Last
week I wrote about van Gogh’s dull rendition of the vividly coloured
kingfisher. Famous as van Gogh is, his painting isn’t the most famous bird
painting. That accolade probably goes to Carel Fabritius’ painting, ‘The
Goldfinch’. Its colours too, are not quite as bright as in real life – but Fabritus’
poor bird was probably feeling dull and miserable, tethered as it was by its
foot on a short chain. There has been a long history of capturing goldfinches
and keeping them caged, as songbirds – so beautiful is their singing.
Thomas
Hardy, in his poem, ‘The Caged Goldfinch’ wrote:
Within a
churchyard, on a recent grave,
I saw a
little cage
That
jailed a goldfinch. All was silence save
Its hops
from stage to stage.
Leonardi
da Vinci had an interesting theory about the goldfinch’s ability to spot a
dying man – he wrote:
‘The
goldfinch is a bird of which it is related that, when it is carried into the
presence of a sick person, if the sick man is going to die, the bird turns away
its head and never looks at him; but if the sick man is to be saved, the bird never loses sight
of him but is the cause of curing him of all his sickness.’
As you
can see from my photo, the goldfinch I photographed is certainly not tethered,
but it wouldn’t look at me. Luckily, I wasn’t sick at the time, and perhaps it had
looked at me when I wasn’t looking. Since goldfinches often travel in small
flocks, it may have left the looking at me to one of its brother birds.
Fabritus’
goldfinch does seem to be looking at him, but sadly, poor Fabritus died soon
after – tragically young, just 32-years-old. He died in a horrible fire in
Delft, Holland, that took another hundred people along with him and many of his
art masterpieces.
27th August 2024
Despite
what one might think, Lotus Biscuits are not made from lotus flowers. But they
are made from completely natural ingredients – no artificial flavours,
colouring or preservatives. This doesn’t mean they’re a health food, though in
my humble opinion they should be considered so. The effort involved in getting
a biscuit out of its cellophane (each ever-so-small biscuit is individually
wrapped) quite probably burns up more calories than are gained by eating one.
What do other lotus-eaters or Lotos-eaters think?
One of the
joys of Jerusalem is to sit in the café outside the Botanical Gardens on an
August day just enjoying coffee and biscuits, looking at the crowded lotus
flowers in the rather large pond. The lotus flowers are quite remarkably
beautiful – though their colouring reminds me more of Neapolitan ice-cream than
biscuits. Their seed-heads make me think I’m looking at a watering-can
sprinkler or a showerhead. Indeed, a sparrow was perched on one looking hopeful
that water would emerge. Their roots are used in various cuisines including
salads, but I think I’ll stick with the biscuits or better still, the
Neapolitan ice-cream.
Not far
from the lotus plants were some paper reeds (Cyperus papyrus) perennial
swamp plants that were used in days gone by as a source for papyrus paper, and
it is thought that this provided the material for Moses’ reed basket when, to
save his life, he was left to float in the Nile. As well as seeing paper reeds
in the Botanical Gardens we see lots and lots of them at the Hula Valley,
happily growing in the swamps. You could write a book on them.
21st August 2024
Vincent
van Gogh’s ‘Kingfisher by the Waterside’, which he painted in 1886, depicts
the bird’s plumage considerably duller than in real life.
While in
English tradition we recognise the bird’s majestic appearance and top-notch fishing
ability and afford it the literary title ‘The Fisher King’ or more
recently simply the ‘kingfisher’, this is not so in other languages. In
van Gogh’s Dutch, the kingfisher would be the ‘ijsvogel’, literally ‘ice
bird’ and in French it is ‘le martin-pêcheur d'Europe’, literally the ‘European
swift fisher’ (a bird of the swift family that feeds on fish).
It’s
hard to be critical of the king of painters, but to me it seems that van Gogh
hadn’t ever seen a live kingfisher.
After a
little Google research (which, I understand was not possible for van Gogh) and
a trip this week to Jerusalem's Natural History Museum, I think I understand
why van Gogh's kingfisher was so dull-feathered. Amongst the hundreds of
exhibits at the museum was a long-dead common kingfisher that looked decidedly
jaded. And guess what, van Gogh used a taxidermized
bird as his model.
As well
as van Gogh’s painting I’ve included my photos of the taxidermized bird at the
Natural History Museum and two of my favourite kingfishers that I photographed
in Tel Aviv showing the vivid colouring of the common kingfisher when alive and
flapping.
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July and
August are not the best time for nature observers to be out and about in
Israel. Most of the flowers have long since died and the birds and animals find
the climate here a little warm, so stay at home in front of the TV enjoying the
AC. Undeterred, Miriam and I had a short outing recently at Ein Afek near
Haifa.
We saw a
beautiful purple flower, the Salt-marsh Morning Glory (Ipomoea sagittate),
a bindweed native to Southern USA and Mexico. It has been introduced to the
Mediterranean region and in Israel is found only in a few Northern coastal regions
including Ein Afek.
And I
thought I had hit lucky when I spotted a little bittern. I have never seen a
bittern before, which is a member of the heron family. In Great Britain the
great bittern is not seen very often and is classified as a threatened species.
The little bittern (which sounds a bit like a comedy TV show) is also rarely
seen in Britain. Likewise, in Israel they are not so frequently encountered
either. I was particularly interested to find a bittern, which in the mating
season (not now, but in the spring) has a booming call, which can be heard from
two to three miles away. Anyway, twice shy, once bittern. So, I sent my not
very good photo (shot from too far away) to a local bird expert to see if I’d
really had a lucky spot – but she confirmed my suspicion, that this bird was
actually a similar-looking, not-so-unusual squacco heron.
High in
the sky above us we heard the squawk of a spur-winged plover busy buzzing a
buzzard. Plovers can be quite aggressive towards other birds if they feel their
chicks are threatened. They will use the spurs on their wings as an offensive
weapon towards those who offend them - they've even been known to attack people
who approach too close to their nests. When we got home, I discovered (from my
rather poor long-distance photo) that it wasn't a buzzard that was being buzzed,
but a black-winged kite. [A few days later, Miriam and I were at Kibbutz Lavi
and watched two male plovers sparring - spurs at the ready. As I inched towards
them hoping to get a shot, they shot off, no doubt to resume their stand-off
somewhere less in the public (camera) eye.]
Half an
hour later, back at Ein Afek, I saw a snake, before it snaked away at speed like
a cracked whip. I saw it for just about a quarter of a second and then it dived
into the lake – I hope it was a good swimmer and that there wasn’t a skulking
mongoose waiting for it. It all happened so quickly that I can’t be sure what
sort of snake it was – but I suspect it was a black whip snake, which grows to
be about 8-foot from head to tail.
It
wasn’t a great day for bird photos but there was a rather lovely red dragon fly
by the pond and butterflies, unperturbed by the high temperatures, were quite
happily out in the midday sun. There were scores of plain tiger butterflies,
which are not at all aggressive, despite what their name might suggest.
Belonging to the monarch family, they're really quite regal and one of them majestically
posed for a royal photoshoot.
6th August 2024
As regular
readers know, I love to spend time at the froggery at nearby Kibbutz Lavi. Last
week, I crept up close to a friendly frog who looked at me with its big eyes
before hopping off. Believe it or not frogs can leap 10 to 20 times their body
length. There is no doubt that if frogs were taking part in the Olympics, they
would outjump all the athletes – and the frog anthem would be heard constantly croaking
through the Stade de France.
The frog’s
eyes aren’t just big – they’re bulging and quite prominent. This allows them to
see to the sides and a little bit behind, as well as what’s in front of them. And
when they eat, they use their eyes to push food down the throat. But whether
their eyes are bigger than their stomachs – I haven’t the froggiest.
While I was
chatting to the frog, Miriam was chatting to Mr Eli Levin - Lavi born and bred
- whose family dedicated a garden and pond to the memory of their son, Gal, who
died tragically young. It is this beautiful and peaceful location that my
little froggy friend and its froggy pals like to hang out in. I’m sure they much
appreciate Eli’s efforts in maintaining the pond and garden, as much as do all
the other visitors.
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