2024-11

4 November 2024

Yesterday morning, I walked by the side of the Kinneret and around one of the small harbours in Tiberias. It was a hot sultry morning; thundery too, and I had the place totally to myself aside from a few mad dogs. During my walk, I played a bit of cat and mouse with a young night heron, a large grey heron, a little egret, a pygmy cormorant and a white-throated kingfisher. They all thought it was great fun to fly off as soon as I raised my camera, but eventually they realised I was a harmless old Brit and allowed me to get a quick shot.

After I’d been walking for a while I encountered two mounted bobbies (if you’re not British, you’d probably call them policemen on horseback). One of them spoke to me in reasonably good English. I asked him how he knew I spoke the language – I thought that after ten years here, I was beginning to look and sound like an Israeli, but obviously not. This policeman had presumably been to the Sherlock School for Detectives or more probably was Mossad trained – but either way, he was able to tell that a fellow walking in the hot sun, with a sunhat and a camera would speak the King’s English. I had thought they were checking that the beaches were empty – at the moment, because of the threat of rockets from the North and the East all beaches around the Kinneret are closed – so, I told him that I was photographing birds, just in case he thought I was about to do a bit of sunbathing, or paddle in the lake. Then I asked him what they were doing today. He told me that on Shabbat/Saturday afternoon a kayaker had gone missing just 20 metres from the shore where we were speaking. The bobbies were still out looking for him, and so were police boats patrolling the lake nearby. Sadly, lots of people underestimate the power of the Kinneret, which though not as fierce as Rembrandt depicts in his famous painting, ‘The Storm on the Sea of Galilee’, nevertheless claims several lives each year. There are very strong, hidden currents in this freshwater lake, which has the Jordan River running right through it, and swimming, boating or canoeing on it must never be considered lightly.

---

3 November 2024

Just a week or two ago we had a lovely walk by the River Alexander (near Netanya) with Debra and Aaron. As I was looking at a pecan tree and admiring the gigantic hard-shell nuts, and muttering to myself “hickory dickory dock” a gigantic soft-shell turtle emerged from the river and glared at me, presumably thinking I was a nut case.  After I’d finished photographing the pecan nuts and tree, which by the way, is a member of the hickory family of trees, I was able to photograph the turtle, while it was still looking somewhat baffled.

A day or two later as we left home to start another trip to Netanya, we heard a lot of honking and looked up for our first sighting this autumn of a skein of cranes (about a hundred or so). Feeling it was a lucky day, when we arrived, I took my trusty camera out for a walk hoping to see more exotic birds, and sure enough I did. The birds I found were very colourful flightless birds – birds of paradise, also known as crane flowers, which are native to South Africa. To adequately describe their magnificent beauty would need at least two thousand words – and as time is short, I’ve included two pictures, instead. And there’s also a photo of the tiny pea blue butterfly, which I saw in the woods that day. As you can see, despite its name, peas aren’t usually this colour.

On the way home I bought some pecan nuts and am looking forward to a slice of pecan pie.