2024-08

28th August 2024

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.

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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.

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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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11th August 2024

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.

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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.