2024-10

9th October 2024

Sitting Ducks

We visited one of Israel’s best-known nature reserves recently (I have been asked not to say which one) and met the Chief Ranger. I asked if there was anything interesting to see and was told that on that very morning the rangers had rescued some ducklings. A visitor had released into the wild some young birds that appeared to have previously been kept in a domestic environment. Releasing young ducks without their mother to look after them usually results in a very quick death. And indeed, the crows in the reserve were already eyeing them up when the rangers spotted them. The birds, instead of fleeing, which is what most wild birds do when seeing people, waddled affectionately towards the rangers, which is what gave the game away as to their former domesticity. The rangers gathered them up and temporarily caged them while awaiting a visit from the vet to check their health. The Chief Ranger is now looking for a suitable home for them where they will be able to live unthreatened by foxes, jackals or birds of prey.

“Releasing creatures into the wild sounds such an ethical thing to do,” we were told, “but it actually causes a whole lot of unnecessary suffering for them, as they are totally ill-equipped to fend for themselves or stay out of danger from predators.”

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1st October 2024

We’ve just had a couple of weeks of running to and from the bomb shelters in Tiberias, dodging rockets and missiles fired at us by Hezbollah and other terrorist groups. As well as our own shelter at home, we’ve been in a shelter at our local supermarket, one at the doctor’s clinic and had to endure one attack taking cover in a ditch by the side of an Inter-City highway. We’re now in Jerusalem for a few days for Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) – and hoping for a quieter time.

One of my favourite Jerusalem activities is gazelle gazing in Gazelle Velley. Yesterday, I got to meet a rather handsome buck with beautifully ringed horns. The males use their horns to display their virility to potential mates, and also for foraging for food and to fend off predators. But why are their horns ringed? I’m really not sure, so I’ll be doing some research as there must be a good reason.

While I was focussing on gazelles Miriam spotted a flycatcher sitting on the fence – a spotted flycatcher, no less. Flycatchers make little sorties, known as sallies, to catch flies and then return to the same place from where they set off. This sallying, also known as hawking, is also particularly noticeable with dragonflies and so keeping the camera lens trained on the same place, even after they’ve gone off, is well worthwhile.

I also watched a pair of spur-winged plovers by the side of a small pond. Plover is pronounced to rhyme with lover and not with over. As you can see, the two birds I photographed had just had a plover’s tiff and weren’t talking to each other.

The blackbird I photographed, looking a bit shabby, hadn’t lost his feathers in a scrap, but had lost a few head feathers to make way for new ones – a process known as moulting, which birds do once or twice a year to renew the strength of their plumage.

A leopard doesn’t change its spots, but let’s hope and pray that our neighbours will grow new feathers, as birds do, and will live together peaceably with us in the New Year – a better year than the last, with the safe return of our hostages who’ve been held in captivity for almost a full twelve months.