My thanks
to Cousin June for inspiring me to write about this rather unusual-looking
tree. We see many Chorisia insignis trees (aka Ceiba insignis, the
white floss-silk tree) during our visits to Netanya, where they adorn the streets
in the neighbourhood where our daughter and son-in-law live. The trees, natives
of Peru and Ecuador, grow in Israel on the coastal plane, along the Jordan
valley and in the South of the country. Their trunks and branches are covered
in huge spikes, sufficient to prevent children and animals even thinking about climbing
up in search of their huge fruits. The trunk, as well as being covered in
spikes, is bottle-shaped and its fruit up to 15 cm (6 inches) long is a capsule
containing seeds in a white woolly mass. The fruit, which shows from October
until January, opens when ripe to reveal the silky floss seed pod. The flowers
are rather glorious too – but for photos of the flowers we’ll have to wait
until July/August, the flowering season.
Yesterday, when walking in the woods near our home in Tiberias, we encountered an elderly couple who were also enjoying the beautiful scenery. The gentleman stopped by a flowering bush and with a swoop of a gloved-hand captured bees from the bush and popped them into a storage bottle. He explained to us that when he gets home, he puts the bees on his arm so that they will sting him. The bees die and he says that it helps relieve the pain from his arthritis. It sounds to me like ‘pain transfer therapy’, but I’m not sure I’d fancy doing that.
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29th January 2023
It has become fashionable for countries around the world to
select a national bird. In the
United States the national bird is the bald eagle, in the United Kingdom
it is the robin and here in Israel it is the hoopoe. Why was the hoopoe
selected as the national bird, out of all the 500 or more species of birds that
live in Israel or pass through? To know the answer to this question, one would need
to ask the 155,000 or so Israelis who voted in 2008 on the sixtieth anniversary
of the founding of the State, to choose the national bird. Why exactly they
choose the hoopoe ahead of the bulbul or sunbird or kingfisher, we’ll probably
never know, but the hoopoe, or in Hebrew, the duchifat (not to be
confused with a fat ducky) is certainly the one they selected.
Perhaps its
popularity is related to its impressive-looking crowned head, that
almost looks like it is back to front. Maybe this is aesthetically appealing to the man on the Israeli
street. It has a rather pleasant oop, oop call, which gives rise to the English
name hoopoe, being somewhat onomatopoeic. Pleasing it might be visually, and to
the ear, but it has a reputation as being a smelly bird. It uses unpleasant
odours as a way of warding off predators, who might attack its young.
Beautiful
in appearance as the hoopoe is, if I’d been voting I wouldn’t have chosen the
hoopoe. I’d have sooner voted for the kingfisher, or one of the egrets or
perhaps the stork, named in Hebrew chasidah, for its kindness. The
kindness of the stork/chasidah is a topic for another day.
Last
Sunday, Miriam and I walked in Ramat Menashe and saw Israel’s national flower,
the beautiful red Kalanit (Anemone coronoria = poppy anemone =
crowned anemone). On Friday (two days ago) I went for a walk with my
granddaughter in some woods in Netanya. We were hoping to see the ducks in the
pond, but sadly they were hiding at the far side of the pond. We didn’t get a
good view of the ducks, but we were lucky enough to spot Israel’s national
bird, a hoopoe. It had just found a bug in the ground that was a little too big
for its mouth, big as it is, as you can see in the first two photos. The final
photo shows the hoopoe with its crest fully spread – it spreads it on landing.
25th January 2023
A few
weeks ago (1st January), I noted that we’d seen our first Kalanit
(Anemone coronoria = poppy anemone = crowned anemone) of the season, a
purple one. This week we had our first sighting of red ones, lots of them, at
Ramat Menashe. The season has really got under way.
There
were lots of lovely yellow flowers too, Leontodon tuberosus, also known
as Bulbous Dandelion (dandelion = dent de lion = lion’s tooth) or Tuberous
Hawkbit (hawkbit = devil’s weed). Marmalade hoverflies seem to like this
flower, as you will see from the photo. Hoverflies hover and fly, as you might
guess – they’re particularly skilful and fast flyers, moving so quickly that at
times you can barely see them. They are completely harmless but to ward off
potential predators they mimic wasps which are much fiercer. But then they
would become pray for those that like wasps, which funnily enough includes
hoverflies. Sounds a bit Escheresque!
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These
butterflies are painted ladies – beautifully coloured insects indeed, but also
with great camouflage-mode. Its common term is the painted lady or in America,
the cosmopolitan, but its scientific name is Vanessa cardui. The origin of the scientific
name Vanessa maybe down to the name invented by that giant among men, Jonathan
Swift, who ‘fathered’ Gulliver. Swift had a friend called Esther Vanhomrigh,
and from the first parts of her names he conjured up Vanessa, for a character
in one of his poems, Cadenus and Vanessa. And by, the way, Cadenus is an
anagram of the Latin decanus, meaning 'dean'. Jonathan Swift was dean of St
Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin’s fair city where the butterflies are so pretty –
but not quite as pretty as they are in Israel.
20th January 2023
At Mount
Arbel earlier this week we saw:
1) A little bird –
a black redstart.
2) A family of
Syrian Rock Hyraxes who clearly couldn’t read or perhaps were just plain
rebellious.
3) A flowering
shrub - Euphorbia dendroides, also known as tree spurge.
4) Common Asphodel.
5) The carob tree,
regrown after being destroyed in a storm in 2017.
6) The stunning
view of neighbouring Mount Nitai.
18th January 2023
As a child,
one of my favourite books was A A Milne’s, When We Were Very Young. As a parent
it was one of the books I enjoyed most to share with our children. And I’m
looking forward to reading from it to our grandchildren, before too long. Alan
Alexander Milne, was born on this very day, 18th January, in 1882,
so today I’m sharing with you a tale of three little foxes, photographed
recently in an urban park in Netanya.
There are four
types of fox found in Israel. Most common is the red fox (which is actually
slightly smaller than red foxes in Europe and America), as pictured here. The
other three foxes are found in desert regions but are not so common and are
smaller than the red fox. The three little foxes of the desert are the sand
fox, Blanford’s fox and the fennec fox.
In A A
Milne’s words - Once upon a time there were three little foxes who kept their handkerchiefs
in cardboard boxes. They lived in the forest in three little houses, but they
didn’t wear coats and they didn’t wear trousies. And they didn’t wear stockings
and they didn’t wear sockses.
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This week,
in some woods in Jerusalem, we saw our first almond blossom of the season. The
origin of the word almond, in English, is perhaps from a Greek word that
describes the shape of part of the brain which is almond-shaped. Almond (שָׁקֵד
sha-ked in Hebrew, sh-k-d) is usually the
first tree, or at least amongst the first, to blossom. And indeed, the verb
sh-k-d in Hebrew means to hasten (see Jeremiah 1:12). Sounds like a good name
for an Israeli politician!!
This word
sh-k-d appears in several places in the Bible. I’m particularly intrigued by
its use in Exodus 25:33, meshukadim, almond-like or almond-shaped
(shaped like the almond blossom), to describe the ‘cups’ on the Temple menorah
(candelabra). The point of interest here is that Onkelos, a very early
translator (almost 2,000 years ago) renders meshukadim as decorated,
therefore describing the cups as ‘decorated’ cups. Please let me know if you
have a thought as to why Onkelos didn’t go with the straightforward and literal
meaning of almond-like.
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15th January 2023
Friday’s
Jerusalem Post reported that archaeologists recently discovered the remains of eight
ostrich eggs buried in the sands of the Negev Desert. The eggs are thought to
be from 4,000 years ago, or so. Ostrich eggs have twenty-five times as much nutritional
value as chicken eggs – however, the ostrich, bat yaanah, is listed in
the Torah as one of the birds that is not kosher, so neither are its eggs. Wild
ostriches were to be found in Israel until as recently as the nineteenth
century, but sadly can only be seen here now, in a zoo. I photographed this
ostrich last year at a children’s petting zoo near Netanya, with neither its
head nor its eggs buried in the sand. Actually, it’s a bit of a myth that
ostriches bury their heads in sand.
12th January 2023
These two
photos are from this time last year – a greenfinch looking particularly yellow
(at Ramat HaNadiv), and a female chaffinch (in the Segev Forest). Finches come
to Israel for the winter from colder areas to the North. Some like the climate
here so much that they don’t return. A bit like us! We don’t get to see finches
so often – I suspect the population is declining, perhaps because of the huge
numbers of hooded crows around these parts. Not only do birds have to compete
with each other for food supplies, some birds are the food supply of other
birds. And for sure crows will happily eat eggs or young finches and probably
fully grown ones too.
PS
In the last
post (10 January) I referred to the Kinneret as a lake. A friend queried this,
suggesting it’s certainly a sea. And indeed, many people refer to it as the Sea
of Galilee. The English dictionary definition of lake is ‘a large body of water
surrounded by land’ so for sure the Kinneret is a lake. It’s certainly true
that the Torah (Numbers 34:11) uses the term, Yam Kinneret. And a literal
translation into English would be the Sea of Kinneret, as no doubt the King
James Bible has it – and the Artscroll translates. But a better translation
(imho) is that provided in the Gutnick Chumash - Lake Kinneret, and also in the
new Hirsch Chumash. To my mind the Kinneret is most definitely a lake. I
welcome your thoughts.
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10th January 2023
Often,
when walking by the side of the Kinneret lake I see pygmy cormorants, a blackish
brown bird, which is a little larger than its name might indicate. But I
suppose all things are relative, and relative to some of its relatives it is on
the small side. Quite often I see them sitting/standing by the lake with wings
spread out, making them look almost angelic.
You
won’t be surprised to hear that birds that spend a lot of time in the water, be
they ducks, geese, swans or numerous other species, have waterproof feathers.
If their feathers weren’t so water resistant but absorbed water, you could
imagine that after a quick dip the weight of water absorbed by the feathers
would be sufficient to reduce the bird’s ability to fly. But the feathers are
waterproof; water just drops off the bird as it emerges from the river, lake or
sea – like water off a duck’s back.
Cormorants,
though, are an exception to this rule. Their feathers are not waterproof, which
enables them to dive under water to a greater depth and with greater
manoeuvrability – watch out fish! So, when cormorants emerge from the water and
want to fly, their flying ability is somewhat impaired. Just as, if we get our
clothes wet, we hang them out to dry, so too, the cormorant must hang out its
apparel to dry. It does this by sitting/standing for long periods,
spreadeagled, allowing the sun to dry its feathers. Then it can fly off to
another area to start its next fishing expedition.
Perhaps King David was here when he wrote his
immortal words:
A song
of ascents
From the
depths I called You …
I lift
up my eyes to the mountains …
We were
walking near Yad Kennedy (the JF Kennedy Memorial in the John F. Kennedy Peace
Forest) a couple of weeks ago and saw these splendid melon-like (and
melon-sized) mushrooms. I consulted experts around the world, and I’m told that
this sort of mushroom is the Suillus spraguei, which is edible, but I
can’t say I’d fancy trying.
3rd January 2023
One morning last week, near Beit Sh’an, I
photographed a starling murmuration. Starlings are winter visitors to Israel to
escape the colder climates of Northern Europe and enjoy some winter sunshine. It’s
absolutely fascinating to watch as many hundreds or even thousands of starlings
fly in formation, creating artwork in the sky. It’s just mesmerising to look,
as the mass of birds creates everchanging shapes. They make synchronized
swimming groups and air force aerobatic teams look ordinary as they swoosh and
swirl, duck and dive, twist and turn, and incredibly avoid flying into each
other. There are two reasons they murmurate. One reason is to confuse
predators, who are literally mesmerised by what they see and are incapable of
selecting a target bird – safety in numbers. A second reason is that they can
stay warm when the air is cool, presumably they shield each other from a cool
breeze. It seems that there isn’t a command-and-control system, but each bird
watches its neighbours, seven in all, to see which way they’re heading and follows
likewise. I’m not sure why starlings are
alone in the bird-world in murmarating – I don’t think it’s because they’re
more agile and have quicker reaction times than other birds – I suspect it's
down to the huge numbers that make up a starling community and that if other
birds lived in such large flocks, they might also murmurate. If you know of a
better reason, please let me know. In the photographs you will see black kites
that were flying around the murmuration but failed to catch a starling dinner.
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1st January 2023
Last week
at Ramat Hanadiv, we saw our first Kalanit (Anemone coronoria = poppy
anemone = crowned anemone) of the season – a few weeks earlier than usual. In
the spring Israel is carpeted with these lovely flowers, mostly red ones but
also purple, blue and white – and indeed it is such a popular flower that it
was crowned as Israel’s national flower. More pictures will follow once the
season really gets under way.
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