30th March 2023
A couple of
days ago, at Mount Arbel, I saw a goldfinch, although I couldn’t get close to
it. Each time I approached, it moved on and eventually flew off. You’ll see
from the first photograph (even though I wasn’t close to it) just how
spectacular its plumage is. This was actually the first time I’d seen a
goldfinch in Israel. I’ve seen many in England – the next three photos were
taken one afternoon last summer in the Bacall Bird Observatory in Manchester.
This ‘observatory’ is also my sister and brother-in-law’s garden, where they
supply ample food for all who are hungry. The second picture is an adult male
and the third and fourth are juvenile males.
Though I
haven’t seen a goldfinch here until now, I’m told by birders around the country
that they do see them periodically, though not as frequently as in previous
times.
There maybe
a few reasons for this – firstly, they flourish in open scrubland where there
are plenty of thistles, and recent urbanisation has made such places harder to
come by.
Secondly,
they compete for resources in the same space as parakeets and mynahs, both of which
are invasive species and are flourishing, quite probably at the expense of
other birds.
And thirdly,
their reduced numbers may be because, sadly, in some areas of the Middle East,
goldfinches are captured and sold to people who like their bright colours and pleasant
song. With thanks to Wikipedia/The British Library, you can hear a sample of goldfinch
song here. There are also people who set out
to mate goldfinches with canaries to produce a mule, which sings really
beautifully. It beggars belief that a goldfinch crossed with a canary can
produce a mule, until you look at the dictionary and see that the second
definition of a mule is ‘a hybrid plant or animal, especially a sterile one’.
You might
find this hard to believe, but a few years ago the papers here reported that a
man was arrested trying to smuggle eight goldfinches across the Israel/Jordan
border. He had them in his shoes! And he was investigated by the border police
because he was walking in an abnormal way, which is not surprising, given that
he had birds in his shoes. A year or two before that, border police arrested a
teenage boy and girl who tried to smuggle dozens of goldfinches across the same
border. The police heard the teenagers tweeting and discovered the birds in
their trousers! Maybe they got the idea from Yorkshire. In Yorkshire, whence I
came, in days gone by, poachers used to put ferrets in their trousers, to
smuggle them past the gamekeeper. As they used to say in Yorkshire, and perhaps
still do, “there's nowt so strange as folk”.
Goldfinches
like thistles, and there are plenty for them to choose from at the moment, on
the Arbel. The thistles provide many of the goldfinches’ needs, including food
and nesting material. Indeed, the Hebrew word for goldfinch is khokhit (chochit)
which is derived from the Hebrew word for thistle, kho’akh (cho’ach).
The first
of the thistle pictures shows a globe thistle, not yet turned purple. The thistle
is hosting a weevil, which is a small beetle with an elongated snout. I’m going
to guess that this is a Larinus planus, but given that there are almost
100,000 known weevils, I’m not entirely confident that I’ve identified this one
correctly. I didn’t notice the weevil wobble and it certainly didn’t fall
down!!
The second
picture is a globe thistle, just beginning to turn purple, that is damaged in
some way – there was only one other thistle damaged like this, that I could
see. So, I’m not really sure what has happened to it. Any ideas?
28th March 2023
As we look
out of our windows, we see swallows swooping past, no doubt on the lookout for flies,
that they catch on the fly. We also see them resting on telegraph cables.
They’re not here all year, of course. They just come for the summer months when
there is a plentiful supply of flies and other insects.
To the
first few of these photos I give the title ‘One Swallow does not a Summer
Make’. I’ve borrowed the title from Aristotle, who went on to say, “similarly
one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy”. It’s
thought that Aristotle borrowed this too, or at least was inspired to write
this, after reading Aesop’s ‘The Young Man and the Swallow’.
The next photo
is a group of swallows roosting near the lake – to this I give the title “It’s
been a hard day’s flight”, which is also borrowed a bit.
And the
third photo, was taken by my brother, John, of a painting just completed by my
very talented Mum, who was inspired to paint these swallows after seeing my
photo.
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26th March 2023
I’ve invented a new meaning for a word – caterpillary
– being the place that caterpillars live together. On one of our recent trips
to Ramat Hanadiv, Miriam filmed this short video of a caterpillary. You
can see caterpillars thrashing about in a very jerky way. They do this as a way
of defending themselves from predators. I guess, the constant motion of the
mass of caterpillars confuses would-be attackers.
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Recently, at nearby Kibbutz Lavi and other
local locations, we’ve seen blue lupins (Lupinus pilosus). I’d like to
share with you two interesting facts about the interesting blue lupins.
Firstly, they are one of the plants of
Israel that are classed as wild edible plants, indeed their seeds are used to
produce a coffee-like drink, which is caffeine-free. It’s called Altrei coffee
after the town in Italy that produces this coffee-free coffee substitute.
Secondly the blue lupins are endemic to Israel – which is not to say they are diseased in Israel, but rather that they grow wild, only in Israel.
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23rd March 2023
As today
marks the beginning of Spring in the Jewish calendar, I have written a blog
post at the Times of Israel about sunbirds and blossom trees – please take a
look at: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/for-the-pleasure-of-mankind-sunbirds/.
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21st March 2023
At this
time of year, by Israel’s rivers and lakes, a chorus of frog croaks is heard.
Male frogs call out to attract females. They inflate vocal sacs (little
bubbles) at the sides of their face to amplify the croak. These frogs were
photographed at Ramat Hanadiv in the lily pond – the sound of the croaks could
be heard from quite some distance. In the first picture you can see the
inflated vocal sac.
There’s an
old Jewish tradition (recorded in a Midrash) that King David was feeling pleased
with himself when he completed the Book of Psalms. He asked God whether there
was anything in the world that sings songs as beautiful as the Psalms. God let
David hear a frog croaking, to indicate to David that the song of the frog was
even more pleasing to Him than the Psalms.
Please take a few seconds to listen to this recording of the ‘song’ of scores of frogs, recorded recently by Miriam, at the Hula Nature Reserve. Listen here
19th March 2023
We
frequently see roughtail rock agamas basking in the sun. Recently, when
visiting Banias waterfalls in the North of Israel, we encountered this agama
adopting a most unusual stance (see the first picture) – usually we see them sprawled
over the rocks (as in the second photo). The arched back stance can indicate
that it is adopting a defensive mode, or it could indicate an offensive mode.
Was it worried about us? Or planning to attack us? Usually, they run away as
soon as we get close, but this one didn’t. After half a minute or so, in this
posture it did retreat – I guess it thought it was better not to attack.
16th March 2023
Earlier this week we visited Mount Arbel.
There were many many hundreds of school children and other tourists there,
enjoying the wonderful weather and lovely landscape. To avoid the brouhaha, all
the animals ran for cover, the birds flew for cover, and the flowers, unable to
run or fly for cover, just cowered, praying for peace and quiet to return soon.
Only the butterflies were unflustered, and they fluttered by, oblivious to the hullabaloo.
Their poor sense of hearing was something of an asset on such a day. As you may
know, my favourite butterfly is the swallowtail, the Papilio machaon (not
to be confused with papier-mâché) – and swallowtails are often to be
found at the peak of the mountain – they seem to like the view from the top. I chased
after one for several minutes as it flitted from rock to rock and from flower
to flower, not allowing me enough time to focus the lens. Eventually, exhausted
by the chase, it settled for a couple of seconds, resting on a rock – which was
just long enough for me to ‘catch’ it spreadeagled, as you can see in the first
photo. The second photo is from last summer, also at Mount Arbel, and is my
favourite photo of my favourite flutterby.
Swallowtails are so called because of the
extension on their rear wings that look a bit like a swallow’s tail. It is
thought that this confuses predators into thinking the rear of the butterfly is
its head, complete with antennae – and so predators go for the rear, rather
than the head – making a swallowtail more likely to survive an attack, with
head intact.
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The flowers that couldn’t escape the melee,
couldn’t escape my lens either. First up, is a goat’s beard (slender salsify).
Next is chamomile, good for lotion and tea. And finally, is hairy pink flax,
good for linen and linseed oil.
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14th March 2023
The
Roxburgh fig tree, also known as Ficus-auriculata is a type of fig tree
with huge round leaves. Impressive as the leaves are, the defining feature of
this tree is the fruit that emerges from the trunk and branches. I photographed
this tree, recently, at Hagoshrim.
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As today,
14th March (3.14 in US format) is known as Pi Day, I thought it
would be nice to include a picture of the sky over Tiberias, as the sun was
setting one day. Circumference of the sun divided by diameter of the sun = π (pie) in the sky!
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12th March 2023
Why do Birds Stand on One Leg?
I’ve
noticed recently, as I look out of the window to our balcony, that a pigeon
seemed to be standing on the wall on just one leg. I wondered if it was perhaps
injured or had even lost a leg. A quick bit of scientific research, also known
as googling, revealed that birds conserve heat by standing on one leg. They
rapidly lose heat through their un-feathered legs, so by tucking one of their
legs into their body feathers they can stop their heat escaping so quickly.
That’s
fine at this time of year, when it’s a trifle chilly outside early in the
morning. However, in August in Tiberias, it is rather warm – and I’ve seen
‘one-legged’ pigeons then too. Most days it is thirty-eight or thirty-nine
degrees Centigrade and some days it is well over forty degrees. That being so,
the pigeon shouldn’t want to conserve heat it should be looking for ways to
dissipate excess heat. Therefore, the pigeon should be standing on two legs, or
better still, on three.
Further
research revealed another two reasons for the one-legged stance. Firstly,
standing on one leg reduces muscle fatigue in the other leg – it’s the
equivalent of us sitting with our feet up. And, secondly, it’s an effective
general resting technique. I guess the pigeon in August, on one leg, was just resting
its tired feet – but this week’s pigeon was trying to stay warm.
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Last week at Mount Arbel, we say thistles
for the first time this season. The already purple ‘milk thistle’ and the not
yet purple ‘globe thistle’.
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9th March 2023
"We called him Tortoise because he
taught us." Lewis Carroll
We were ambling along in the Switzerland
Forest one day last week, and met a tortoise tootling towards us.
It was a ‘Greek tortoise’ which made
communication a little difficult. It’s also known as the ‘spur-thighed tortoise’
– as it has spurs on its hind legs. And it has scales on its legs and scales on
its shells which are called scutes (pronounced like scoots).
I photographed it, of course, and we went
on our way – and it scooted off on a somewhat tortuous path up the side of the
hill.
It must be said that tortoises in Israel
are not escaped pets – they live naturally in the wild – and indeed, it is
illegal to capture one and take it home. And by the way, tortoises in Israel
don’t hibernate during the winter, winters here are sufficiently mild for the
tortoise to carry on without freezing/starving to death.
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Yesterday on the Arbel Mountain we saw our
first mallows of the year (and there wasn’t a marsh in sight or on-site) – the
first of the flower photos – they were struggling to stay upright in a fairly
strong breeze. And also some rather splendid-looking Judean viper's-bugloss from
the borage family (rhymes with porridge) - the second of the flower photos.
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7th March 2023
Today, I’d like to share some photos that I have taken
during the last year or so, that make me smile – and I hope they’ll make you
smile too.
- Miriam made a new friend on one of our visits to the Dead Sea.
- These storks stopped for the night, on their long intercontinental journey, to recharge their batteries.
- Waiting for a PCR test – a Pigeon Corona Rapid test.
- This gazelle is anything but as swift as a gazelle – it’s a wooden cut-out. But the stonechat doesn’t seem to mind sitting on its horns, just the same. This was published recently in the Jerusalem Post with an explanatory caption and on the Jerusalem Post’s Instagram feed without a caption. Someone commented about the Instagram post – “This pic is photo shopped. There is a perimeter around the gazelle that does not match the background of the rest of the photo”!
- This family of Syrian rock hyraxes seems oblivious to the dangers of hanging out near the edge of the Arbel cliff.
Some weeks ago, in the Switzerland Forest, towards evening we
encountered this ‘little’ (1.3 meters long) creature. I’m not sure why we
weren’t afraid to approach, but for some reason it didn’t seem dangerous. I was
just about two meters away when I took this photo. Thinking about it
afterwards, I decided that I was really very foolish – it could have been
deadly poisonous. We had seen black whip snakes in the forest – they are two
meters long or more. They’re not poisonous but could nevertheless give a nasty
bite. But what sort of snake was this, before us?
When I got home, I felt inspired to write a poem, that explains
further. You can see it here at the Times of Israel.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/poem-snaky/
2nd March 2023
The post a
couple of days ago was about the birds we saw on our visit to the Hula Valley.
Primarily, the Hula Valley is famous for the birds that fly through. However,
there also lots of animas to be seen as well. We saw just a few.
On our walk
around the nature reserve, two or three mongooses walked by. They’re well known
as fierce predators. A friend in Tiberias told us that she kept hens in her
backyard, but sadly they had become prey for mongooses, who liked to take the
eggs they laid, and given the chance, would kill the hens too. Before long,
she’d lost all her hens. Mongooses are good hunters and, as well as hens, will
happily eat other birds, fish, lizards, rodents, insects and, surprisingly,
especially snakes. Eight times out of ten, in a standoff with a cobra, the
mongoose will come out on top and will then feast on a tasty cobra pie.
We also saw
a number of Caspian turtles, donkeys (living wild), and several coypu. Coypu (also
known as nutria), large land/water rodents, were brought to Israel from South
America, in the days when fur-farming, was considered, by some, to be an
acceptable practice. It turned out that the Israeli climate isn’t conducive to
producing quality fur – so the animals were left to their own devices and there
are now many living freely, in the Hula Valley.
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Earthquake update
Early
yesterday morning we were rattled by an earthquake with its epicentre just a
couple of miles from home. It was a small quake (only 3 on the Richter scale)
and lasted a few seconds, but nevertheless it felt like a significant shake.
Tiberias and the Kinneret lie on an active fault line - the Great Rift Valley - and every hundred years or so, there are major earthquakes here. The last one was in 1927 – we hope and pray that the next one will not be any time soon.
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