2024-10

9th October 2024

Sitting Ducks

We visited one of Israel’s best-known nature reserves recently (I have been asked not to say which one) and met the Chief Ranger. I asked if there was anything interesting to see and was told that on that very morning the rangers had rescued some ducklings. A visitor had released into the wild some young birds that appeared to have previously been kept in a domestic environment. Releasing young ducks without their mother to look after them usually results in a very quick death. And indeed, the crows in the reserve were already eyeing them up when the rangers spotted them. The birds, instead of fleeing, which is what most wild birds do when seeing people, waddled affectionately towards the rangers, which is what gave the game away as to their former domesticity. The rangers gathered them up and temporarily caged them while awaiting a visit from the vet to check their health. The Chief Ranger is now looking for a suitable home for them where they will be able to live unthreatened by foxes, jackals or birds of prey.

“Releasing creatures into the wild sounds such an ethical thing to do,” we were told, “but it actually causes a whole lot of unnecessary suffering for them, as they are totally ill-equipped to fend for themselves or stay out of danger from predators.”

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1st October 2024

We’ve just had a couple of weeks of running to and from the bomb shelters in Tiberias, dodging rockets and missiles fired at us by Hezbollah and other terrorist groups. As well as our own shelter at home, we’ve been in a shelter at our local supermarket, one at the doctor’s clinic and had to endure one attack taking cover in a ditch by the side of an Inter-City highway. We’re now in Jerusalem for a few days for Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) – and hoping for a quieter time.

One of my favourite Jerusalem activities is gazelle gazing in Gazelle Velley. Yesterday, I got to meet a rather handsome buck with beautifully ringed horns. The males use their horns to display their virility to potential mates, and also for foraging for food and to fend off predators. But why are their horns ringed? I’m really not sure, so I’ll be doing some research as there must be a good reason.

While I was focussing on gazelles Miriam spotted a flycatcher sitting on the fence – a spotted flycatcher, no less. Flycatchers make little sorties, known as sallies, to catch flies and then return to the same place from where they set off. This sallying, also known as hawking, is also particularly noticeable with dragonflies and so keeping the camera lens trained on the same place, even after they’ve gone off, is well worthwhile.

I also watched a pair of spur-winged plovers by the side of a small pond. Plover is pronounced to rhyme with lover and not with over. As you can see, the two birds I photographed had just had a plover’s tiff and weren’t talking to each other.

The blackbird I photographed, looking a bit shabby, hadn’t lost his feathers in a scrap, but had lost a few head feathers to make way for new ones – a process known as moulting, which birds do once or twice a year to renew the strength of their plumage.

A leopard doesn’t change its spots, but let’s hope and pray that our neighbours will grow new feathers, as birds do, and will live together peaceably with us in the New Year – a better year than the last, with the safe return of our hostages who’ve been held in captivity for almost a full twelve months.

2024-09

26th September 2024

There was a lot of aerial activity above us on Tuesday.  From the safety of a town centre café, I watched as the iron dome intercepted Hezbollah missiles aimed at Tiberias.  And yesterday morning there was more unwelcome action - a rocket coming towards us from Syria was taken out by the IDF, while we spent ten minutes in the air raid shelter becoming better acquainted with our neighbours. Not to be deterred, we drove South along the Jordan Valley to a well-known birding location, Kfar Rupin, from where there are great views over the river-valley and beyond into Jordan. En-route we saw aerial activity of the sort that we delight in. Storks were circling high above, accompanied by raptors riding the thermals. We sat in a bird hide at Kfar Rupin, looking out over a very small lake - perhaps pond or mere, or mere puddle, would be more accurate names for it. The birds there seem to understand ‘bird hide’ as an instruction to them, and they remained out of sight for a long time. But after half an hour or so we watched a white-throated kingfisher fly past, as well as some bulbuls, while damsel flies and dragon flies vied with each other for the best resting places on lakeside rushes. A black kite looked down on us from a great height, while swallows skimmed over the lake virtually touching it from time to time, while we were drinking in the peace and quiet, disturbed only by the breeze rustling the reeds. Actually swallows do touch the water surface when they fly over it, and while doing so, drink in a quick beakful of water. I didn't manage to photograph the birds, but the insects and the splendid palm trees were more amenable to a photo shoot.

As we walked along the shadeless path to a further lookout, atop a knoll bearing the name Karpas Hill, I wondered to myself, “Are palm trees really trees?” Their shape and structure are so different from the normal branching varieties we are so used to. Experts are divided in opinion – some say date palms are trees, while others say they are woody herbs. We happened to pass a chaste tree (aka monk's pepper), which I have to say I thought at first was a rosemary bush – as you can see from the photo. But it’s the wrong time of the year for rosemary, so with a bit of research (with Google Lens) I quickly discovered its true identity. It’s presumably called chaste, because apparently mediaeval monks used to eat its berries (chasteberries) to reduce their sexual desire. Not quite sure why it’s also called monk’s pepper – as some people say that pepper is an aphrodisiac, which doesn’t seem to go together with calming their impulses.

Before finishing this blog post, I can’t pass over the opportunity to tell you that from Karpas Hill there are great views in spring of parsley, potato and celery growing in the fields below J. 

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25th September 2024

Earlier this week, we walked by the Alexander River near Netanya. It’s been a good few weeks since Miriam and I and my camera went for a good country walk. During those few weeks I was recovering from a bout of shingles – which, as shingles goes, was quite a mild bout, and the pain wasn’t too intense - but I was very tired and didn’t really have enough energy to exercise my telephoto lens. Fortunately, I feel much better now, and what better way to return to nature than a walk by this beautiful river just a mile or two from the Mediterranean coast.

The Alexander River is most noted for the African softback turtles that frequent its waters. And we weren’t disappointed, as we watched these large (50kg) turtles gracefully swim by and occasionally poke their heads out of the water, basking while gliding along. At the riverbank was a much smaller Caspian turtle (with a hardback shell), basking in the warm sun. There were swallows swooping, rock-martins chattering, parakeets screeching past at speed, and glossy ibises flying overhead, as well as a hovering kestrel that dived down into the grass. As we walked downstream, we saw a large grey heron waiting patiently at the riverside, but it wasn’t that patient and before long flew up to a high tree overlooking the river to gain a bird’s eye view of the fish below. But the highlight of the walk for me, was to see two rather small birds - a red-backed shrike and a wheatear.

Shrikes have bit of a monstrous reputation, which is actually well-deserved. They’re known as butcher birds, because after killing their prey (small mammals) they hang it up to dry on barbed wire, much as butchers do with their carcasses. Anyway, barbaric butcherers they maybe, but they’re rather nice to look at – the one who posed for me was a juvenile, who probably didn’t have too much blood on his hands yet.

Wheatears have an interesting name – but nothing to do with wheat, ears or even ears of wheat. Rather, they get their name from their white rear. They’re little birds that catch flies as they fly – they’re part of the flycatcher family of birds.

The evening before our river walk, we went out for a coffee in a local shopping mall. As we came out, we found a dead bird that appeared to have dropped out of the sky. It was still perfectly formed, and had one wing extended to reveal clearly the beautiful variegated colours of its plumage. Google lens identified it as a common quail, though it looked too attractive to be called common anything. Of course, quail have long been found in these parts – these are the birds that dropped out of the sky and sustained the Children of Israel during their for forty years in the desert as they journeyed, more than three thousand years ago, from Egypt to Israel.  

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3rd September 2024

Some of the most colourful and remarkable little creatures we see are common chameleons. Last week we were walking in woods with our grandchildren and our little granddaughter spotted a tiny little lizard. On closer examination it turned out to be a very small chameleon, about two inches long. She did well to spot it - as well as being tiny it was well-camouflaged - she's got a good eye. And so does the chameleon. In fact, quite remarkably, it can have one of its eyes looking forward and one backwards. There's a photo of mine on Wikipedia showing a backward-looking chameleon - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_chameleon and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_chameleon#/media/File:Chameleon-LookingBack.jpg. The chameleon has a remarkable tongue too, it’s about one and a half times its own body length. No wonder it gets tongue-tied. But of course, the chameleon is most well-known for its ability to change colour. What is less well-known is that primarily its colour changes are related to its emotions rather than to match its background.

The little chameleon chappie we saw was quite a comedian, as you can see from the video clip. It was barely bigger than a newly hatched infant. They emerge from their eggs some 10 to 12 months after they are laid. And then take a further year or so to reach full size – about 8 to 16 inches.

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 1st September 2024

I keep hearing reports that the migration season has started. Cranes, storks and honey buzzards have been spotted overhead – but not yet by me. I’m keeping my eyes trained on the skies and hope to be able to tell you soon of some successful sightings. But for the moment, I must be content with what I see at ground level.

A couple of weeks ago at Ramat Hanadiv I noticed a hoopoe hopping around an olive grove. I approached trying to hide behind trees to stay out of view. I was rewarded for my game of hoopoe hide and seek with a view of the male hoopoe’s headdress – a fully erect crest – a feather crown. It displays its crown majestically as a mating sign, to show its virility and also when it feels threatened, perhaps to indicate its size and strength.

A few seconds later it fanned its tail and prepared itself for a dust bath or an ant bath. A bird will roll its feathers across dust (dust bathing) as a way of secreting its preening oil to keep its wings well-lubricated and in good shape. Or it will rub its feathers on ants to obtain formic acid from them, which likewise is beneficial to its wings.

As you can see my hoopoe hunting was a happy experience with photos of a hoopoe anting, or perhaps just getting a dusting down.

2024-08

28th August 2024

Last week I wrote about van Gogh’s dull rendition of the vividly coloured kingfisher. Famous as van Gogh is, his painting isn’t the most famous bird painting. That accolade probably goes to Carel Fabritius’ painting, ‘The Goldfinch’. Its colours too, are not quite as bright as in real life – but Fabritus’ poor bird was probably feeling dull and miserable, tethered as it was by its foot on a short chain. There has been a long history of capturing goldfinches and keeping them caged, as songbirds – so beautiful is their singing.

Thomas Hardy, in his poem, ‘The Caged Goldfinch’ wrote:
Within a churchyard, on a recent grave,
I saw a little cage
That jailed a goldfinch. All was silence save
Its hops from stage to stage.

Leonardi da Vinci had an interesting theory about the goldfinch’s ability to spot a dying man – he wrote:

‘The goldfinch is a bird of which it is related that, when it is carried into the presence of a sick person, if the sick man is going to die, the bird turns away its head and never looks at him; but if the sick man is to be saved, the bird never loses sight of him but is the cause of curing him of all his sickness.’

As you can see from my photo, the goldfinch I photographed is certainly not tethered, but it wouldn’t look at me. Luckily, I wasn’t sick at the time, and perhaps it had looked at me when I wasn’t looking. Since goldfinches often travel in small flocks, it may have left the looking at me to one of its brother birds.

Fabritus’ goldfinch does seem to be looking at him, but sadly, poor Fabritus died soon after – tragically young, just 32-years-old. He died in a horrible fire in Delft, Holland, that took another hundred people along with him and many of his art masterpieces.

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27th August 2024

Despite what one might think, Lotus Biscuits are not made from lotus flowers. But they are made from completely natural ingredients – no artificial flavours, colouring or preservatives. This doesn’t mean they’re a health food, though in my humble opinion they should be considered so. The effort involved in getting a biscuit out of its cellophane (each ever-so-small biscuit is individually wrapped) quite probably burns up more calories than are gained by eating one. What do other lotus-eaters or Lotos-eaters think?

One of the joys of Jerusalem is to sit in the café outside the Botanical Gardens on an August day just enjoying coffee and biscuits, looking at the crowded lotus flowers in the rather large pond. The lotus flowers are quite remarkably beautiful – though their colouring reminds me more of Neapolitan ice-cream than biscuits. Their seed-heads make me think I’m looking at a watering-can sprinkler or a showerhead. Indeed, a sparrow was perched on one looking hopeful that water would emerge. Their roots are used in various cuisines including salads, but I think I’ll stick with the biscuits or better still, the Neapolitan ice-cream.

Not far from the lotus plants were some paper reeds (Cyperus papyrus) perennial swamp plants that were used in days gone by as a source for papyrus paper, and it is thought that this provided the material for Moses’ reed basket when, to save his life, he was left to float in the Nile. As well as seeing paper reeds in the Botanical Gardens we see lots and lots of them at the Hula Valley, happily growing in the swamps. You could write a book on them.

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21st August 2024

Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Kingfisher by the Waterside’, which he painted in 1886, depicts the bird’s plumage considerably duller than in real life.

While in English tradition we recognise the bird’s majestic appearance and top-notch fishing ability and afford it the literary title ‘The Fisher King’ or more recently simply the ‘kingfisher’, this is not so in other languages. In van Gogh’s Dutch, the kingfisher would be the ‘ijsvogel’, literally ‘ice bird’ and in French it is ‘le martin-pêcheur d'Europe’, literally the ‘European swift fisher’ (a bird of the swift family that feeds on fish).

It’s hard to be critical of the king of painters, but to me it seems that van Gogh hadn’t ever seen a live kingfisher.

After a little Google research (which, I understand was not possible for van Gogh) and a trip this week to Jerusalem's Natural History Museum, I think I understand why van Gogh's kingfisher was so dull-feathered. Amongst the hundreds of exhibits at the museum was a long-dead common kingfisher that looked decidedly jaded. And guess what, van Gogh used a taxidermized bird as his model.

As well as van Gogh’s painting I’ve included my photos of the taxidermized bird at the Natural History Museum and two of my favourite kingfishers that I photographed in Tel Aviv showing the vivid colouring of the common kingfisher when alive and flapping.

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11th August 2024

July and August are not the best time for nature observers to be out and about in Israel. Most of the flowers have long since died and the birds and animals find the climate here a little warm, so stay at home in front of the TV enjoying the AC. Undeterred, Miriam and I had a short outing recently at Ein Afek near Haifa.

We saw a beautiful purple flower, the Salt-marsh Morning Glory (Ipomoea sagittate), a bindweed native to Southern USA and Mexico. It has been introduced to the Mediterranean region and in Israel is found only in a few Northern coastal regions including Ein Afek.

And I thought I had hit lucky when I spotted a little bittern. I have never seen a bittern before, which is a member of the heron family. In Great Britain the great bittern is not seen very often and is classified as a threatened species. The little bittern (which sounds a bit like a comedy TV show) is also rarely seen in Britain. Likewise, in Israel they are not so frequently encountered either. I was particularly interested to find a bittern, which in the mating season (not now, but in the spring) has a booming call, which can be heard from two to three miles away. Anyway, twice shy, once bittern. So, I sent my not very good photo (shot from too far away) to a local bird expert to see if I’d really had a lucky spot – but she confirmed my suspicion, that this bird was actually a similar-looking, not-so-unusual squacco heron.

High in the sky above us we heard the squawk of a spur-winged plover busy buzzing a buzzard. Plovers can be quite aggressive towards other birds if they feel their chicks are threatened. They will use the spurs on their wings as an offensive weapon towards those who offend them - they've even been known to attack people who approach too close to their nests. When we got home, I discovered (from my rather poor long-distance photo) that it wasn't a buzzard that was being buzzed, but a black-winged kite. [A few days later, Miriam and I were at Kibbutz Lavi and watched two male plovers sparring - spurs at the ready. As I inched towards them hoping to get a shot, they shot off, no doubt to resume their stand-off somewhere less in the public (camera) eye.]

Half an hour later, back at Ein Afek, I saw a snake, before it snaked away at speed like a cracked whip. I saw it for just about a quarter of a second and then it dived into the lake – I hope it was a good swimmer and that there wasn’t a skulking mongoose waiting for it. It all happened so quickly that I can’t be sure what sort of snake it was – but I suspect it was a black whip snake, which grows to be about 8-foot from head to tail.

It wasn’t a great day for bird photos but there was a rather lovely red dragon fly by the pond and butterflies, unperturbed by the high temperatures, were quite happily out in the midday sun. There were scores of plain tiger butterflies, which are not at all aggressive, despite what their name might suggest. Belonging to the monarch family, they're really quite regal and one of them majestically posed for a royal photoshoot.

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6th August 2024

As regular readers know, I love to spend time at the froggery at nearby Kibbutz Lavi. Last week, I crept up close to a friendly frog who looked at me with its big eyes before hopping off. Believe it or not frogs can leap 10 to 20 times their body length. There is no doubt that if frogs were taking part in the Olympics, they would outjump all the athletes – and the frog anthem would be heard constantly croaking through the Stade de France.

The frog’s eyes aren’t just big – they’re bulging and quite prominent. This allows them to see to the sides and a little bit behind, as well as what’s in front of them. And when they eat, they use their eyes to push food down the throat. But whether their eyes are bigger than their stomachs – I haven’t the froggiest.

While I was chatting to the frog, Miriam was chatting to Mr Eli Levin - Lavi born and bred - whose family dedicated a garden and pond to the memory of their son, Gal, who died tragically young. It is this beautiful and peaceful location that my little froggy friend and its froggy pals like to hang out in. I’m sure they much appreciate Eli’s efforts in maintaining the pond and garden, as much as do all the other visitors.

2024-07

24th July 2024

Gold
We've talked in the past about golden animals and birds - goldfinches, golden jackals and golden skinks. I'd love to find and photograph a golden eagle, but they're not often seen in Israel, so today we're going to look at golden trees - carob trees and eucalyptus trees.
Carob Trees
The Carob is a member of the legume family, and is indigenous to Israel and much of the Mediterranean region. Carobs are referred to in the Talmud as a staple diet, though these days, apart from in times of great need, their fruit is primarily fed to animals. That said, they are also used as a chocolate substitute. The tree doesn't look golden, nor do its long chocolate-brown fruit pods. But for hundreds of years, the carob has lent its name to the standard measure for gold, the carat (‘carat’ being the Italian/Arabic/Greek name for the carob.) Twenty-four carob seeds were the weight of the Roman solidus coin, and pure gold came to be known as 24 carat gold (not a golden carrot in site). It is seven or eight years before a young tree will produce pods, and the pods themselves take a year or so more to develop and ripen. And after all that, once ripened, the beans are somewhat smelly.
Eucalyptus Trees
Unlike carob trees, eucalyptus trees are not native to Israel, but were imported from Australia. When Israel was resettled by pioneers some 150 years ago, much of the land was uninhabitable, covered in swamps, that were the home for malaria-carrying mosquitos. To make the land fit for farming and the country safe for habitation, the swamps had to be drained. Eucalyptus trees, with their great thirst for water, did a wonderful job. Some of the roots of eucalyptus trees go so deep into the earth, that if there is 'gold in them thar hills' the gold is absorbed and ultimately finds its way to the leaves of the trees. So 'gold in them thar leaves' makes eucalyptus leaves worth their weight in gold - and gives a whole new meaning to 24 carob gold-leaf.

The photographs include a carob tree and carob beans from the nature park at Ramat Hanadiv, and a eucalyptus tree in the Switzerland Forest just above Tiberias. Eucalyptus trees were planted on the hills above Tiberias to help prevent lethal mud slides in rainy seasons.

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14th July 2024

We have just spent two weeks in Leeds, in the UK, where it was somewhat cooler at 17-19°C than it was when we left Tiberias at 39-41°C. The trip gave me plenty of opportunity for reminiscing and also a chance to take photos of birds and animals, some of which we also see at home in Israel, and some that we don’t.

As children at junior (elementary) school, each morning we were given a small bottle (third of a pint) of milk to drink. I hated that milk, as did all my friends. It was never cold and always had a thick fatty-cream top to it. We weren't given the choice of ‘take it or leave it’ - it was mandatory, like it or not. It was enough to make a child want to become a vegan. Eventually, we were saved - the free school milk was withdrawn by the Education Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, who was dubbed ‘Thatcher the Milk-Snatcher’. The glass milk bottles, just like the ones that were delivered to our doorstep at home each morning, had a metal foil cap and if the bottles were left outside for too long, they became a target for blue tits who would peck a hole in the foil cap and feast on the cream at the top of the bottle. It is thought that the birds learnt this bottle-opening trick from watching others do the same. We might think that birds have birdbrains, but actually they're far cleverer than we give them credit for. In later years, in an attempt to foil the birds, the glass milk bottles were replaced by plastic bottles, with heavy duty plastic lids. But guess what? Those clever little birds learnt how to peck through the plastic too. And by the way, did you know that while British children were served milk at school, French children were given a glass of wine with their lunch. If Mrs Thatcher had replaced the milk with wine, she’d have been the most popular politician ever. And I’m sure the blue tits would have been happy too.

During our visit we saw many magpies by the roadside and many red kites circling above. As a child I was intrigued that magpies, which we saw frequently, were well known as collectors of silver rings, which they would pilfer by wandering into people's houses if they left the door or a window open. Maybe that's why the collective noun for a magpie, is a mischief of magpies. Turns out though, that actually magpies aren't attracted to silver or shiny objects at all. This seems to be an anecdotal myth. Scientists investigated and found that magpies are no more attracted to shiny metallic objects than any other sort of objects. So maybe they are birdbrains after all.

Not so long ago we didn't see red kites. They were virtually extirpated from England until they were reintroduced in the late 1980s/early 1990s. They now breed successfully and there are about 10,000 in England. A great success for conservationists, but of course one bird’s dinner comes at the expense of other birds’ survival, when supplies are scarce. Like magpies, red kites are also known to pinch things. In Shakespeare’s time they were known for pinching washing that was hanging out to dry. In his play The Winter’s Tale he wrote "When the kite builds, look to lesser linen." It reminds one of the rhyme in which the maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes when down came a blackbird and pecked off her (nose) clothes.

Two highlights of the trip for birdwatching were a visit to Bempton Cliffs on the east coast of England and a visit to the Bacall Bird Observatory in Manchester (where, as usual, we were fed fine cuisine in the excellent ‘restaurant’). At Bempton Cliffs I focussed on gannets - huge birds with a wingspan of about 6 ft (1.8 meters) and was lucky enough to capture a gannet (called Janet) in flight. Meanwhile, Miriam searched out and found a puffin. The weather in Manchester was more suited to those with webbed feet than to Israelis who are used to a hot dry summer. So on a rainy day, from behind glass, I photographed a male blackbird with orange eye-ring, a little brown dunnock, a red-faced goldfinch and a grey squirrel (called Cyril). And I’ve included a head and neck portrait of a Canada goose that I met in Leeds.

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12th July 2024

What are we to make of the skink with its tiny legs? Is it a lizard, with reduced-size legs, or a snake with little legs appended? First of all, let’s make it clear that a snake isn’t a limbless lizard, nor is a lizard, a legged snake. Snakes are snakes and lizards are lizards – two separate families. Skinks, though they look a halfway house, are actually lizards, not snakes. So if snakes manage without legs, and lizards with legs – why does the skink have just short legs? Scientists have shown that without legs it’s easier for a creature to burrow. And with legs it’s easier to walk on wet ground. So, the skink with its short legs is a bit of an all-purpose ATV (all-terrain vehicle).

I photographed this skink at Ramat Hanadiv recently. It is the golden skink, which is Israel’s longest species at about 18 inches from head to tail. It walked across the car park – stayed still long enough for me to take its photo and then skulked off into the surrounding shrubbery.

2024-06

30th June 2024

Early last Sunday morning, I had a pleasant walk by the lake in Tiberias. There was a fellow painting the town red, boaters were boating, and fishers were fishing. The fishermen, patiently waited for a catch, but they weren’t as successful as the little egret that I stalked. Birds have an instinctive fear of humans – they see us as huge giants and take to flight in much the same way as we would, if a bull-elephant came too near. I wish mosquitos were half as afraid of me. But young birds are not quite as cautious, and a young night heron out on its own, allowed me to come quite close.

Actually, it’s only the female mosquitos that I need to worry about. The males are quite harmless. I read a few days ago that conservationists in Hawaii are releasing 250,000 male mosquitos each week – they drop them out of a helicopter.  These mosquitos carry bacteria that limits the population growth. They’ve been doing this to protect honeycreeper birds that are being wiped out as they have no resistance to the diseases that mosquitos carry. So, one bite is enough to kill them. I think we could do with a few of these male mosquitos in our apartment.

However, I hope the conservationists know what they’re doing. Messing with nature can be a dangerous thing, as Chairman Mao found out when trying to eliminate sparrows. See my blog post https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/sparrows-the-tweet-on-the-street/. 

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24th June 2024

Mid-Summer’s Day

A long time ago, when I was at junior school, I was taught that summer started on 21^st June and ran through ‘til 21^st September. It then seemed strange to me that mid-summer’s day should be 24^th June. So today, being mid-summer’s day, I’m reflecting on just when summer actually does begin. Is it 21^st June or perhaps a month and a half before 24^th June, which would be 10^th May? And what exactly is summer? I think there are various definitions, and I’m not sure which is right. So, without dwelling further on this, I will just say that I do know that one swallow doesn’t make a summer, or so Aristotle believed.

I saw this one swallow, along with many of its friends and colleagues who had gathered on telegraph wires near Caesarea, one day last week. Swallows perch on wires as they’re good places from which to spot insects – if they perched on tree branches, the foliage would obstruct their view. They also gather on wires when it’s getting close to the time to migrate.

It has long been known that swallows disappear when it gets too cold for insects, their major food source, to be out and about. We know that the swallows are involved in a hugely long migration to a warmer climate. But until relatively recently (just a hundred or two years ago) it was thought that swallows hibernated at the bottom of rivers, and then appeared again when it was warmer.

I’ve tried many times to photograph swallows in flight, but they’re far too swift for me to have any chance. But I love to watch swallows, martins and swifts, as they fly along a road towards me, and then veer to one side to avoid a close encounter of any kind. And sometimes from our balcony, I watch swifts and swallows, flying at great speed, and marvel at how close they come to the building, without ever hitting it – there’s very little room for error. Swifts, martins and swallows, look very similar, and indeed swallows and martins, are closely related - swifts are not related at all. But they all eat, while on the wing, and are very fast and agile. I wish I were half as swift and half as agile – but that’s just a dream that will never be. Indeed, it would be a good dream for tonight – a mid-summers night’s dream.

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23rd June 2024

Last week in the city of Tzefat (Safed) we met a tortoise – but a much bigger tortoise than those we usually see in the local countryside - the Greek tortoise, aka spur-thighed tortoise, which is only about 6 inches long, whereas this tortoise in Tzefat was about 14 inches across and 20 inches from head to tail - but they do look rather similar. It was walking quite quickly (for a tortoise, at least), and as I was photographing it, a fellow approached me and told me it was a Sudanese tortoise, which is also known as the African spurred tortoise. These tortoises, which do not live in the wild in Israel, are the third biggest worldwide – the biggest being the Galápagos tortoise, which is found on the Galápagos Islands (where else?). Here’s a funny thing (well, it amuses me) - Galápagos means tortoise, so the Galápagos tortoise, is a Tortoise tortoise – and if that’s not tautologous, what is? I shall forever think of it as the tautologous Tortoise tortoise.

My new friend, the African spurred tortoise, was visiting Tzefat, with its keeper, for some sort of educational/entertainment event for school children. I don’t altogether approve of the idea of keeping animals or birds in captivity, even for education purposes. Though, it must be said that some zoos do a good job in preventing endangered species from becoming extinct, by breeding them and rehabilitating them into the wild.

I wish I knew what this African spurred tortoise thought of his captivity. If only we could communicate! As a young seven or eight-year-old lad one of my favorite series of books was Hugh Lofting’s adventures of Doctor Dolittle. The doctor was a naturalist, not to be confused with a naturist, who could talk to animals. We can all talk to animals, but the Doctor could understand what they said to him in return. It is said that King Solomon, who lived not so far from here about 3,000 years ago, could understand animal-talk. Since then, barring Doctor Dolittle, nobody has managed to have a two-way conversation. That could be about to change. The University of Tel Aviv has just offered a $10 million prize, the “Coller-Dolittle Prize for Two-way Inter-species Communication”, to scientists who can demonstrate that they can communicate with animals – to the point, for example, where they could send a model bee to tell real bees where to go in search of pollen.

So, keep on talking to your dog or your cat, and listen out for what they say to you.

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16th June 2024

Here are some of my G.O.A.T. photos 🙂! The Nubian ibex, a wild desert-living goat, has been in Israel constantly since the Pleistocene era. It is classified as a vulnerable species – there are only 4,000 or so in existence – two hundred of whom live in and around Ein Gedi, the oasis by the Dead Sea. [Ein Gedi, means spring of the kid goat.] The Nubian ibex and Tristram’s grackle (a desert starling, also found in Ein Gedi) are friends - they have a symbiotic and mutualistic relationship – the grackle will sit on the ibex and pick fleas from it. The Nubian ibex, being a goat, eats all sorts of vegetation and will climb into trees if that’s where their food is. They’ve even been known to climb on top of cars – the car in the picture was our car (subsequently sold). They’re fearless on narrow mountain tracks – but just last week, one of the ibexes fell into a 10-meter sinkhole near the Dead Sea. A local resident out walking his dog, saw the ibex and called for help. It took a considerable effort for rescuers to rappel down into the sinkhole, attach a rope to the ibex and haul it to safety. There’s a very short video clip of the ibex in the sinkhole in a Times of Israel report (see - https://www.timesofisrael.com/nubian-ibex-rescued-from-10-meter-deep-sinkhole/) -

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Last week I posted a photo of a swallowtail butterfly (Papilio machaon) – and today an animal from the Pleistocene era – the world of plasticine and papier-mâché is truly amazing 🙂!

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10th June 2024

On our way to Netanya yesterday for our weekly visit with our grandchildren, we stopped at the River Alexander for a walk along the riverbank. It’s not quite clear why the river was so named – some say it was in honour of Alexander Yanai, a 1^st Century King of Israel, others say it was named after a local 19^th Century watermelon farmer. But, either way, it’s a rather lovely river and we enjoyed our walk in the warm morning sun. As we walked along westward, that is towards the sea, we saw that the flow was away from the sea, which we assume meant the tide was coming in. We saw a few egrets, and kingfishers and a few turtles - hardback Caspian turtles and softback African turtles. The softbacks are really quite huge, reaching up to 40kg. One of them came right to the riverside to check us out and grinned at us with a toothless smile. They might be toothless, but they have very strong jaws and their bite is significantly worse than their bark, so we kept our distance. After seeing that we were no threat, the turtle hurtled off – turtles might be slow on land but they’re quite speedy in the water (up to about 30mph). A little later on, another turtle tried to climb out of the river, but the bank was just a bit too high and steep, and it did a backflip as it fell into the river, showing its underparts, that is, its plastron.

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I think I made a mistake in yesterday’s post. I said the hoopoe had caught a cockroach. Judy pointed out that the little creature wasn’t a cockroach, though the Lens app told me last week that it was. I’m not entirely sure what it was – I’ll just say that it caught a bug – and actually there are a lot of bugs going around at the moment, so take care 🙂.

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9th June 2024

The big question about millipedes is - how many legs do they actually have? Well, if centipedes have a hundred legs (which they don’t) then millipedes should have a thousand legs (which they don’t either). But they can have several hundred legs – so millipede is a bit of a misnomer. At least it was until 2020 when a species was discovered with about 1,300 legs – a genuine millipede! And strangely, another species of millipede was found recently, with four penises.

A week or two ago, we came across a 5-inch (12 cm) millipede, out for a walk. It’s the Archispirostreptus syriacus, which is found in Israel and in neighbouring countries. Exactly how many legs etc it has, I’m not certain – too many to count, that’s for sure.

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A few days ago, when in the centre of Tel Aviv, I saw a hoopoe digging up the lawn outside the Sarona Market. Eventually it found what it was looking for – a little cockroach.

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6th June 2024

Even by Tiberias standards it’s been a hot week. A couple of days ago the temperature reached 45 degrees C (113F). To be out in such heat for prolonged periods can be seriously harmful to the human body. On Wednesday morning, with the temperature still not reaching its daytime peak, like a true mad dog, I ventured out for a walk, up Mount Arbel. I covered myself in sunblock, took plenty of water and wore suitable clothing including a sun hat. And I only stayed out for about 45 minutes. But it was seriously hot, so much so, that no birds or animals were to be seen. Nor were there other people around, save for a party of teenage schoolchildren who seemed somewhat subdued by the searing sun. But real sun worshippers, those that depend on the sun for energy, were to be found – butterflies and lizards, particularly swallowtail butterflies and roughtail rock agamas. The blood of such critters isn’t actually cold, it’s just that they are poikilothermic, that is they don’t have a mechanism to adjust their body temperature – it will always be more or less the same as the environment that they are in.

The butterflies were flying so fast, barely resting for more than a second, they clearly had plenty of energy. I dizzily watched several pairs chasing each other in upward spirals – a sort of courtship dance. The lizards, who were basking in the warmth, were also exceedingly quick as they scurried away when I came too close. The butterflies and lizards were fast in the heat – but the hotter it got, and the hotter I got, the slower I became. Before long and before my blood boiled, I retreated to the comfort of an air-conditioned café for a much-needed iced coffee.