2023-11

30th November 2023

Tree Fellers

I don’t approve of jokes that make fun at the expense of others, and particularly of the supposed lack of intelligence of people from other counties, so I shall not relate the well-known joke about tree fellers.

That said, two fellers were arrested recently in England for felling a two-hundred-year-old sycamore tree in an act that the police described as “an act of vandalism” (no offence intended against the ancient Germanic people of Vandal). A sixteen-year-old youth and a man in his 60s have been arrested for felling what was an iconic tree near Hadrian’s Wall. And, by the way, Hadrian’s Wall was bult by Hadrian (who else?) to keep the barbaric Scots out of England – ‘barbaric’ is derived from the Latin word for foreigners.

In England it is most definitely a criminal offence to fell a tree that has a Tree Preservation Order, and it is also an offence to damage property that belongs to someone else – so one way or the other, the old feller and young feller will have to face the music for their wanton tree destruction.

Here too in Israel, trees are protected. One has to have a licence to cut down a tree, and this will only be granted for a very good reason. Where possible trees should be relocated and if this is not possible another tree should be planted elsewhere. On our visits to Ramat Handiv, we see a small grove of oak trees that had to be uprooted to make way for new residential housing in Bet Shemesh and were subsequently replanted. They’re now flourishing in the beautiful parkland at Ramat Hanadiv.

It is said that Israel is the only country in the world that had more trees at the end of the 20^th Century than ay the beginning. More than 250 million trees were planted in the last 50 years (one of them in honour of my cousin Stephen – hope you’re reading this Stephen – Stephen is still trying to find his tree).

Tree preservation in Israel is not a new fashion – more than 3,300 years ago, the Torah (Bible) demanded that fruit trees are not to be destroyed without good reason – a law that applies to this very day.

The two photos of trees in the woods are in the Switzerland Forest near Tiberias. I’ve written previously that the Switzerland Forest is named to mark the contribution made by the Swiss Jewish Community, to fund its landscaping. During rainy seasons there were, in times gone by, many instances of mudslides down the mountains here, the worst of which was in 1934 sadly causing the death of twenty-five people in Tiberias itself. Planting the mountain slopes with trees and bushes to prevent erosion, has ensured that no such disasters have happened since.

And there’s a photo of an olive tree in the centre of Tiberias, which is more than 500-years-old.

And a photo of a restaurant next to the lake in Tiberias that was built round two trees that were already well established.

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27th November 2023

We spent a few days in Netanya over the weekend visiting our children/grandchildren. After a nice breakfast sitting outside at a café in the countryside (it was about 22 Degrees Centigrade) we had a country walk and encountered a castor oil plant (also known as the castor bean plant), which is (believe it or not) the source of castor oil. Castor oil has a variety of uses including as a lubricant and as source of biodiesel and as a laxative.

I also photographed a grasshopper and a white hibiscus.

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23rd November 2023

Yesterday and the day before we walked on Mount Arbel and were pleased to see rock hyraxes, swallowtail butterflies and for the first time this season, we saw wild cyclamens.

But the highlight, without doubt, was to see, for the first time ever, a gecko. We’ve seen skinks, agamas and other lizards, but yesterday we saw an Israeli fan-fingered gecko (Ptyodactylus puiseuxi). It’s a little lizard – the one we saw was just 3 or 4 inches long (8cm to 10cm). They are rock-coloured so they are well camouflaged and, unusually for lizards, most geckos are nocturnal but some including the fan-fingered gecko will also venture out during the day.

The most interesting thing about geckos is their ability to walk up walls, however smooth they are, and they can even walk upside down across a smooth rock or ceiling. The ‘superhero’ Spiderman can apparently do this too, and so can spiders. Exactly how Spiderman manages to walk up walls is beyond the scope of this post – and actually the science behind geckos and spiders walking up smooth surfaces is also rather complicated. Very briefly at the end of each toe of the gecko is a pad with half a million hairs called setae. And at the end of each seta there are about a thousand nano hairs called spatulae. Inter-molecular forces enable the spatulae and surface to temporarily bond. And the clever gecko takes advantage of this ‘bonding’ to walk anywhere it wishes, apart from dry Teflon, which it can’t stick.

The photos show, a hyrax, a swallowtail butterfly front-view and rear-view, cyclamens and the gecko including a close-up of a foot.

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19th November 2023

I saw a post on Facebook last week that amused me. It read as follows:

‘Scientifically, a raven has 17 primary wing feathers, the big ones at the end of the wing. They are called pinion feathers. A crow has 16. So, the difference between a crow and a raven is only a matter of a pinion.’

It’s quite funny, but scientifically completely incorrect – crows and ravens both have ten pinions.

However, it is scientifically true that flamingos and storks have 12 pinions and ostriches have 16. So, it would be fair to say the difference between a flamingo and an ostrich is a matter of four pinions, but in my o-pinion that’s not very humorous.

While we’re discussing pinions, many birds in zoos and farms are pinioned to prevent them flying away. This practise is now considered cruelly painful for birds and can only be done in the UK by a qualified veterinary surgeon, with an anaesthetic. Likewise, Torah/Biblical law prohibits this and any other cruelty to animals or birds.

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15th November 2023

Each year we make two or three visits to Dor Habonim beach and nature reserve which is on the coast, about 30 km South of Haifa. We avoid visiting in the summer, as it’s just too hot. But a winter walk along the kurkar (quartz sandstone) ridge, adjacent to the sea is a very pleasant way to get some exercise and enjoy some winter sunshine.

Just a couple of kilometres to the South of Dor Habonim, is another National Park, Tel Dor, which unlike Dor Habonim, doesn’t have an admission charge. This is the site of an ancient port, some of the remains of which, can still be seen. The beach, just to the North of the port, also has a kurkar ridge, along which I spotted a group of ruddy turnstones, a mother bird together with three chicks. Last year, at Dor Habomim, at the same time of year, I also saw ruddy turnstones. They are waders, primarily winter visitors to Israel. They have orange legs, and white underparts. And as the name suggests, they leave no stone unturned in their quest for a good meal.

These photos are from our walk last week at Tel Dor.

There’s a ruddy turnstone walking by the edge of the sea. A male stonechat, red-breasted, perched on a twig, a plain tiger butterfly, and some camphorweed, that smells like Vicks VapoRub (camphor is one of the ingredients).

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13th November 2023

While we are enduring the war, here in Israel, and hoping and praying for the safe return of the hostages, we’re saddened to hear of the woes our friends are suffering in England, at the hand of antisemites. Isn’t it time for all people and peoples, wherever in the world they are, to live peacefully with each other?

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Fox News

Late yesterday afternoon, we had a short walk on Mount Arbel. We were the only ones there, apart from birds and flowers and a red fox. The fox was on its own – a bit of a lone wolf. It looked at me for a few seconds and then off it went at a foxtrot. But I got another chance to photograph it, as you can see.

The flower is a crocus, a Steven's meadow saffron – there were a few of them right at the top of the mountain sheltering between the rocky outcrops.

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9th November 2023

Many thousands of people have had to leave their homes in Northern Israel and Southern Israel to keep out of range of the rockets that are still being fired at Israel by terrorists in Lebanon and Gaza. The hotels in Tiberias and many other cities are now full of displaced families. This is difficult for all those people, particularly the children, who are unable to go to school. So, temporary schools have been setup in the hotels and volunteer teachers are assisting the children to get some sort of schooling. Today, Miriam will be teaching English to groups of children in one of the local hotels.

We pray that they can all go home soon and resume their lives in a safe and normal way. And of course, we also pray that all the hostages will come home soon, safe and well.

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During our visit to Tirat Tzvi, near Bet She’an, a few weeks ago (before the start of the war), we saw lots of black kites. As Mary Poppins will affirm, kites go soaring, up through the atmosphere, up where the air is clear, up to the highest height. It was a joy to watch them but quite a challenge to photograph them.

Black kites are scavengers, but they also hunt on the wing. This always makes me think of the rhyme (of unknown origin, I think) that Mum loves to recite:

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz
I wonder where the birdies is.
They say the bird is on the wing.
But that’s absurd,
The wing is on the bird.

On recent trips to nearby Mount Arbel we’ve seen black-winged kites sitting on telegraph/electric wires by the side of the road. They’re small raptors, much smaller than the black kite. Despite their name they’re actually predominantly a grey and white bird with black shoulders and wing tips and black eye stripe/patch. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get nearly close enough for a really good photo. As you can see, I got slightly closer to one on a tree last year. We see them quite frequently but birdwatchers in England got very excited a few months ago, as a black-winged kite was spotted in Norfolk, for only the second time on record.

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5th November 2023

These photos are from recent walks on Mount Arbel:

White-spectacled bulbul making a spectacle of itself, on the lookout for carobs.
A bluebird – a blue rock thrush.
A white dove or rock pigeon – we had a little chat, in pidgin English, of course.
A crested lark – having a lark.
A stonechat – so-called, apparently, because its call sounds like two stones knocked together.
Hundreds of cranes flying overhead.

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2nd November 2023

We use the Waze app as our satnav guide, which incidentally is an Israeli creation (subsequently bought by Google). As well as directing us to the right road, it informs us of traffic build-ups ahead. For the time being, this feature has been suspended, so that terrorists are not given information of where there is a heavy concentration of traffic.

It would be useful if Waze were to tell us if there are animals by the side of the road. We could slow down considerably, if we knew that they were around. As we drive from city to city along highways and country roads, we often come across ‘roadkill’, animals that had strayed onto the road unaware of the dangers of fast cars and wagons. We’ve encountered the remains of jackals, foxes, wild boar and more. Last week, as we were driving on a very busy intercity dual carriageway, a mongoose at the edge of the road was looking for a gap in the traffic so that it could cross the road. They’re fierce little animals, not afraid of snakes or lions, but however aggressive they can be and however sharp their teeth are, they’re not going to be any match for even a small car travelling at speed. Fortunately, it didn’t run out in front of us, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it didn’t end up somewhat squished by another car soon after we passed it.

Yesterday on our way to Netanya we broke our journey at Nachsholim, near the sea. As we arrived, a family of mongooses (three of them) were mongoose-stepping across the road. After we parked the car, we spotted one of the mongooses again – and this time I was quick enough to snatch a quick pic. We then walked between two small lakes, where birds, lots of them, were happily feeding. There were stilts and herons, but most spectacular of all, were the flamingos. Some were grey - they were the young ones - while many others were flaming flamingo pink - they were the adult birds. As we walked towards them, they goose-stepped away (or perhaps I should say, they flamenco danced away), keeping a safe distance from us. Elegant though their long-legged steps are, they can pick up quite a speed through the shallows, like a company of synchronised ballet dancers in florid pink tutus.

Last December, I wrote about flamingos, as follows:

One of the great things about living in Israel is I get to see exotic birds and animals. By exotic, I mean those that I wouldn’t have seen in England without going to the zoo. As a child, living in Leeds, a favourite treat was a trip to Flamingo Park Zoo near Pickering (now renamed as Flamingo Land) where there was a colony of flamingos. There are flamingos at Tel Dor at the moment – no trip to a zoo required - and these flamingos can fly, which I’m sure wasn’t the case for those in the zoo. Aside from looking somewhat unusual and certainly exotic, flamingos have a particularly unusual characteristic. As we all know mammals produce milk to feed their young and birds don’t. But flamingos do. They produce milk in their crop and feed it to their young. They are not alone in the bird world in having this ability – pigeons do as well, and so do emperor penguins.

The photos here of the mongoose and flamingos are from yesterday at Tel Dor/Nachsholim, as were the stilt and grey heron.