of dangerous diseases.

Eagles, vultures, kites, buzzards, and other raptors fly by virtually past our windows – we’re truly blessed to be able to see them all.

The photos here are:

1. Three Egyptian vultures from a previous visit – black and white underwings
2. Short-toed snake eagle with pale underbody – high in the sky
3. A fourteen-inch rough-tail rock agama – rather crocodile-like – completely vertical, sunning itself on a stone memorial slab.

2025-09

30th September 2025

Jerusalem is an exceedingly busy, bustling city with far more cars than the road system can cope with. And so Jerusalem isn’t the first place in Israel you’d think of for a nature photography expotition (word borrowed from A.A. Milne’s Christopher Robin), but Gazelle Valley, surrounded by noisy, hectic roads, is a little oasis in urban Jerusalem – a real gem – and an obvious place for nature-watchers to make such a little expotition. As well as various species of birds, one can usually be sure of seeing the vulnerable mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella), for which the reserve is named – particularly if one is prepared to visit very early in the day. I wasn’t disappointed on my morning walk soon after sunrise. I watched one young buck that “stepped in a puddle, right up to his middle,” just as did Doctor Foster (on his Gloucester expotition). The buck stops here, so I thought, but on it went, watched by a spur-winged plover. In the fields beside the reeded pools, as well as plovers (rhymes with lovers in British English), there were grey herons, a little egret, loudly prayerful monk parakeets, sunbirds, bulbuls, a jay, a great tit, moorhens and coots, white-throated kingfishers, and chukars. What a field day I had!

I was particularly pleased to see a couple of juvenile spur-winged plovers watched over by their mother, who never let the chicks out of her sight. The last time I saw a plover chick was on farmland near home (in Tiberias), and the mother was considerably disturbed by my presence. She had squawked loudly and displayed her spurs – I backed off quickly, not wishing to further distress her. This time, the mother bird was not at all upset – she didn’t see me, as I was ensconced in the bird hide (bird blind in U.S. English). Spur-winged plovers are really good fighters, especially when it comes to looking after their offspring. I watched a plover buzzing a grey heron in flight, and I was amazed to see it see off the much bigger bird. The chicks were certainly being well-protected.

I enjoyed seeing a small troop of chukars (also known as chukar partridges). They’re quite comical when they run along the ground, calling out “chuk, chuk, chuk.” They’re fast, and they certainly need to be fast. In Israel they’re not hunted – but in other parts of the world they’re considered fair game and good sport for those with guns. Maybe they were a little unsettled, given that the Glorious Twelfth (12th August) was not so long ago. The Glorious Twelfth – or the ignominious Twelfth, as I like to call it – is the first day of the four months during which Scottish hunters are allowed to point their rifles at grouse.

So, if you’re planning a nature expotition, Gazelle Valley is well worth considering. In the photos, the black, white, and grey birds are the plovers (mother and chick); the brown birds with the red bill and sporting black and white stripes are the chukars; and the four-legged animals are the mountain gazelles.

 

---

21st September 2025

Tomorrow is the start of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. We hope and pray for a year of peace for all the world.

--

On a country walk, not so long ago, I watched a jay for quite a number of minutes. The old bird perched on a low branch in an old oak tree, but my view was a little obscured. Seemingly unaware of my presence it jumped down to the ground showing its distinctive and distinguished-looking pinkish brown plumage with black bar stripe on each side bright blue checkerboard panel on the upper wing. As it hopped around somewhat erratically, I recalled that a year or two ago I was cautioned by the police for jaywalking – just like this bird was. I crossed a road in the city – there were no cars around, bar a police car that drove up to me, and the police officer asked to see my ID card. He then proceeded to ask me why I hadn’t used the zebra crossing when crossing the road. Truth is that I hadn’t seen the zebra crossing, or I probably would have used it. I tried to explain this in my best Hebrew (which is not very good at all). The policeman then cautioned me in his best English (which wasn’t very good at all). I was lucky, I could have been fined. Or I could have got a spell of ‘bird’ in jaywalking jail. More recently, I was stopped by the police again – this time for crossing a continuous white line in the centre of the road, to turn left into a car park. I guess this offence is known as jaydriving. I was lucky – another caution when I could have been fined. I don’t know why they always seem to spot my very minor road offences when tens of thousands of other dudes get away with more high-profile traffic violations.

Jays are particularly known for being garrulous and for liking acorns, hence the Latin name - Garrulus glandarius – glandarius means ‘pertaining to acorns’. And they’re known in English as jays because jay means a chatterer or of low intelligence. Hence jaywalking is someone who is stupid on the road – that’s told me!

Jays don’t just like acorns – they love acorns (or should I say jaycorns?), almost as much as Pooh’s friend Piglet loves haycorns. Being part of the crow family, jays are actually very intelligent, as we’ve discussed before (despite their name). They know that there’s a plentiful supply of acorns in the autumn and that by the winter they’re no longer to be found. So, during the autumn they bury lots of acorns in the ground, for future consumption. They’ve got really good memories and in winter when food is hard to come by, they dig up the acorns that they had secreted. Good as their memory is, it’s not perfect and inevitably some get left behind. So planted by jays, mighty oaks from little acorns grow – and great jokes from little jaycorns grow!

The photos of the jays (some of them looking a little jaded) are mine. The painting of the two jays is by Ferdinand von Wright.

---

18th September 2025

Laughing Dave

I noted in a recent post that we see a fair number of laughing doves in our neighbourhood. We never saw them in the UK, so it’s a treat to see such lovely, happy birds here – indeed, they are indigenous to Israel. They have a pinkish-brown body and a distinctive patch of black spots on the throat. This slender dove, whose scientific (Latin) name is Spilopelia senegalensis, is known as the palm dove, Senegal dove, or little brown dove – and in Hebrew as the city dove – but by far its finest name, the laughing dove, comes from its cooing, which sounds a wee bit like a human chuckle.

Pigeons and doves are considered among the most intelligent of birds, which perhaps explains why Noah sent out a dove to check the land after the Flood. It returned to Noah with an olive branch – and ever since, a dove with an olive branch has been a symbol of peace. Being clever birds, the laughing dove has much to enjoy. And I’m sure laughing doves are extra happy that they’re not pigeons, which are known in some places as “rats with wings” – much better to be a dove; a ‘symbol of peace’.

Doves and pigeons, which are generally monogamous, belong to the same bird family, Columbidae. In English, we tend to call the smaller, slender species ‘doves’ and the larger, heavier ones ‘pigeons’. The laughing dove is among the smallest of all doves – it weighs about 90–130 grams, roughly the same as two medium chicken eggs, and measures about 25–27 cm from bill to tail. Compare this to the wood pigeons we saw in the UK recently. They weigh about 400–600 grams and measure 38–44 cm in length. So, the wood pigeon is four to five times the weight of a laughing dove and becomes a much more attractive proposition for hunters than small doves like ours. There’s a lot for the laughing dove to be glad about.

The word “dove” comes from an Old English word meaning “diver,” named for the flight paths they follow – shooting up and diving down. With that in mind, a year or two ago I had a lot of fun writing a poem about a laughing dove who liked to dive – I named him Dave. I’m sure the laughing doves around here would have a good hoot.

Here’s my poem (and there’s a photo of Dave):

Laughing Dave

The laughing dove, perched high above,
was having a chuckle, was having a laugh.
And what was so funny that caused such mirth?
He said to himself in his own pidgin English,
if I were to dive from such a great height,
the people below would recount to each other,
of how the dove dived, or should that be dove?
As he thought of these words, ‘it dived’ or ‘it dove’,
oh, how did he giggle, oh, how did he titter.
He thought to himself in his own pidgin English,
isn’t it apt that my name is Dave,
and isn’t it apt that I live in Dover.
Everyone will know me as laughing Dave,
the great diver of Dover
or should that be, the dover of Dover?
As he thought of these words, ‘the dover of Dover’,
oh, how he did chortle, oh, how he did snicker.
He thought to himself in his own pidgin English,
of his sister, oh how she loved to sing,
she should be known as the diva of Dover,
or should that be the diver of Dover?
As he thought of these words, ‘the diva of Dover’,
oh, how he did chuckle, oh, how he did laugh.
He thought to himself,
doves do love the English of pigeons,
and with that
he dove down to the dive that he lived in.

---

15th September 2025

Having been in Haifa for the morning a week or two ago, we took a little detour on our return journey, and stopped at a nature reserve called Ein Afek, right on the edge of the city. Here we usually get to see water buffalo, but not this time. Here we usually get to see raptors, egrets and plovers, but not on this occasion. But on this particular Wednesday, we did manage to disturb a regal-looking purple heron that was having a siesta after a fish-and-frog lunch. On detecting our presence, it flew off into the sun in a huff. The highlight of the visit, though, was to be accompanied on our walk by male plane tiger butterflies. With humans, it’s typically the female of the species that wears perfume. With some butterflies, it’s the males that ‘wear’ the fragrance. They have a scent gland on the hind wing that emits pheromones, an aroma that attracts females during courtship. The scent gland is the big black wing spot with a white blob within.

The plain tiger is closely related to the favourite butterfly of Americans, the monarch. And its majestic tiger colours make it quite distinctive and indicate to predators that it’s not for eating. It’s often the case that orange and red colourings warn off would-be attackers, who only have to take one bite to learn not to mess again. And other butterflies, knowing of the ‘protected species’ nature of the plain tiger do what they can to mimic it (by putting a tiger in their tank) and likewise get protection by proxy. This technique is known as ‘Batesian’ mimicry, named after the English naturalist, who observed this phenomena, Henry Walter Bates. Here in Israel, there aren’t any butterflies similar enough to the plain tiger to employ this strategy, so if you see a plain tiger, you can be sure it’s the real McCoy, the king of the butterflies.

The photo of the heron (in its regal purple) is one from a recent trip to the Hula Valley, one that didn’t fly off disgruntled.

---

9th September 2025

The Lazy Birdwatcher

A year or two ago I read Simon Barnes’ book ‘How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher’. It’s a humorous introduction to birdwatching and was fun to read. During the last few months, I haven’t had a great time with photographing birds, so perhaps I’ve become a ‘bad’ birdwatcher. Maybe I have, but for sure during the past few days, I’ve been a lazy birdwatcher. Without even leaving home, I’ve been watching raptors flying above the lake and then heading in our direction. I was alerted to this aerial treat by the local pigeons. One day, while working at my computer, I noticed a flurry of pigeon activity. One thing we’re not short of where we live, is pigeons. We have lots and lots of them that rest and roost on the windowsills of our apartment block, and many more that live in the vicinity. As you can imagine they’re quite a nuisance – they have little idea about cleaning up after themselves. It’s sometimes tempting to employ the services of a hawk, which would certainly put the cat among the pigeons. No hawk was necessary on this occasion; the raptors had frightened the pigeons silly. The raptors were very high, but not too high for the pigeons to see, and they (the pigeons) clearly had no desire to become a pigeon pie (also known as a pied pigeon). I took my camera and zoomed in on the distant birds. I was able to see black kites and European honey buzzards gracefully riding the thermals.

I used to think honey buzzards were given that name because of their colouring. I was wrong – it’s because their preferred delicacy is a delicious feast of bees’ and wasps’ larvae, which they get by poking around in honeycombs. They also like hornets’ larvae, I’m pleased to say. It’s quite a dangerous business messing with bees and wasps and particularly hornets, so the honey buzzards have built-in protection – a chemical insect repellent in their feathers.

The biannual migration has certainly begun. During the next month or two, there’s every chance of seeing cranes, storks and pelicans flying up the valley past our home.

As I’m now a lazy birdwatcher and as we have such a propensity of pigeons, I’ve been watching them quite a lot. We also get a number of laughing doves nearby, but they’re not the problem. The problem-pigeons are the rock and feral pigeons. Rock pigeons favour cliffs as their natural habitat, but seem to find tall apartment buildings just as homely. They’re rather splendid birds and would be a firm favourite I’m sure, if they weren’t called pigeons. They look good, they’re intelligent, very fast and have a great ability to find their way home – I just wish it wasn’t my home. These qualities combined make them excellent messengers and racers. It’s thought that pigeons can recognise human faces, although I have to confess rock pigeons all look the same to me. But it’s not the case with feral pigeons. Feral pigeons are domestic birds that have returned to live in the wild. They’re often beautifully coloured - a result of selective breeding by pigeon fanciers - so it’s much easier to tell them apart.

Like everyone else in Israel, I’ve also been a lazy astronomer – watching the eclipse and red moon from the comfort of our balcony. People have been asking what impact the eclipse has on migrating birds, some of which rely on the moon for navigation. In actual fact, the raptors were not affected at all – they tend to travel during the day when they can benefit from the thermals. It’s the millions of small migrating birds that do travel at night, that will have noticed the strange behaviour of the moon. But given the eclipse didn’t last for more than a few hours, the birds will have coped by using alternative navigation techniques, as they must on a cloudy night.

The birds pictured are the European honey buzzard (high in the sky), a rock pigeon (peering down) and a feral pigeon (plumage grey and white pied, and orange-red iris with a black pupil).

---

3rd September 2025

It’s now September; the days are a wee bit less hot and so my prolonged period of torpor is over. We have had a spell of quite warm weather recently, with temperatures in Tiberias peaking at 46 degrees Centigrade, which is about 115 Fahrenheit. It’s not surprising that we spent the last few months estivating. It wasn’t just us that kept a low profile – birds and animals didn’t show their faces and even the summer flowers cowered in the intense heat, while seeking out shade.

Last week we headed up into the mountains above Tiberias on the eastern side of the lake. Our favourite place there is Gamla and with school holidays more or less over, it was very quiet. Gamla is the site of an ancient fortress and is sometimes called the “Masada of the North”. Here it was that the Jewish stronghold held out for two months in the year 67 against the Romans (led by Vespasian), before ultimately falling, as recounted in Flavius Josephus’ great work of history – The Jewish War.

These days, Gamla is a place of tranquillity enjoyed by nature lovers, hikers and the local birds and animals. Within just a few minutes of arriving, we were treated to the fly past of a pair of magnificent griffon vultures. This huge bird (with wingspan of almost three metres) was all but extinct in Israel until recent decades but conservationists have worked hard to reintroduce them. One of the prime locations for this project has been the mountains around Gamla, where the birds benefit from the thermals that help them rise effortlessly in the afternoon sun.

Another major conservation project in Israel is to enable mountain gazelles to flourish. These gazelles were almost extinct too, but through the efforts of Israeli conservationists, the world population of mountain gazelles has now reached several hundred. We hit lucky – just a short way into our walk, a family of four gazelles trotted by. They were a bit too far away to get a good photo, but I did manage to get a shot of one of them through the trees. A few months ago, I got even luckier. We were about to cross a wooden bridge over the stream and encountered a gazelle wanting to cross the bridge too – in the opposite direction to us. Feeble old folk like us need to make use of such bridges, but one would have expected the gazelle to easily cope with descending the banks of the stream and coming up on the other side without resorting to this man-made contraption. But it was either a lazy gazelle, or perhaps a smart gazelle and figured it easier to use the bridge. I think it got a bit of a surprise when it saw us already there – and after eyeing us up for almost a full minute it decided to look for an alternative route.

If you’re interested in gazelle gazing, try Gamla – you might be lucky, as we were. But more likely by far, you’ll see them in Jerusalem’s Gazelle Valley. I wrote about this inner-city nature reserve a year or two ago – if you’d like to know more you can find my article here - https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/nature-of-israel-gazelle-valley/.

2025-07

14th July 2025

It was great to visit the Hula Reserve for the first time in about three months. Being halfway between the spring migration and the autumn migration, it’s not the busiest time as far as birds are concerned – but I still managed to see kingfishers, herons, pelicans, cormorants, bee-eaters, raptors and other birds too, as well as mongooses, coypu and lizards.

I was particularly lucky to be able to get quite close to a rough tail rock agama that was standing almost upright on a rock face. This upright stance is one of the ways that it tells all the other agamas in the vicinity that they’re in the presence of the ‘king of the castle’. It also allows air to circulate around its body, which helps cool it down on very hot days. A few minutes later I saw another agama that was a little paler than had been that first king of the castle. I think it was in a bit of a mood. Just as chameleons can change colour, the rock agama can too – though the colour change is not nearly so pronounced. And like the chameleon, the colour change reflects its mood – it’s not nowadays thought to be an attempt to blend in with the environment, which it does very well anyway.

The purple heron isn’t really purple but more of a burnt-chestnut and slate grey mixture, and also blends in nicely with its environment. It’s quite hard for photographers to spot them in the reeds but more important for the heron is, that its prey doesn’t see it either as it stands perfectly still mimicking the reeds around it. This mimicking behaviour is known as bitterning, a trait that is perfected by bitterns. When we were in Britain recently, we knew we were in the vicinity of bitterns when we heard their booming, but try as we might, we couldn’t spot them at all.

On the lake at the Hula were a dozen or more pelicans and a number of terns. I watched a pelican glide across the lake with terns circling above it. As they came near, the pelican got quite agitated and opened its huge bill to frighten them off. The terns were clearly harassing the pelican trying to steal an easy meal – a behaviour known as kleptoparasitism. The pelican won the day, and the lazy terns had to go off and do some ‘honest’ fishing.

2025-06

8th June 2025 

The Handicap Principle

We’ve just returned from a ten-week trip to the UK. It’s so good to be home – but while we were away, I did manage a couple of short excursions with my camera (and Miriam).

I was lucky enough to photograph two of the most beautiful brightly coloured birds that we see in the UK. In both cases the birds are the male of the species, while their missus is considerably less colourful, perhaps even dully coloured. The mandarin drake is, thought by many to be, the most exquisitely coloured duck in the world, while Mrs Mandarin, though beautiful in her own way, has plumage that nicely blends in with the riversides and edges of lakes that she frequents. Similarly, Mrs Pheasant pales into insignificance when compared to the vibrant colours of her bloke, the cock pheasant. But not all female birds are less flamboyant than their male counterparts – take the kingfisher for example, the male’s stunning electric blue and orange is matched almost exactly by his consort’s, the ‘queenfisher’.

One might ask why any birds have eye-catching plumage – wouldn’t all birds be safer with dull colours providing camouflage to make them less noticeable to those that would lunch on them? And if there is a good reason for some birds to be so colourful, why particularly the males and why are some, but not all, females brightly coloured too?

All birds (male and female) are interested in self-preservation, as indeed are all animals and people. And so, the starting point is for birds to be coloured in a way that doesn’t attract attention. But birds and animals have an inbuilt desire to reproduce to maintain their species. And to do this, males or females have to pursue a mate.

For most bird types it’s the females that are in charge of rearing chicks and they want to choose the ‘best’ mates. They look for the most virile male they can find, hoping that their chicks will be strong and therefore more likely to survive. So, males have to make sure they look good and that the females will find them attractive. With this in mind, many males evolve into colourful birds. But the brightness of the plumage gives the bird a distinct disadvantage – it’s easily spotted by predators. So, the more attractive it is to females, the more noticeable it is to predators – a bit of a catch-22 situation for the poor male birds. This phenomenon is known as the ‘handicap principle’, a hypothesis proposed by the Israeli biologist, Professor Amotz Zahavi. He suggests that to show its physical prowess, which makes it more attractive to a female, the male will put itself in danger, a sort of message to the female that he’s strong enough not to have to worry about predator threats. It’s a bit like the birds are playing ‘chicken’ - a high-risk policy indeed!

Meanwhile for Mrs Pheasant to rear her brood it is much safer for her to stay out of the spotlight. If she were more flamboyant, she’d be easy meat for a fox. Likewise, Mrs Mandarin would be a sitting duck if she were easily noticeable in her nest.

So, what of the kingfisher’s ‘queen’? How can she afford the risk of being so startling?  She hunts for fish and small critters just like the king himself, but when it comes to nesting, she’s not at all noticeable in her bankside burrow and so can afford the luxury of being the rainbow queen – as WH Auden wrote ‘It was the Rainbow gave thee birth/ And left thee all her lovely hues’. But we still need to understand what benefit she gets from her vivid colouring. It’s hard to believe but actually the bright colours act as camouflage as kingfishers fly above rivers, they blend in with the foliage and are not as noticeable to the fish below the surface of the water. So there she has it – her catch of twenty-two!

2025-03

12th March 2025

One of my favourite Van Gogh paintings is his lovely depiction of deep blue and violet irises in Provence, France. Van Gogh painted this scene during the last year of his life while confined in an asylum. Despite the mental trauma he was experiencing he still had a good eye and as you look at the painting you can almost see the sweet perfumy scent of the flowers. Amongst all the blues and violets there is a lone white – perhaps this was the ‘Vincent’ iris – the failure that didn’t quite fit the mould. He might have thought himself a failure, but history has judged him otherwise and this one painting was bought in 1987 by the Getty Museum of California for more than $50million. [The painting is reproduced here with thanks to Wikipedia]

Wonderful as Van Gogh’s painting is, it’s not quite the same as seeing real-life irises. For no cost at all, one can visit the iris reserve in South Netanya, close to the coast, during February/March (as we did) and see the stunning iridescent purple coastal iris (Iris atropurpurea) - a protected plant (critically endangered) that can only be found on the coastal plain of Israel.

These irises have three large outer petals, and three smaller inner petals, which fold over one another to form a kind of chamber. But not all irises have this type of structure. A day or two after we saw coastal irises, we found some rather beautiful irises of a different kind during an afternoon visit to Mount Arbel. The barbary nut (Gynandriris sisyrinchium) is a dwarf iris and has the Hebrew name - צהרון מצוי = the common tzaharon. At the end of their kindergarten day, our little grandchildren, each of whom is the apple of my (iris) eye, go to an afternoon after school club, known in Hebrew as a tzaharon. The word tzaharon takes its origin from the word tzaharayim - meaning ‘noon’. And the barbary nut – the common tzaharon is so called because its flowers are closed all morning and only open at noon.

Some days I think I too am a bit of a tzaharon.

--

As well as the iris photos, I’ve included two birds, that we’re seeing a lot of at the moment. The rather handsome black-headed bird is a male stonechat, and the brown bird with red tail feathers is a female black redstart.

---

3rd March 2025

In recent days we have been lucky enough to see two sorts of lupin (US spelling is lupine and Hebrew word is turmus possibly related to the word thermos [= warm, hot]). These two types are the deep blue lupin (Lupinus pilosus) with a white splodge in the middle of its blue petals, and the pale blue and white Israeli lupin (Lupinus  palaestinus). Beautiful as the flowers are, I particularly like to look at the lupin’s wonderful palmate leaves.

You might think me a little loopy, but I must tell you that when I see lupins growing, I do wonder what is lurking beneath them. The Midrash (Gen Rab 79:6) relates that the great second century sage, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, planted lupin seeds in Tiberias (our hometown) to determine whether the ground below was part of an ancient cemetery. Where there were skeletons below, lupins grew from the seeds – but lupins didn’t grow where there was an absence of bones. And, by the way, I’ve checked – there are no skeletons in my closet.

Lupins are edible and have been eaten for thousands of years – the Talmud (Beitzah 35) states that the leguminous beans are as bitter as can be, but if boiled in water seven times they become sweet and can be wolfed down along with the tastiest of desserts. Though I have to say, rather than turmus for dessert, I think I shall stick with tiramisu.

--

Have you ever read H.G Wells’ novel ‘The Invisible Man’? I wonder if he got the idea from the false Apollo butterfly that I wrote about last week. It wasn’t clear from last week’s photo that this amazing little butterfly can be almost as invisible as Wells’ eponymous character. As the butterfly ages its wings become more and more transparent. The elderly butterfly I saw a few days ago at Gamla was barely noticeable as it rested on a yellow flower. It does make you wonder why other critters don’t use this method of camouflage. Well, actually, a few do, including glass frogs, the glass octopus and some jelly fish. Watch out next time you’re swimming in tropical waters.