30th April 2023
I spent an hour or so at the lakeside
last week, looking at little egrets. Every time I approached, they flew away.
They didn’t realise I’m quite harmless. On my way back to the car I saw a
cormorant on a tree. The tree was in the lake a few meters from the shore. The
cormorant had managed to entangle itself in the twigs on a branch, to the point
where it couldn’t free itself. It flapped and struggled but to no avail. It
seemed to be getting exhausted. A crow came along and perched on a branch above
the cormorant. Crows are known as being
amongst the most intelligent of birds, perhaps even the most intelligent. I wondered whether the crow was thinking
about how it could help the cormorant escape. Or was it just thinking that
before long there would be some carrion. I couldn’t stay to see the outcome, but
I suspect there wasn’t a happy ending to this story.
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28th April 2023
Can
birds smile? Can birds laugh?
Mammals
have facial muscles attached to their skulls, and therefore can change the
appearance of their faces – so we (and other mammals) can smile. Other animals,
for example dogs, can appear to smile – and though their smile isn’t
necessarily a smile in the way ours is, they certainly do have ways of showing
that they are happy. Birds, though, don’t have facial muscles to make them
smile. However, birds do seem to laugh sometimes – but when do they it might
not be a laughing matter. The laughing dove, for example, coos in a way that
sounds like its laughing hence its name.
Here are
two photos of laughing doves, and there is a photo of a graceful little bird –
the graceful prinia.
Lastly,
there is a photo of bells of Ireland, a
member of the mint family, that I saw this week in the Switzerland Forest.
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26th April 2023
Nightbirds
In
one of the Facebook birding forums that I follow, someone posted a question
recently, regarding birds singing at night. She wrote that she'd been awoken a
couple of nights at 1am by a bird chirping loudly. She wondered what sort of
bird it might be. Most likely is that she heard a nightingale - nightingales
pass through Israel in the spring. Males sing at night during the breeding
season hoping to find a mate, and they also sing during the day. Most other
birds sleep at night, but I guess the nightingale is a night bird and can
manage with little sleep at this time of year.
Though most birds are diurnal, nightingales are not the only nocturnal birds.
Most famously, owls are nocturnal hunters and night herons likewise are active
during the night and early morning. I photographed these night herons last week
on a boat pier in Tiberias - they are black-capped night herons. They're much
smaller and squatter than grey and purple herons, and are similar in size to
the equally squat, squacco heron. I photographed the squacco heron in the Hula Valley.
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23rd April 2023
There was
great excitement at the Jerusalem Bird Observatory (JBO) last week when, during
a routine ringing (banding) session, a little bird was caught in one of the
nets. The bird was a lesser whitethroat, a tiny warbler, and its presence in
Israel is not particularly unusual – the unusual thing was the distance it had
travelled. It had a ring on its leg, which showed that it has been ringed in
Lithuania two years ago and had therefore travelled more than 1,700 miles to
reach Israel.
I
photographed these birds at a recent ringing session in Jerusalem – there are four
photos of graceful prinias, which is such a nice name for a little brown
warbler, and also a photo of a greenfinch. Birds are caught in bird-safe nets and
their weights and length measurements recorded in a worldwide register, then
they’re ringed and released. I was quite surprised that the birds didn’t seem
at all upset by the procedure.
If you’re
in Jerusalem, it’s worth booking a visit to a bird-ringing session at the JBO.
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20th April 2023
We’ve reached that time of year when
it’s fair to say that it’s quite warm, here in Tiberias. During the last day or
two temperatures have reached about 36-37 Centigrade, and although it’s going
to be a little cooler for the next few days, before too long it will be 40
degrees or more, most days.
In such weather, most Israelis in
Tiberias, aside from mad English immigrants, stay close to their
air-conditioning units for as much of the day as possible. But what do birds do
to stay cool? They don’t usually have the luxury of aircon, so they have to adopt
other strategies. One strategy is to keep a low profile during the heat of the
day. Early in the morning when it’s not quite so hot they do most of their ‘work’
and then remain in cooler places when it gets too hot. Another way to keep cool
is to splash about in a bird bath or river or lake. Some birds pant, while
others use a technique known as gular fluttering.
One day in the summer last year I watched
a pair of pygmy cormorants standing by the edge of the lake - for long periods
their mouths were wide open (see accompanying photos). I thought they might be
waiting for flies to fly in, but I wasn’t sure, so I consulted an expert. I was told that in all likelihood they were
fluttering their gulars (throat tissues). They rapidly pump air back and forth
within their system, causing an efficient form of evaporative cooling.
Next time I saw an open-mouthed
cormorant I looked carefully, and indeed could see the fluttering quite clearly
– as you will see in the short video clip.
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Since
the days of King Solomon there have been peacocks in Israel. He brought them
into the country along with monkeys. Monkeys are now to be found only in zoos,
but peacocks are to be seen in many places, strutting around ostentatiously,
including in our hometown, Tiberias.
To use
the term ‘peacocks’ is a bit imprecise, as it’s only adult males that are
peacocks. Females are peahens, and the young are peachicks. The correct word to
use for these birds is peafowl and the collective noun for peafowl is an
ostentation or a pride or a muster of peacocks or peafowl.
To see a
peacock displaying its train is a sight to behold. It must muster up all its
energy to erect the train, displaying its beauty to a peahen it wants to
attract – and then it stands as proud as … well actually as proud as a peacock.
She is particularly flattered by all the eyes on the feathers that appear to be
looking at her and the peacock appears to be saying to her “I only have eyes
for you”.
Peafowl
are a sort of pheasant, and once in a location, will stay there, as do many
peasants. They can’t go far, because, although they can fly, they can’t fly
far. And despite their small heads they are no pea brains, they’re thought to
be quite intelligent, using various strategies to make themselves look more
attractive to potential mates.
The photographs
show a head and shoulders portrait of a peahen with a not quite pea green neck,
at Kibbutz Hagoshrim. Head and shoulders portraits of a peacock at Tel Dan,
with its peacock blue head. And a chance encounter at Jerusalem Zoo of a stork
and a proud peacock. Although the birds were in the Zoo, I’m not sure whether
they were exhibits or had just popped by, to enjoy feeding time.
I’ve also included a picture of a pea blue butterfly, that I saw last week in the Switzerland Forest, near Tiberias.
16th April 2023
When
walking in the countryside at this time of the year, you can’t fail to notice
the wild carrot plants, with their many white flowers making a parasol like
structure. Although the carrot below is technically edible, it doesn’t have a
pleasant taste and so to all intents and purposes, it’s not an edible carrot.
It’s thought that the dark central florets on some of the plants are meant to
look like insects with the aim of attracting more insects.
All the
wild carrot plants that I’ve seen are white – that is, until now. Last week I
came across a large pink parasol. So, I photographed it from below, with my
pocket camera (Sony) and from above, with a Canon SLR with wide-angle lens.
Sadly, when I got home, I found that I had accidentally changed a setting on
the Canon and had taken the photographs in monochrome mode. I’ve included in
the accompanying photos a worm’s eye view colour photo where you can see the
pinkish flowers at the edge and also a black and white bird’s eye view, showing
dark central florets. One of the nice things about photographing trees and
plants is that if you mess up, you can go back for a second go. So, I did. To
my horror, I found that a very selfish person had cut down the pink parasol and
taken it away. All I could do was photograph some more parasols that haven’t
reached full size. I’ve included a photo and I will keep checking the plant – with
any luck, sometime soon, I hope I’ll be able to post a photo of a full-size
pink parasol.
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Yesterday
afternoon we heard an explosion, which it seems was an unusually bright
meteor/bolide exploding. It had been seen over Israel, shortly before we heard
the explosion.
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14th April 2023
Earlier
this week, at the Switzerland Forest, I watched a family of Syrian rock
hyraxes. I say I watched them, but just as true would be to say that they
watched me very carefully, making sure I wasn’t a threat to them, and the
moment I went too near they darted for cover behind and between the rocks. And
all this was under the watching eye of a large skull that someone had posted on
a post. One suspects there’s been some skulduggery here. I’m not sure but I
think it might be the skull of a wild pig, though it could have been a horse, a
cow, or a goat. And there was a black bird skulking around.
I’ve
mentioned before that the nearest family member, of the Syrian rock hyrax in
the animal kingdom, is the elephant. I’ve also noted the long gestation period.
It’s a small animal, perhaps about 50 centimetres long, but its gestation
period is six or seven months, which is very long for its size. Compare this to
a fox which is somewhat bigger than the hyrax and produces its young in just 50
to 60 days, or to the rabbit, which is a little smaller than the hyrax and has
a gestation period of about a month.
Here's another interesting fact – unlike most mammals that have a constant body temperature, the temperature of the hyrax varies according to the time of day or night and the air temperature. So, on a cool day they may not emerge from their homes at all.
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10th April 2023
I photographed these insects on flowers at
the Switzerland Forest last week.
The metallic green beatle is a European rose
chafer, a flying beetle, measuring about 2cm in length, enjoying a thistle.
It’s called a chafer because it chafes the leaves or petals of the flowers.
The ruddy brown moth is a burnet moth – the
Google Lens app suggests it is a six-spot burnet, but this wasn’t nearly as red
as six-spot burnets I’ve seen before, so I’m not sure. The word ‘burnet’ seems
to come from the word brunette, and actually this moth looked more like a
brunette than a red-head.
And the honeybee is bumbling about a Tornefort’s gundelia (also known as tumble thistle), whose roots apparently taste similar to artichoke and asparagus, when cooked. Tournefort was a French botanist, and Gundelsheimer, a German one. One assumes that the two botanists tumbled upon this thistle at the same time.
5th April 2023
As tonight is
the start of Passover, a major Jewish holiday, I shall be taking a break from
blogging for a few days.
In this
post I’m going to share a few details about Passover and the Jewish Calendar,
and briefly compare the Jewish Calendar to Easter and the Gregorian Calendar,
and also to Ramadan and the Muslim Calendar. This seems particularly
appropriate, as the three major religions of Israel all have special holy
events to celebrate this week/month - Passover, Easter and Ramadan.
Passover is
the Jewish festival that commemorates and celebrates the Exodus from Egypt more
than 3,300 years ago. For seven days in Israel (and eight days in the rest of
the world) Passover is commemorated by refraining from eating bread – the
Children of Israel left Egypt in such a hurry that there wasn’t even time for
bread they were baking to rise. We too eat matzah, a crisp cracker –
that is bread that hasn’t had a chance to rise. The beginning of Passover and
end of Passover are similar to the Sabbath (Shabbat) in that we refrain from
work – and the intermediate days are days of semi-holiday. The highlight of
Passover is the first night (and outside Israel, repeated on the second night) when
families gather to celebrate the special Seder meal in which the story of the
Exodus is told.
Passover is
a Spring festival, falling in the Jewish month of Nissan (at full moon), and as
such, the Jewish Calendar is constructed to ensure that Passover always falls
in the Spring. Each month of the year starts with the appearance of the new
moon. The moon orbits the earth in approximately 29.53 days, so months
alternate (more or less) between months of 29 days and months of 30 days. Twelve
such months, totals approximately 354 days, which is about eleven days short of
a solar year (the solar year being the time it takes for the earth to orbit the
sun – about 365.24 days). Nissan next year will start 11 days before Nissan
this year. Before very long Passover would fall in the Winter and a few years
later in the Autumn. To ensure that Passover falls in the spring, an additional
month is added to certain years, which then become leap years. In a cycle of 19
years, if seven of these years are leap years (that is they have an extra
month), the month of Nissan and Passover with it, will remain in the Spring. 19
years of 365.24 days, totals about 6,939.56 days. 12 years with 12 lunar months,
and 7 years with 13 lunar months, totals about 6,939.55 days (almost the same
as 19 solar years).
Easter,
which falls out next Sunday, almost always coincides with Passover. Easter is
the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. The Vernal
Equinox, this year was Monday, March 20th at 11:24 pm. The next full
moon is Thursday April 6th. So, Easter is next Sunday, April 9th.
Ramadan is the
ninth month of the Muslim Calendar. The Muslim Calendar, like the Jewish Calendar,
is based on lunar months. Twelve lunar months make a Muslim Year, with no
additional months to make leap years. So, each year the month of Ramadan starts
about eleven days before it started the previous year. This year the first day
of Ramadan (coinciding with the new moon) was March 23rd. Next year
it will start on March 11th and the year after on March 1st.
Before long Ramadan will be in the winter, making the fasting each day during
daylight hours somewhat easier. But 20 years from now Ramadan will be in the
summer and the fast days will be long, and the fasting is made harder still by
the hot weather.
We hope and
pray that this will be a peaceful and happy time for all who are celebrating and
for all others too.
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The photo
is a friendly frog, who was quite happy to be photographed, at Kibbutz Lavi,
yesterday.
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4th April 2023
During the
last week or two on our early morning walks at the nearby Switzerland Forest
and Mount Arbel, we’ve seen many flocks of migrating birds. Flocks of cranes,
storks and raptors have flown by in groups of 30 or 40 or more.
One morning
we saw a mixed flock of cranes and black kites, which isn’t so common because,
as we all know, birds of a feather flock together.
We also saw
a pair of Egyptian vultures at Mount Arbel, but they were too far away to
photograph on this occasion.
Kites and
vultures are both raptors, as are eagles, falcons and hawks. The word ‘raptor’
means to seize and carry away – raptors are carnivores that eat what they kill,
or they eat carrion. Many birdwatching photographers I meet, have little
interest in photographing anything but raptors and a great shot of a bird in
flight or attacking its prey sends them into a state of what can only be
described as rapturous delight.
Kites are
not named after the kites that young people (and others) fly on a string – it’s
the other way round. We often see them soaring over the Arbel cliff on the
thermals above (no wing-flapping needed), and indeed this is one of the best
locations near Tiberias for seeing raptors. The Egyptian vultures, like other
vultures, have bald heads to enable them to stick their heads in places we
don’t want to know about, without getting their feathers too sticky. They come
to the Arbel to nest and if you’re very lucky (luckier than I) you might get a
glimpse of the fledglings, in their cliff-side nests or even fully-fledged
young birds in flight.
The photos
are a black kite from last week, and an Egyptian vulture from last summer.
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No
connection to the raptors, but just as prolific, the next picture, photographed
this week at Mount Arbel, is Lomelosia prolifera, also known as prolific
scabious or the Carmel daisy. And the final photo is a rather handsome-looking
crested lark. It’s a small ground-dwelling songbird, prolific at Mount Arbel.
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2nd April 2023
It should
be noted that today is not the first of April. Today is the second of April.
That said,
on 1st April 1979, a newspaper in Kansas reported that a local
laboratory had created a device that allowed plants to ‘talk’, almost like
humans.
And on 1st
April 2019, Google in the Netherlands reported that researchers had developed a
form of Google Translate (that we all love so much) that enabled one to
communicate with tulips.
These two
reports have one common key fact – both of the reports were dated 1st
April.
On 30th
March (which is also not 1st April), just a few days ago,
researchers at Tel Aviv University announced that they have recorded tomato
plants and tobacco plants ‘talking’. Their ‘talk’ is at frequencies beyond
human hearing, but suitable devices can record their sounds. More important
still - some insects and animals can hear the ‘words’ and get messages from
them, and so can other plants.
Research is
ongoing, but one thing is for sure, next time I say “hiya Cynth” as I walk past
a hyacinth, I will know that my greeting is not wasted. I just wish I could
hear the reply.
Here’s a
photo of a hyacinth squill (Scilla hyacinthoides), photographed recently
in some woods in Netanya. 
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