2024-11

26th November 2024

Sunday this week marked ten years since our immigration to Israel, which was a good reason for a celebration. So, we treated ourselves to a walk on Mount Arbel. This is something we’ve done so often in the last ten years, that you might think it a rather ordinary way to spend the day. But a visit to the Arbel is always exhilarating – especially as we hadn’t felt it safe to visit there for a number of months. Deadly rockets, missiles and drones are still raining down on us virtually every day in much of the north of Israel and on the coastal plain, but for the last few weeks Tiberias and the immediate locale has been missile free. With the forecast of heavy rain for mid-morning, we set off quite early and took the cliff walk to climb to the summit. We were rewarded for our efforts by seeing the first wildflowers of the season, which have now started to appear following a rainy period a week or two ago. We saw Persian cyclamens, meadow saffron (also known as naked lady – naked because the flowers emerge from the ground in the autumn without leaves) and sea squills (despite being nowhere near the sea). While we were watching the flowers, little birds were watching us - great tits, blue rock thrushes, and several crested skylarks, to make sure we didn’t come close enough to photograph them. We often see butterflies at the top of the mountain – particularly swallowtails. On Sunday there weren’t any swallowtails, just a solitary marbled white. But there were rock hyraxes frolicking around the boulders near the cliff edge. The special treat, however, was to see the tiny Arbel snail – unique to this area. These snails emerge from crevices in the rocks after rain, and we were lucky enough to get a minor drenching just as we reached the mountain peak. So, on the way back we watched the snails (just half an inch in length) as they went in search of algae on the rocks. As we drove away from the mountain, we saw a fox sitting right in the middle of the road, but it scooted off into the woods as we slowed down to get a better look.

Just a few hours later, as we were having a bowl of hot soup in a café a mile or two from the Arbel to warm up after our soaking, sirens blared back there at the Arbel. A minute later we heard the very loud explosions as the iron dome intercepted the rockets that were sent by our neighbours north of the border, intending to kill and maim. Thank G-d there were no injuries on this occasion. But more than two hundred and fifty rockets were fired into Israel on Sunday and, sadly, in the centre of Israel there were indeed injuries. Maybe today we’ll see a big change in the situation.

The photos are meadow saffron, sea squills and a rock hyrax.

---

25th November 2024

The last post in this blog was about passerine birds, perching birds with toes perfectly formed for grasping and resting on a branch (three pointing forward and one back – known as anisodactyl). Here are some more. I saw a jay a few weeks back, it perched deftly on the rim of a bowl of water, before hopping away after quenching its thirst. Then a few days ago I observed a white-spectacled bulbul (also known as a yellow-vented bulbul) as it perched on a branch - its yellow underparts clearly visible.

But not all perching birds are passerines – this white-throated kingfisher perched for a long time on a piece of rotting wood in the harbour in Tiberias but has syndactyl feet - the third and fourth toes being fused together. Despite this, it seems to manage very nicely and perched quite happily prospecting for its next meal.

---

19th November 2024

One of my favourite photos is of a passing house sparrow (Passer domesticus) that stopped for a quick chat with Miriam. As you can see from the photo the friendly little fellow perched on her boot. The sparrow is the archetypal passerine - bird of the order Passeriformes.

Passeriformes (from the Latin, of sparrow-shape, sparrow being a passer) is the largest order of birds, all of which have their toes perfectly formed for perching (three pointing forward and one back – known as anisodactyl). Lots of the birds we see, perched on trees, are passerines.

Yesterday morning. In the Switzerland Forest, we saw one such bird – a female sun bird – a tiny bird, about 4 inches long (10cm) and weighing just seven grams, which is about the same weight as a pencil. A week or two ago I photographed its male counterpart with iridescent blue plumage. The sunbirds might be tiny, but their down-curving beak isn’t. It’s about as long as the bird’s head and is perfectly formed for extracting nectar from flowers, in conjunction with its long brush-tipped tongue. It also eats insects and if you look closely at the picture of the female, you can just see an insect wing in its bill.

The next post will include photos of some more passerine birds.

---

4th 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.

---

3rd 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.