31st January 2024
On
Sunday this week we headed towards the top of Mount Carmel near Haifa, from
where there are fabulous views of the city and the Med. There's also a nature
reserve, Hai Bar, where various birds and animals that are few in number are bred,
and when they're ready to fend for themselves, they are released into the wild.
We were hoping to see fire salamanders and Griffon vultures. The salamanders
remained well hidden, which wasn't a great surprise to us, as it was a fairly
bright day and they prefer dark shady locations. The only time we've
encountered salamanders was at Tel Dan in the streams beneath the shade of trees
where it's rather dark. But this week we did get to see a group of
five or six Griffon vultures that circled high above us. I always think that
when there are vultures above it's best not to stay too still, but fortunately,
they spotted some sign of life in us and quickly moved on.
There were also a few vultures in the breeding enclosure. The two photos are of
Griffon vultures, one of them in the enclosure, and one circling above.
On
our recent trip to Pulborough Brooks in South of England we were told that
there were white-tailed eagles (also known as sea eagles) around, but we didn't
see them. But this week we did. There was a pair in an enclosure together with a young one, which in due course will be released
Just
as we arrived I received a WhatsApp message from someone who'd been given my
number. She wanted to know where is a good place to see Peregrine falcons in
Israel. They're actually not so common here and
are not seen
nearly so frequently as they are in England. That
said, I haven't
ever seen one - not in England and not in Israel, but I would really like to.
They're the fastest bird of all - they can dive on their prey at speeds in
excess of 200mph (320km per hour). In fact there is no animal or fish that
reaches such speed - cheetahs have a maximum speed of a mere 80mph. Peregrine
falcons are particularly fond of rock pigeons. If they only realised what a
great supply of pigeon pie there is right outside our window, I'm sure we'd see
them very often.
The last
few days have been quite rainy, but we managed a short walk at Lavi on Friday
between showers. The lupins were out (lupinus pilosus) with their lovely
deep blue flowers marked with a white vertical bar. Lupins are members of the
pea family, so perhaps we could say that the flowers are a pea-blue colour. The
long lupin leaves sparkled with rain drops. And a rosemary bush, which is
native to the Mediterranean region, was also flowering.
29th January 2024
I
photographed this beautiful red admiral butterfly that was perched on a white
fence at the nearby Arbel Nature Reserve. The obvious question to ask is - why
does this butterfly, the red admiral (with scientific name Vanessa atalanta),
get the rank of Admiral? Does it rule the Atlantic waves? I was surprised to
discover that it has no connection at all to the sea. It was originally known
as the red admirable, presumably because of its admirable qualities.
Subsequently admirable was corrupted to admiral and now everyone calls it the
red admiral.
We also
admired a black redstart, which funnily enough is a small brown bird, with a
red end, and the equally admirable round yellow shrubs, Jerusalem spurge, with
which Mount Arbel is currently adorned.
All in all,
an admirable day!
22nd January 2024
Lovely as it was to
see the bird life in England over the last few weeks, including, swans, robins
and snipe, it’s wonderful to be back home enjoying Israel’s flora and fauna.
This time last year we saw the very special purple iris in Netanya, and we wanted
to get another look. The weather was idyllic, in stark contrast to the freezing
temperatures we endured last week in Northern England. It can’t have been much
colder in the Arctic Circle, at least that’s how it felt to us, now that we
have become acclimatised to Mediterranean weather. This week in Netanya, we
didn’t need sweaters in the 22-degree warmth, and I was glad of my sunhat.
Iris wasn’t home,
sadly; I guess we were a week or two too early, so we’ll be back soon. Irises
we didn’t see, but our trip wasn’t wasted. There was enough borage (rhymes with
porridge and is also known as starflower) so that Goldilocks wouldn’t need to worry
who’d been eating hers. Borage is a herb with little blue flowers, that is
native to Mediterranean countries. It is sometimes used in salads and
apparently tastes a bit like cucumber. There was also a lot of Prunus arabica
around, a sort of wild almond (a broom-like shrub), with little white flowers.
Miriam tells me it was the delicate perfume (similar to hyacinths) that first
alerted her to this shrub. And we had our first sighting of the year of red kalaniyot
(crown anemones), Israel’s national flower. Many confuse it with a poppy, but
it’s most certainly an anemone.
A young tortoise
walked through the undergrowth at a snail’s pace, and a venomous centipede
(about 12cm = 4.5 inches long) with a mere 40 legs or so, was sunning itself
and was moving at a speed that even snails would find super slow. This banded
centipede was the Scolopendra cingulata and though venomous, as are all
centipedes, it’s not normally deadly – but nasty just the same. You can see in
the photo that alongside its black head are some thin pincers known as
forcipules with which they inflict their sting and at t’other end, the final
pair of legs, known as the ultimate legs, are pincer-like and are used in both
attack and defence.
It’s great to be
home and we’re looking forward to seeing lots more throughout 2024. We hope and
pray that all the kidnapped hostages and all displaced persons will return home
very soon and that there will be a lasting peace.
PS, yesterday I
posted pictures of a robin. This was the European robin, somewhat different to
the American robin, with which those of you in or from America will be
familiar. The European and American robins are not closely related but are both
called robin because of their red breasts.
21st January 2024
In Israel we occasionally see robins, but in England we
saw them very frequently in gardens, parks and woods. I photographed this robin
in the South of England last week.
Most people perceive the robin as a cheerful friendly bird. And it is just that, unless it thinks that you or other birds or other robins are ‘invading’ its territory, at which point it can become exceedingly aggressive. It’s been known to attack other birds, and even people and it will certainly kill other robins that it regards as a threat. So, I suggest that it probably wasn’t sparrow that killed cock robin, despite sparrow’s confession, but rather another robin, who seems to have got away with murder. Be that as it may, the robin, with its bright red breast, is most certainly the most popular bird in England – it was selected as the UK’s national bird.
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17th January 2024
Here are
a few birds photographed on our trip to the South of England, that are all seen
in Israel too.
The bird
with the very long beak is a snipe, photographed at Pulborough Brooks, an RSPB
reserve. The snipe is so well camouflaged that hunters who were able to shoot
it were given the title sniper – and that is the origin of the word sniper.
The
blackish bird with green flashes and a long black crest is a northern lapwing,
which is also known as a pewit or peewit. It might be a peewit, but as we’ve
noted before birds are no pea-brains. It’s related to the spur-winged plover,
one of my favourite birds in Israel. Also photographed at Pulborough Brooks.
And
there are two pictures of herring gulls, one of them is a mature bird (the
white one) and the other (the brown one) is a youngster. I photographed these
birds on the coast, at Hove near Brighton.
16th January 2024
Wildlife
Photographer of the Year 2023
One of the exhibition rooms at the Natural History Museum in Tring (that we visited last week) was dedicated to a display of some of the winning entries in the young people's category of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023 competition. And fine photographs they were, by very talented young wildlife photographers. The Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year for 2023 was a young Israeli fellow, Carmel Bechler, who photographed two barn owls from quite a distance. Although it’s not to my taste, I can see it’s a great photograph - you can see it here - Carmel Bechler's Photo
At Tring, the display only included the work of young photographers. The adult section is displayed at the museum in London. So, I bought the book of winning entries in the gift shop. I was pleased to see that another Israeli photographer’s photo was the winner of the Animals in their Environment category. This photo is of two Nubian ibexes in the Negev Desert. Amit Eshel's Photo
I didn’t submit any of my photographs to this competition but were I to have done so I would have sent this photograph of a frog at Kibbutz Lavi with inflated vocal sacs.
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Occasionally we see frogs on our country walks and more often we hear their loud croaking. The ones we see most frequently are marsh frogs, the biggest frog found in Israel. At the other end of the scale, there is a frog in Israel that is just few in number – the Hula painted frog, which is only found at the Hula Valley, nowhere else in the world. It was thought that this frog had become extinct, but in 2010 it was spotted again. It seems to have reinvented itself (perhaps even been reincarnated). But there are so few around, that even as frequent visitors to the Hula Valley, we’re unlikely to see it – so unfortunately, I haven’t got a photo to share with you.
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15th January 2024
We’re having a lovely time in England
visiting family and friends, but we’re really missing Israel and particularly
the flora and fauna. However, last week, despite being in England, we saw some
familiar sights - a hoopoe, a kingfisher, a crane, storks, ibises, eagles - as
well as hundreds more birds and animals. Photographing them was much, much
easier than usual – they didn’t move at all. They were at the Natural History
Museum in Tring, Hertfordshire (a little market town 30 miles North of London),
a branch of the Natural History Museum of London. The collection in Tring was a
gift to the Nation from Walter Rothschild, of the well-known family of bankers
and philanthropists, one of whom, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, did so much to
help establish some of the cities of modern Israel. Walter Rothschild was a
keen naturalist from a very young age and collected a huge number of birds,
insects and animals. He hired zoologists and taxidermists and established his
own museum, which on his death, became part of the Natural History Museum. I
have to say, I felt a little uneasy at seeing so many animals and birds
preserved in this way. I’m not sure that this is what conservation is all
about. Though, in the past animals were killed specifically to be taxidermized,
it is to be hoped that these days taxidermy follows more ethical practices and
only animals and birds that have already died will be collected for museums.
So, we saw stuffed birds and animals
including lions, tigers, elephants and bears. Personally, I’m quite partial to
stuffed monkeys, with my coffee, but they’re quite fattening so I’m doing my
best to refrain. One of the exhibits was a huge skeleton of a giant sloth from
the Pleistocene era (ice age). I was quite amazed to see what you can build
with Plasticine if you have enough if it.
The photos include the head of a red
kite. In Israel we see black kites, but not red kites. As we’ve been driving
around England we’ve seen numerous red kites, but it’s hard to photograph them
when driving so it was good to be able to photograph one at the museum. In
Israel we see the Egyptian mongoose, also known as the ichneumon (a term not
widely used, probably because no-one knows how to say it). In the museum I
photographed a white-tailed mongoose, collected by Rothschild’s brother in
Sudan.
Two of the most interesting exhibits
were a dodo and a next to it a Réunion Island dodo. As everyone knows, for hundreds
of years the dodo has been as dead as a dormouse, so the exhibit is a model
made with goose and chicken feathers. The Réunion Island dodo is also a model and is based on descriptions and
paintings of a white bird that looked like a dodo. Scientists now believe that
such a bird didn’t ever exist, but rather the paintings were of the Réunion
Island ibis, which, as it happens, is also as dead as a dodo.
I’m
so looking forward to seeing some real live Israeli birds, when we return home.
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8th January 2024
These photos are of mute swans – at
Roundhay Park Lake and Golden Acre Park Lake in Leeds in England. Mute swans
visit Israel only very occasionally. I’m reliably informed that the last sighting
in Israel was at least 20 years ago [thank you to the expert, I
consulted – Alena Kacal].
A black headed gull (white-headed for the
winter) is being ‘hosted’ by a swan in one of the pictures. There’s also a
photo of a young swan, a cygnet, with its wings lifted up to dry, over its body
making a ring – a cygnet ring. And there’s a photo of a very rare two-headed
swan.
In England there are three companies that
each ‘own’ a significant number of wild swans. All other swans belong to the
Crown, that is to King Charles III. Once a year there’s a special event, known
as swan upping, at which all swans on part of the River Thames are rounded up,
weighed, measured and checked for injury, before being released again. So, if
you’re swanning around the Thames in the middle of July, look out for the
upping.
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7th January 2024
A week and a half ago, the day before we
travelled to England, I participated in a guided bird walk in the centre of Tel
Aviv. Ahead of the walk I didn’t have great expectations (though Dickens
probably would have). Whereas it would be wonderful to see eagles or ospreys or
bee-eaters, it wasn’t likely that we would see anything so exotic. On previous
visits to the city, I’d been lucky enough to see a white-throated kingfisher
dive into a lily pond outside the Sarona market and take out a goldfish. I’d
also seen jackals and kingfishers and other birds at an urban park in Tel Aviv.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t particularly optimistic.
As it turned out, we saw jays, a hoopoe
and sunbird, warblers and sparrows, and parakeets (red-ringed and monk). We
also saw wagtails (both white and grey).
The photos here are a white wagtail photographed
on the walk, together with a pied wagtail that I photographed last year near a
river in the Lake District in England. The pied wagtail (also known as water
wagtail), the much blacker bird, is a sub-species of the white wagtail. It’s
easy to guess why these birds are called wagtails. But the big question is –
why do they wag their tales? Several theories have been proposed, but the most
likely reason is that they are sending messages to potential predators that
they’re alert and able to fly away if attacked.
Some wags might ask this important
question – is it the tail that wags the bird, or the bird that wags the tail?
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3rd January 2024
On our way to England last week, we took a little detour and spent a couple of days in Jerusalem, and of course visited Gazelle Valley. The gazelles are living in their natural habitat but are protected by a fence that surrounds the whole valley and are ultimately released into the wild when they’re strong enough to survive. I’ve written about this wonderful place before and so I won’t repeat all that I’ve said before. If you have a couple of minutes you might like to take a look at my photo essay published by the Times of Israel last year.
It was a cool December morning in Jerusalem (about 16 degrees C) so I wore my Yorkshire Tweed cap. As I got out of the car it occurred to me that if my goal was to photograph gazelles it might have been better to wear a deerstalker, but the gazelles didn’t seem too fussed, and I managed a few photos.
The galloping gazelle is a male – you can see the rings around its horns. The others are females, and you’ll see that one of them has just a single horn.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/nature-of-israel-gazelle-valley/
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